So you’re interested in what you can read to become a better designer, architect, urban planner, urbanist, or neighbour living and working in a super-divers city? Here are a few recommendations from our Designing Cities For All (DCFA) team, and we will add new recommendations periodically. For all you city designers that want to empower yourself (and others), let these reads guide your practice of transforming cities for the better.
Your phone is too big for your hand. Your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body. In a car accident, you are 47% more likely to be injured. If any of that sounds familiar, chances are you’re a woman. From government policy and medical research to technology, workplaces, and the media. Invisible Women reveals how in a world built for and by men we are systematically ignoring half of the population, often with disastrous consequences.
€15,00 (order here)
Sometimes designed objects reject their users: a computer mouse that doesn’t work for left-handed people, for example, or a touchscreen payment system that only works for people who read English phrases, have 20/20 vision, and use a credit card. Something as simple as color choices can render a product unusable for millions. These mismatches are the building blocks of exclusion. In Mismatch, Kat Holmes describes how design can lead to exclusion, and how design can also remedy exclusion. Inclusive design methods―designing objects with rather than for excluded users―can create elegant solutions that work well and benefit all.
€29,00 (order here)
*) With code DCFA2122 you get a 10% discount at Atheneum Bookstore on non-Dutch publications. Use the order links to be referred to the shop.
