Today we’re excited to launch a brand new guide designed to promote the inclusive design and management of nature-based settings.
Produced in collaboration with the Sensory Trust, the guide shares ten top tips for designing urban parks, gardens, woodlands and trails with sight impairment in mind.
It also provides advice on how to encourage ‘access with dignity’, and ensure everyone feels welcome and supported.
The guidelines are available to download below, in both pdf and word formats.
At the heart of sustainable, socially cohesive communities lies a commitment to equality and inclusion, and a respect for the varied ways in which people come to live and move through the world.
With growing awareness of the health and wellbeing benefits of time spent in nature, it is important that this commitment extends to the inclusive design and management of our everyday nature settings.
Too often we are preoccupied with the visual aesthetic of a place, and fail to notice more subtle, yet valuable opportunities to appeal to the wider senses.
By designing with sight impairment in mind, we can nurture more immersive, multi-sensory nature experiences, and better cater for the needs and priorities of people who engage with the world in more than visual ways.
A key aim of the Sensing Nature project has been to improve the way we understand, enable and promote more positive, inclusive multi-sensory nature experiences amongst adults with sight impairments, regardless of their life stage. This guide reflects on such opportunities in the context of more managed nature settings, such as urban parks, gardens, woodlands and trails.
We hope you find this guide useful. If you would like to feedback on the content, we would love to hear from you so do get in touch via Sarah.Bell@exeter.ac.uk.
