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This study aims to demonstrate how women's involvement in urban planning and design in Gulf cities improves urban space's inclusivity and strengthens identity through cultural heritage revitalisation. It also promotes the participation of women in architecture and city-making by showcasing how shaping urban spaces offers local communities opportunities for social interaction and a more inclusive environment.

The paper critically compares two case studies in the Gulf region—one in the United Arab Emirates and the other in Bahrain—according to four inclusion criteria: context connection, cultural sensitivity, community engagement and choices of amenities. These inclusion criteria are also applied to an experimental project by women architects' students in Saudi Arabia to inspire the future female architects of the Gulf region. From urban to architectural scales, the project offers a glance into the heritage design by women architects.

In light of this critical analysis, this study highlights the sensitivity to issues related to the revitalisation of urban areas by women architects. The case studies identified show the role of the female architect in making architecture and linking cultural heritage with contemporary themes. These projects stitch the past with the present and link cultural identity with aspects related to sustainable architecture. Therefore, valorising women's architectural experience is necessary to contribute to sustainable urban development in the Gulf region and beyond.

The present study addresses the importance of the role of women architects in the Gulf region. The research promotes the full and equal participation of women in the architecture and construction of the city to recognise their achievements by increasing their involvement in the work in a more integrated and balanced way.

A challenge in implementing Universal Design (UD) is the perceived additional cost, which acts as a barrier to its widespread adoption. The few studies that have examined the cost for UD apply a theoretical research approach, failing to account for the unique design context that influences construction costs. This article presents a research methodology to calculate the UD cost in a realistic, context-dependent manner.

To address this gap, “Research-by-Design” is applied in a case study approach involving twelve cases from three typologies: secondary schools, town halls and small retail shops. Two scenarios are compared to the existing situation: (1) “renovating into a 100% inclusive building” and (2) “building fully inclusive right away”.

Although the methodology is time-consuming, it allows for a fair, realistic and detailed comparison between costs in different scenarios and cases. Findings show how financial implications are strongly related to its scale. Both “renovation” and “new build” scenarios involve costs, but these are considerably lower for the latter. “Circulation” and “Exterior stairs and ramps” are among the most expensive to renovate, but have almost no additional cost in the examined cases for the “new build scenario”.

The research methodology presented in this study is time-consuming, which may limit its feasibility for large-scale cost assessments in diverse contexts.

The research methodology proposed in this study provides valuable insights for architects, designers and stakeholders involved in the implementation of UD. It offers a realistic and context-dependent approach to assess the cost implications of UD, enabling informed decision-making during the design and construction phases.

By revealing the specific cost implications of UD in different building contexts, this study contributes to promoting greater accessibility and inclusion in the built environment.

The applied approach distinguishes this study for its ability to provide rich contextual information on actual cost implications for UD. By considering real cases and their unique design contexts, valuable insights are offered into the true costs of implementing UD in the built environment.

This research aims to shed light on the utilization of open spaces at Effat University through a gender lens. By eliminating gender segregation, the study seeks to examine how these spaces are equitably shared between genders, while also delving into the realm of gender sensitive urban design (GSUD). Furthermore, the research strives to gain valuable insights into the experiences of female students in open spaces to propose a framework for the design of fair shared open spaces.

To achieve these objectives, a multi-faceted approach was adopted. First, the research started by reviewing the literature about gender sensitive urban design and inclusive urban design to conclude the indicators examine how open spaces are shared fairly between both genders; second, an online questionnaire was administered to gather comprehensive data. Third, meticulous observations were conducted, involving the study, analysis and mapping of students' activities using maps and photos. Lastly, a walk shop was organized, with a focus group comprising of female participants. The collected data was then analyzed using SPSS descriptive statistics and the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, enabling the identification of key patterns and evaluating female students' satisfaction levels.

The findings unearth a distinctive perspective on the perception and needs of females within a unique subset of open spaces, referred to as “campus open spaces,” in the context of a gender sensitive urban design. This exploration provides valuable insights into the intricacies of gender dynamics within public spaces, contributing to a more inclusive and equitable environment for all individuals at Effat University, framework shows some of significant indicators that effect on other indicators strongly as sense of safety and security and the diversity of activities that increase visiting rates, sense of belonging.

