RTPI Planning Awards 2009

27-Jan-10

Inclusive Design Strategy and Standards - Olympic Delivery Authority

Equality and Diversity Award Winner

Summary

The Olympic Delivery Authority’s (ODA) unique inclusive design strategy will ensure that the Games become a showcase for today’s best practice and tomorrow’s standard practice. The principles and standards apply to all the sites and sports facilities that are being used in 2012, whether newly built or adapted.

Background

A key aim of the ODA is to ensure that the regeneration of the site on which the Olympic Park is being built transforms the prospects of the whole of east London and the opportunities available to its residents. The ODA recognised that they could only do this if they involved, communicated and consulted effectively with all stakeholders including the diverse communities living in the surrounding areas.The ODA’s vision for all the sites and venues for the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games is to set new standards for services, facilities and opportunities to ensure that the whole design and all the individual elements are truly inclusive.

Project Description

In the past recreational and sports facilities have been designed mainly for people without disabilities, with a few modifications such as wheelchair accessible toilets and seating areas incorporated as a token gesture, often very late in the design process, with very little research based on actual need in either quantitative or qualitative terms. This means that many people with mobility problems including older people, young children and parents with pushchairs are also effectively excluded from using the facilities.

Planning Achievement

• The ODA have taken a holistic view of peoples’ needs and is using the Games to change the way people think about designing places. The aim is to create places that are accessible to everyone and can accommodate the needs of a wide range of different people and uses, now and in future. This needs an approach that considers the landform, entry and exit points and access routes, use of each site and building in the longer term, and works backwards to accommodate the temporary requirements of the Olympics/Paralympics;
• The new model sets out to offer the same quality of experience to everyone by setting initial benchmarks and testing these out with people with different needs. To help develop standards the ODA established an access panel from the early planning stages, which comprised people from panels in the five London boroughs with land covered by the Park. This enabled issues to be discussed and problems solved. In this way the boundaries of what could be achieved were stretched, leading to the development of a concept of a “ring of access” to the main stadium, to give people in wheelchairs level access to some of the best seats in the main stadium;
• Other work involved focus groups considering faith issues to ensure that visitors and local residents have the facilities on site that they need such as suitable places to use for prayer and separate changing areas for the sports facilities;
• Through ownership of the site masterplan, its set of inclusive design guidelines, a design review process, quality procurement and delivery, the ODA has the end-to-end control that is vital to delivering a quality outcome;

• There is evidence that the standards have led to changes in the mind set of planners, architects and designers. Increasingly they are coming forward with proposals that incorporate the needs of people with differing degrees of mobility and sight, and take into account requirements dictated by faith;
• There is a strong indication that the principles will influence the design of sports facilities that are built in the future, including the Winter Olympic Games at Sochi in 2014.

Representatives from the Olympic Delivery Authority receiving their award for Equality and Diversity from Ann Skippers, President of the RTPI, and awards host Justin Webb.

Key Participants

Olympic Delivery Authority, Greater London Authority, London Development Agency and Buro Happold.