LISBON, PORTUGAL

 RUA DO BONFORMOSO 

Messy.

Loud.

Offbeat.

Immigrant filled.

So you know it’s my favorite street in the city.

Rua do Bonformoso Lisboa Portugal.

VWAI EXPLORES UNIVERSAL DESIGN WITH STEVE WRIGHT!

HONORED TO HAVE MY EQUITABLE CITIES WORK FEATURED IN THE

VIRGINIA WALKABILITY ACTION INSTITUTE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

On Friday, March 22, the VWAI cohort came together in person to learn about Universal Design!

Steve Wright shared his passion for Universal Design through a presentation and a walking tour.

The walking tour allowed for applied learning and discussion around how our built environment influences our wellbeing and longterm health outcomes.

We truly enjoyed hearing everyone's perspectives and left energized to make improvements in our communities.

This Universal Design Day is just one of the various in person events in the VWAI curriculum that allows for cross pollination of ideas and builds a sense of community amongst the cohort and PATHS partners.

 

LISBON NEST IN BAIRRO GRACA

LIVE LIKE A LOCAL AT A FULL-SIZE APARTMENT

AT AN OUTSTANDING VALUE

Lisbon Nest welcomes you with a bottle of very good regional wine and fresh fruit.

The two greatest lookout sites -- Miradouros -- are within walking distance of the Nest. One is the highest in Lisbon and the other has a little cafe for local wine and snacks.

Two of the greatest fresh catch plus local meat dish diner-sized mom and pop places are right down the hill from the Nest.

Camones has eclectic live music very close by – but it closes early and the music never disturbs your sleep.

 

LISBON NEST IN BAIRRO GRACA

LIVE LIKE A LOCAL AT A FULL-SIZE APARTMENT

AT AN OUTSTANDING VALUE

The Lisbon Nest hosts have written a fabulous guidebook -- in English -- waiting for you on the kitchen table.

It has a guide to dozens of locals’ restaurants within walking distance of Lisbon Nest.

It also suggests dozens of day trips -- Sintra, Mafra, Cascais -- and gives good details on how to get there.

It has a rundown of monuments and museums in Lisbon and tips on the easy to use and inexpensive transit system.

LISBON NEST IN BAIRRO GRACA

LIVE LIKE A LOCAL AT A FULL-SIZE APARTMENT

AT AN OUTSTANDING VALUE

For drying clothes, Lisbon Nest has a clothesline out the window -- that's what the natives use.

The living room has a flat screen TV and a couch that's plenty big for a person to sleep on.

There's also a small writing desk when you enter.

LISBON NEST IN BAIRRO GRACA

 LIVE LIKE A LOCAL AT A FULL-SIZE APARTMENT

AT AN OUTSTANDING VALUE

Lisbon Nest is in Graca.

Graca is central, but not in the noisy tourist areas. 

It's the best of both worlds -- fabulous restaurants, things to do, historic tram plus major bus routes -- but you can live like a Lisboan, not a tourist.

The apartment has a modern kitchen with a small fridge, stove top, oven, dishwasher, toaster, coffee maker, microwave and best of all -- a clothes washing machine that spins clothes dry.

 

 

LISBON NEST IN BAIRRO GRACA

LIVE LIKE A LOCAL AT A FULL-SIZE APARTMENT

AT AN OUTSTANDING VALUE

Lisbon Nest is an apartment.

Most everyone else in the building lives there year-round.

By European standards, it is big enough for 2 adults and one child.

The bed is super comfortable and the surrounding units and part of the neighborhood are super quiet and tranquil. 

LISBON NEST IN BAIRRO GRACA

LIVE LIKE A LOCAL AT A FULL-SIZE APARTMENT

AT AN OUTSTANDING VALUE

This was my the second time staying with the Nest property.

The same couple manage several vacation homes in the Graca area.

They have the same fabulous person clean the unit to spotlessness, meet you with the key, show you how appliances work, bring over extra sheets or coffee, etc. 