This research presents a framework aimed at improving the concept of equitable and inclusive, open spaces, particularly on campuses within significant communities like KSA. The focus is on creating fair shared places that facilitate interaction and cater to the social and cultural needs of students, with a particular emphasis on supporting female students. By enhancing their sense of belonging and addressing their unique requirements, this framework aims to positively impact their academic performance while fostering an inclusive and engaging campus environment.

This study aims to determine the design factors that may affect the design of disabled students. Additionally, this study assesses and compares the reality between the public Jordanian universities’ built environment and international universities based on the Americans with Disabilities Act checklist – version 2.1 – to provide an accessible built environment for physically disabled people. Furthermore, this study examines the satisfaction degree of physically disabled people with the built environment in selected universities. Besides, this study examines the relationships/interrelationships between the students’ demographic factors, design factors and the degree of the disabled students’ satisfaction.

This research used different data collection methods to answer the research questions: literature review, observation and questionnaire. Additionally, this study used different analytical and statistical methods, such as comparative analysis between the local cases and the selected international case study based on the Americans with Disabilities Act checklist, version 2.1, descriptive analysis and Pearson r correlational statistics.

This research found that the Jordanian public universities did not apply all required design factors to achieve a high degree of the built environment of accessibility and provide all the requirements and needs of physically disabled students like international universities. Additionally, half of the physically disabled students respondents were satisfied with the availability and quality of pathways, ramps, doors and corridors, non-slippery materials, elevators, accessible entrances, entrances doors, methods of openings, adequate spaces for wheelchair students at the configuration of the entrance and the availability of railing. In contrast, they were unsatisfied with the availability of parking and bathrooms for each gender and signage systems. Moreover, this research found no significant differences between gender and educational level and all factors that may impact the students’ satisfaction with campus environmental design. Furthermore, this research found that there was a strong to very strong positive linear association and a significant correlation/intercorrelation between the availability and the design quality of parking, entrances, doors, lobbies and corridors, bathrooms, signage systems and information, ramps, elevators and stairs and the disabled students’ satisfaction degree.

This research tends to help disabled students participate entirely and independently in the built environment and all aspects of society, involve them within the community and facilitate their access to universities’ urban space. This research considers guidelines and checklists for architects and policymakers to apply through all design and retrofitting processes to meet disabled students’ requirements. This research provides a vital understanding of the needs of disabled students in educational spaces to create a barrier-free campus environment.

Inclusive design is a relatively new architectural concept. It provides means to ensure access and equal participation in the built environment, offers the opportunity to improve and design new equivalent solutions in architecture simultaneously and covers the way for a broad clarification of equality. Applying the concepts of inclusive design is a step toward eliminating the barriers imposed on the built environment in public universities and creating an accessible built environment. In addition, this research can guide future research in other institutions.

There is increasing interest in the UK in developing environments that support people who are neurodiverse. This paper aims to report on a project to develop a cognitively supportive environmental assessment tool to improve the design of health centres, where the majority of National Health Service consultations take place, for all users, including people living with dementia and those who are neurodiverse.

A three-stage process was used: a literature review; the development of a matrix of key design features for people living with dementia, autism and other neurodiverse conditions; and the development of an environmental assessment tool and guide for users, which included easy-to-read versions to maximise service user involvement.

The overarching concepts of dementia-friendly design can be adapted to create designs for everyone, including those who are neurodiverse.

There is a paucity of research in environmental design for primary care from the patient’s perspective, and, more generally, further research on design for adults with learning disabilities and autism is needed.

The tools are free to download. With adaptation, they have potential applicability across health and care settings.

This project has confirmed that the principles of dementia-friendly design are applicable, with modifications, to a wider group of neurodiverse people. Critically, each person’s response to sensory stimuli is individual rather than determined by their condition.

The objective of this paper is to study the efficacy of the ASPECTSS Design Index's concepts as drivers of design intervention for educational environments for students on the autism spectrum. Based on the seven principles of acoustics, spatial sequencing, escape spaces, compartmentalization, transitions, sensory zoning and safety, ASPECTSS formed the basis for a preliminary post-occupancy evaluation (POE) and survey of an existing school environment.

