Prioritising public spaces architectural strategies for autistic users

Abstract

Purpose

According to architectural research, modifying environmental features has the potential to create an appropriate sensory environment for autistic children. Considering the design of public environments, it is difficult to accommodate the diverse requirements of each autistic child. The main objective of this paper is to find out the most prevalent architectural strategies and to prioritise them for the design of the public spaces addressing autistic children's needs.

Design/methodology/approach

This research is designed in two stages: (1) descriptive approach in which architectural strategies are extracted from theories on autism design to determine a theoretical test module; and (2) quantitative approach in which the frequency of gained strategies are studied in two groups of references: general references and key references (i.e. most cited and well-reputed researchers in autism architecture) while universal design strategies and the timeline of each strategy is considered for the conclusion.

Findings

The following strategies were highly significant: (1) acoustical control, (2) visual control, (3) legibility, (4) safety and security, (5) predictable spaces. Acoustic was frequently considered in both control and general groups while it was highlighted in timeline study and universal design strategies.

Research limitations/implications

The main limitation is that these strategies have been prioritised according to their frequency in some limited articles and a control group including the pioneer of autism design researchers while verifying these strategies may not be strong enough. Likewise, the conclusion related to these data cannot be accurate enough. Establishing a case study survey that provides an opportunity to test all these strategies directly on a majority of autistic children and measure their prevalence is advised. Finally, it should be considered that although the five mentioned strategies are all the most prevalent strategies among autistic children, as each autistic child differs from others, generalising the conclusion for all the public area would be impossible, as though we need to study it for each group of them.

Originality/value

Seeking to improve the strategies' prioritisation as determined by previous researchers, this article aims to define the most essential strategies categories in this field to eliminate the confusion of researchers and designers.

Citation

Sheykhmaleki, P., Yazdanfar, S.A.A., Litkouhi, S., Nazarian, M. and Price, A.D.F. (2021), "Prioritising public spaces architectural strategies for autistic users", Archnet-IJAR, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 555-570. https://doi.org/10.1108/ARCH-07-2020-0142