THE INS AND OUTS OF GOOD URBAN DESIGN

UNIVERSAL DESIGN ON THE INCLUSIVE DESIGNERS PODCAST

Please check out my latest Universal Design presentation on the Inclusive Designers Podcast.

I appear with friend/colleague Meg O'Connell of Global Disability Inclusion.

I am your go-to subconsultant for all planning projects aimed at creating a better built environment for people with disabilities.

HINT: With the CDC documenting that 1 in 4 of us will experience some kind of disability that impacts our daily lives -- and the UN counting well more than 1 billion people with disabilities on the planet...EVERY project must include Universal Design.

https://inclusivedesigners.com/podcast/the-ins-and-outs-of-good-urban-design

LISBON, PORTUGAL

GATOS DO CEMITÉRIO PRAZERES

Two new friends at Prazeres Cemetery, at the end of the #28 historic tram line in Lisbon, Portugal.

The grand graveyard, filled with famous people, has lovely cypress trees, architectural family crypts & multiple colonies of healthy cats.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

CATS OF ESTRELA

This dear man brings raw meat and other delicacies to feed the street cats of Lisbon’s Estrela neighborhood. 

They gathered at Jardim Lisboa Antiga, where I spoke to him in a combo of Portuguese, English and Spanish.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

GRAFITTI ART, REAL CAT

Lisbon’s Arroios, recently named the coolest neighborhood in the world, is filled with graffiti style street art.

The cat, though it looks like a stencil, is a real black cat that navigated the incline down to a bowl of food.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

 ARTSY ARROIOS

 

Lisbon’s Arroios, recently named the coolest neighborhood in the world, is filled with graffiti style street art. 

Urban art covers this tunnel, which actually is under building not a street.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

IGREJA DE SÃO PAULO

Igreja de São Paulo Lisbon Portugal.

It anchors Praca de São Paulo near Cais do Sodre and Mercado Ribeira.

LISBON, PORTUGAL

 A VIDA PORTUGUESA 

A Vida Portuguesa is a sumptuous home goods store — inside and out. 

It's located in hip Arroios on Largo Intendente.

Time Out Lisbon dubbed it the most beautiful store in the city of Lisbon.

PEDESTRIANS, ESPECIALLY THOSE WITH DISABILITIES, NEED SMOOTH SURFACES

CROSSWALKS MADE OF BUMPY PAVERS AND COBBLESTONES 

MAKE NO SENSE

 

If you were designing a place for human being to cross four, sometimes six or more lanes of traffic – you would want it to be safe, right?

You would create a surface that is smooth and free of tripping hazards.

Something low maintenance.

What have cities done for decades?

The install brick, paver and cobbled crosswalks to look cool and urban.

The bumps and inevitable missing pavers jar wheelchair users from their mobility devices.

They trip older and younger pedestrians.

When the person falls and is injured by the fall – or terrible injured or killed by a vehicle…authorities call it an accident.

Poor design is no accident.

For ages, we have been planning, engineering and building urban corridors where the giant speeding vehicles that weigh several tons get the smooth surface.

Pedestrians – including those using wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, canes and other assistive mobility devices – are exposed to an uneven surface – as they are given 30 second or loss to avoid rubber tired killing machines racing 45 mph or faster.

If this makes sense, please tell me how.

I suggested smooth, pigmented concrete or painted asphalt.

But pedestrian-centered, urban-minded traffic engineer told me paint is rarely allowed under the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways (MUTACD) – created by the Federal Highway Administration to allegedly make the world safer for people walking, rolling and biking.

Painted crosswalks could and should be a better visual cue for cars, trucks and buses to slow down as they are approaching a crosswalk.

We cannot keep creating the hazardous pathway of bricks, pavers and cobbles – and pretend it is for pedestrian safety.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Hawa Allarakhia has a Master in Education from the University of South Florida and is currently a doctoral candidate at USF. 

