Designing for Independent Living: The Case Study of an Inclusive Apartment for Persons with Disabilities

Independent living and freedom of choice are closely linked to the social inclusion of PwD (Persons with Disabilities) in society. The paper reports on a recent study focused on investigating and understanding the needs and desires of persons with intellectual disabilities, with reduced mobility and with visual impairments while performing daily activities in order to design userfriendly and inclusive home environments for their life project. The case study concerns an apartment on the ground floor of a building well embedded in a neighborhood urban and social context. It was selected by Anffas Trentino Onlus to train young adults in independent living. Anffas is the National Association of Families of People Intellectual and/or Relational Disabilities, present and operating throughout Italy. Since 2008, important projects have been promoted by Anffas Trentino Onlus aimed at stimulating a personal and housing autonomy in PwD for “during and after us”, or rather when there are no more family members to take care of them. The design process involved a representative focus group of end users. With them and some Anffas staff components, it was possible to implement a participatory design process by sharing and verifying needs, desires, expectations. This approach was adopted in order to jointly develop a design proposal for a new inclusive apartment changing the paradigm from design for to design with, and building awareness both in the end users and designers.