Who is your mob?  What is your country? 

These are holistic concepts. We are not housing or beds or buildings.  We struggle as we make our way through the building codes and overlays ticking the boxes that attempt to design our inconvenient 19^th century world by order.

At the risk of yet again referring to the time of COVID, the pandemic changed overnight the behaviours  that we had previously thought were immutable and has made us more aware of the importance of our social connection and cultural safety for our health and wellbeing.

Churchill is often quoted as saying “We shape our buildings and thereafter they shape us.’

Our planning dictates a building mass and density handed to market and a hope that a community will come and that the results are with us for centuries, demanding massive input of resources to modify them.

Furthermore, the process and industry that created the buildings also shape us and continue to shape us.

Clearly our current inaccessible unaffordable housing and infrastructure is a major detriment in trying to create a healthy inclusive community.  People cycle through suburbs that are defined more by cars, heights and bulk and building fabric than what can build communities over time. With the limited tools that we have available, we are trying to both adapt to and change our built environments and to create communities which are livable, sustainable, inclusive and supportive.

To be inclusive, a community needs to be at minimum accessible and at best to be enabling.

According to ABS data released in 2018, Australia has more than a half a million people who report that they need assistance with mobility alone. Coupled with an aging population, efforts to respond to this need are well overdue. Further sensory, neurological, dementias and other acquired disabilities can occur at any time and can affect any one of us.

For more than forty years, committees of the Australian Institute of Architects have advocated for implementation of more accessible and inclusive environments.

Earlier this year, without hesitation, the Australian Institute of Architects National President Ms Shannon Battisson announced support for the proposal to include new Livable housing standards in the changes to the National Construction Code.   These are of course only a minimum and should be refined over future NCC editions. Inexplicably, some organisations and states have not supported this proposal.

These initiatives to move towards inclusive communities will not only help people now, they may also help to relieve some of the budget issues that the NDIS face is supporting people living with disabilities.

Accessibility and inclusion is an important part of part of long term social, economic and sustainability outcomes.

We are not alone in this realisation.

The concept of enabling inclusive architecture supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG) categories 3 Good Health and Well Being, 4 Quality Education, 5 Gender Equality, 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, 10 Reduced Inequalities, 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and 12 Responsible Consumption and Production.  It also supports the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (UNCRPD) to which Australia is a signatory along with the more recent World Health Organisation’s Geneva Charter for Well-being.

The International Union of Architects (UIA) supports and promotes the UNSDGs and implements these through their work programs. The UIA Architecture for All [AfA] Work Programme raises awareness of the architect’s responsibility to ensure that culturally inclusive, safe and accessible design are essential components of architectural design, construction and education. The worldwide work programme promotes good practice in accessible and inclusive urban design and architecture.

The International Union of Architects’ Architecture for All Work Program can see that each country in their own way work towards and inclusive society. An important part of that work program is the Friendly and Inclusive Spaces award which identifies and promotes successful buildings and spaces presented at the July 2023 World Congress of Architecture Copenhagen.

By Allen Kong, Director and Principal Architect, Allen Kong Architects

Allen is a committed architect with great depth of experience in providing facilities for the aged and people with special needs. He is widely travelled, having been involved in projects in Afghanistan, Antarctica, India, and Iran. Allen was an adviser to Aged Care Victoria relating to a review of proposed changes to the classification of Aged Care Facilities under the Building Code Of Australia. He has substantial knowledge of the Aged Care Certification Assessment Guidelines. Allen is ia member of the Australian Institute of Architects National Access Working Group and Chair of the Victorian Committee. He is s also a community member of the City of Greater Geelong Disability Advisory Committee.

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