The Designing Learning Spaces for Diversity, Inclusion and Participation ARC Linkage Project is investigating how to improve the designs of mainstream schools to better support the participation of students with disability in learning and the life of their school.
Students living with disability can experience a broad range of physical, cognitive, sensory and/or emotional impairments, meaning that disability is extremely diverse and designing schools to support such diversity presents unique challenges.
The project seeks to inform architects, educators, and policy makers about disabled students' spatial requirements and to develop strategies and tools to support the process of co-designing schools with people with lived experience of disability.
The outcomes will include an inclusive learning spaces design framework. This is expected to benefit all students' access and meaningful involvement in learning through the development of more inclusive learning spaces.
The research is significant because it integrates previously dissociated knowledge from architecture, education and health.
Principles Guiding the Research
Diversity: acknowledges and appreciates human heterogeneity.
Inclusion: argues for equitable access to everyday activities and experiences, including access to the built environment.
Participation: requires both access to the environment and meaningful involvement for all.
Project Objectives
To provide an evidence-based approach to designing/modifying mainstream schools to better support of the participation of students with disability.
To investigate the lived experiences of students with disability and the people around them in school environments to identify barriers to and/or enablers of participation.
To determine the indoor environmental quality (acoustics, lighting, air quality, thermal comfort) requirements of students with disability, particularly for those with sensory needs.
To create strategies and tools to evaluate school facilities to determine what’s working/not working for students with disability and identify opportunities for infrastructure improvement.
To determine how findings associated with the objectives above can be effectively communicated to architects and other stakeholders and used to improve the designs of inclusive learning spaces in mainstream schools – including via mixed reality co-design processes that involve people with lived experience of disability.
Project Information
The ARC Linkage project runs from mid-2024 to mid-2027 and is hosted by the Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN) at the University of Melbourne (UoM). The research team comprises nine Chief Investigators (CIs), who are working with two Research Fellows, Research Assistants, a Project Manager and a Research Manager.
Our CIs leading the project are:
- Associate Professors Ben Cleveland (Lead CI), Kate Tregloan and Professor Christhina Candido of the Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning.
- Professor Christine Imms of the Healthy Trajectories child and youth disability research hub (Healthy Trajectories) at The University of Melbourne.
- Professors Lorraine Graham and Janet Clinton, Associate Professor Wesley Imms at The University of Melbourne.
- Dr Ruth Aston of the School of Education at Adelaide University.
- Professor Paul Loh of the Abedian School of Architecture at Bond University in Gold Coast, Queensland.
An Inclusive Learning Spaces Design Framework will be the primary output of the research. This will provide architects and other design stakeholders with the evidence, strategies/tools, and co-design processes knowledge required to design more inclusive school facilities that can better support the participation of students with disability.
The lived experience dimension of the research is central. The project will prioritise the direct research participation of people with disability and those who support them.
Importantly, the Inclusive Learning Spaces Design Framework will provide publicly available design guidance and co-design methods for ongoing use by architects, educators, policy makers/education systems, and people from the disability community to drive continuous improvement in the design of learning spaces for students with disability and the people around them.