by Hooman Foroughmand Araabi
The concept of place lies at the centre of urban design and planning. Traditionally, place has been defined as a specific part of space imbued with social meaning, memories and activities, often public in character and central to civic identity. Despite its centrality, however, the ways in which place is imagined, designed, and produced are frequently constrained by narrow assumptions about its intended users.
Historically, these assumptions have privileged a normative, often able upper-class male subject as the default user of space. While recent decades have seen critical expansions, such as the recognition of women’s spatial experiences and, more recently, questions of race and spatial justice, many identities and embodied realities remain absent from prevailing conceptions of who place is for. The well-intentioned assertion that “place is for everyone” often results in centring a statistically average, fictionalised user, thereby erasing the diverse realities of everyday urban life.
Inclusion Against Oppression
The very notion of inclusion is contested. When framed as assimilation into a pre-existing norm, it assumes that bodies and behaviours can be moulded to fit dominant spatial paradigms, evoking the violent conformity of the Procrustean bed. Such a framing risks transforming inclusion into a subtle form of oppression. By contrast, when inclusion is reconceptualised as an expansion of design thinking to embrace a plurality of lived experiences, arguably the principle underlying the turn to inclusion at the beginning, it opens the possibility of genuine spatial justice. In June 2025, funded by AHRC IAA, a multidisciplinary team of urban designers, academics, third-sector practitioners, and disability advocates convened to explore how placemaking might better include individuals with disabilities. Grounded in principles of co-production, the initiative sought to generate tangible benefits for non-academic stakeholders. The event aimed not only to co-design solutions to pressing challenges but also to establish a shared plan for implementation. During this research event, we employed experiential kits to simulate different bodily conditions, such as restricted mobility or age-related impairments (Figures 1 and 2).
From Patchy Knowledge to Inclusive Practice
A central challenge persists: the legacy of placemaking shaped by limited assumptions has, in many cases, actively contributed to the disabling of particular populations. Designing for those at the “tails” of the normal distribution, those furthest from the statistical average, requires sustained attention to diversity in mobility, sensory experience, and cognitive engagement. Yet scholarship on disability and the built environment remains fragmented, disproportionately focused on transportation systems and interior architecture, with relatively little attention to the public realm and wider urban contexts.
This fragmentation is further compounded by the marginal presence of disability and inclusion within urban design curricula. The gap between academic knowledge and practice is both real and urgent, particularly in the context of an ageing population in the UK. Inclusive design can no longer be treated as a niche concern; it is a societal necessity.
Empathy as a Design Approach
Empathy constitutes a vital, though often overlooked, aspect of (urban) design. In our recent research event, the experiential kits used showcase their importance in advancing this debate. While such tools cannot replicate the lived experience of disability, they operate as powerful catalysts for reflective design thinking. They serve as reminders that placemaking is not merely about metrics or materials; it is fundamentally about care.
Empathy may begin with exposure, but it requires deepening through dialogue and collaboration. Creating opportunities for placemakers to share knowledge, challenge assumptions, and expand their ethical and emotional engagement is not simply desirable; it is essential. To design better places, we must cultivate greater care.
What Comes Next?
Collaboration across professional boundaries, combined with the cultivation of empathy as a design approach, may foster new ways of conceptualising inclusion in placemaking, approaches that more closely align with the genuine incorporation of bodies routinely disabled by the design of public space. Future research must investigate how professionals engage with disability and inclusion and explore how deeper forms of care can be nurtured within the field. Such work has the potential to move practice beyond the superficiality of “tick-box” approaches to accessibility, toward more substantive and effective forms of inclusive urban design.
Figure 1 displays Hooman engaging with the experiential kits.