She is studying Program Development with a research interest in Disability Services with a graduate certificate in Academic Advising. 

She holds the positions of Graduate Assistant in the Office of Research, on the Sarasota-Manatee campus of USF. 

For questions, please contact her by email at hawa1@usf.edu

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with invisible disabilities?

A This was spoken about in class, and it was featured in some of the assigned materials for reading/video viewing/social media following outside of class (and graded via required journal entries on these subjects).

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with temporary disabilities?

A In each of our 15 course sessions, we explained that disability is not some remote, outlier issue … that it is not just a person with a spinal cord injury. 

We explained how universal design supports aging in place. 

We also underscored, frequently, the truth that barrier-free design is NOT simply for people with disabilities. 

That it makes the public realm and interior of spaces easier to live in for children, elderly, and all people. 

And that it can be beautiful and sustainable design.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with physical disabilities?

A One of the team teachers uses a wheelchair for mobility. 

Also, we had guest lectures from nationally prominent architect Karen Braitmayer and designer Ileana Rodriguez — each of whom use wheelchairs for mobility. 

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with social and psychological disabilities?

A We had an expert presenter from the Center for Autism & Related Disabilities (CARD).

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with visual disabilities into the course?

A We had a guest lecture, via Zoom, from renowned expert Peter Slatin and had a live in-class presentation by a trainer from Lighthouse for the Blind.

YOUR CITY'S NUMBER ONE PRIORITY

IS ENSURING THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT IS ACCESSIBLE AND INCLUSIVE TO ALL

These are the saddest urban photos I’ve ever shared. 

When your city/county allows sidewalks to be obstructed, broken, too narrow — you get a wheelchair user rolling in dangerous traffic.

It’s risk death in the street or die in isolation at home. 

This shameful scene in on NW 17 St. in Miami.

People with disabilities NEVER are pathetic. 

The way we create a built environment that excludes them is pathetic, ableist and toxic.

Most municipalities never conduct a Universal Design audit of their sidewalks.

Sometimes I think city officials would rather have people with disabilities stay home & out of sight — rather than demand the access + inclusion that is their basic civil right. 

Cities don’t want to inventory inaccessible sidewalks because then they’d have to spend $ to fix them.

The active person in my photos, who uses a wheelchair for mobility, does not have a death wish.

He went back on the sidewalk as soon as it became accessible. 

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED. 

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with hearing-related disabilities into the course?

A We had a guest lecture, via Zoom, from renowned expert Jeffrey Mansfield (via interpreter) of Deaf Space.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q Did you design the course with a disability model in mind, i.e., medical, social, or moral?

A The model was certainly not medical or moral. 

So I suppose it was social. 

Basically, a lot of architects (not just students in the field) think the ADA is some kind of building code that can be waived or reduced by variance. 

I taught that it is basic civil rights protection under federal law. I also opened eyes by sharing that the UN has identified more than 1 billion people with disabilities on earth, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) numbers say one in four of us will experience a disability in our lifetimes. 

Those numbers speak to a market for design that accommodates all.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q What impact do you believe a course about universal design will have on students with disabilities across higher education?

A A few of the students said they would dedicate/refocus their careers on design for all. 

A few, in all candor, seemed to reject the ADA and universal design as something constricting or even “woke” — their words.

Overall, I think it opened minds. 

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED. 

Q How did you approach the University of Miami-School of Architecture about offering a course on universal design?

A approached the Dean of the School of Architecture and cultivated a friendship with him.

I performed editorial content services for the SoA and kept pitching ideas for a course.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q Can you provide some background on the inspiration to develop a Universal Design course that focuses on architecture and cultivating a built environment that is accessible to all?

A I have been a journalist for nearly 40 years, and all of that time I have covered both the built environment and the rights/needs of marginalized people.

Combing those into a survey course that educated future architects/urban designers on universal design was a natural progression.

I have worked with town planners and as an urban designer. 

I frequently lecture on access for all at the American Planning Association.