Concepts drawn from the review of other strategies for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) friendly design were integrated with the seven ASPECTSS principles to create a design framework and consequent design retro-fit for a Pre-K-12th grade public school for students on the autism spectrum. The following design interventions were proposed: colour-coding based navigation; acoustical treatments in key circulation spaces; introduction of transition alcoves; classroom reorganisation using compartmentalization principles and the introduction of escape spaces for de-escalation. Specifically, a classroom template of modules of ASPECTSS-compliant layouts was provided to all staff. The efficacy and impact of these interventions were assessed using a whole campus online staff survey with further probing using classroom observations and subsequent interviews.

The results show alignment between the implementation of the ASPECTSS informed design interventions and responses to nine of the Likert scale items were all significantly lower than the middle response, indicating a high degree of satisfaction from survey respondents. These questions and responses related to the colour scheme facilitating ease of navigation for visitors of the school, the acoustics of the building successfully mitigating sound magnification and subsequently student distractibility, the organisation of the classrooms enhancing learning and the de-escalation zones allowing improved management of disruptive behaviours in the classroom.

This study focuses primarily on the Autism ASPECTSS Design Index as a framework for assessing classroom efficacy. Other tools and frameworks may produce different insights. A single school site was studied. Validation of these findings in other school environments is necessary before generalising these strategies at scale. The use of qualitative tools, primarily teacher and staff surveys, provides one lens into the efficacy of these design strategies. Further research using measurable biometric indicators such as heart-rate and stress levels measured through wearable technology could provide a first step towards the triangulation of these findings.

These findings could help provide more standardised best practices for designing learning environments for autism, potentially providing supportive strategies with real impact on learning quality, skill development and knowledge acquisition in school environments. This could potentially have economic implications by supporting more efficient progress for autistic students through their school curriculum.

Similar to economic impact, if validated and generalised, these findings could help with sense of accomplishment, general mental health improvement, alleviation of family stress and potential reduction of stigma in the autism community.

There is a slowly emerging field of design guidance for autism schools, but very little empirical evidence on the measurable efficacy of these strategies. This research provides one type of such evidence, as measured by the perceived impact from the point of view of staff and teachers at the school.

This article provides an overview of lessons we can learn from human resource (HR) policies and practices related to neurodiversity.

We conducted a practice-based review using information obtained from organizations’ websites, summarized the information and reflected on how scholars can continue to advance this area of research based on what is happening in practice.

The review provided a selective overview of programs and practices per HR cluster: selection and recruitment; onboarding, integration and retention; job design; flexible work options and working remotely; training; employee resource groups (ESGs) and support. The review provides a description of practices and policies implemented within organizations that focus on neurodiversity among employees.

Our review showed that organizations have a multitude of HR practices and policies in place to include neurodivergent individuals in their workforces, though many of these have not been empirically investigated. Sharing this knowledge is important so that research insights and practice can reciprocally influence one another.

This study researched the effects on the perceptual evaluations of participants for the physical environmental factors of cafés using curvilinear, rectilinear, and mixed forms to provide for the spatial states of belonging, to increase the pleasures, and to extend the periods of remaining in the space.

This study used virtual reality (VR) technology to model the cafés designed by using curvilinear, rectilinear and mixed forms as an experimental environment. After experiencing the virtual images of the experimental spaces, participants filled out a “spatial perception” questionnaire. Perceptual evaluations of 415 participants regarding the environmental factors of cafés designed using curvilinear, linear and mixed forms were analyzed in a computer environment.

According to the analysis of the questionnaire data, the cafés using mixed forms were perceived as more positive for the factors of appeal (inviting, restful, warm and sincere), planning (well-planned) and space freedom (roomy, uncluttered, uncrowded, large, wide and free space) compared with the cafés using curvilinear and rectilinear forms. Furthermore, the cafés using curvilinear forms were perceived as more positive for all elements compared with the cafés using rectilinear forms. However, there was a more negative approach in the perceptual evaluations of participants connected to increases in level of education.

The research results clearly demonstrated that the different interior and furniture forms frequently encountered in cafés cause significant effects on users’ perceptual evaluations.

In developing countries like Tanzania, gems and jewellery industry mainly consists of disintegrated and unstable micro and small workshops which operate in a way that misalign value addition processes. This study is aimed to bridge gap by focussing on exploitation of industrial clusters in social normalisation and economic resilience to developing countries. The world economic shocks has been not only individually experienced but also globally shared while disrupted lives across all countries and communities and negatively affected global socio-economic growth.

Furthermore, the explorative design was adopted in this study in order to explore needs of respondents, and with the aim to direct the study towards a descriptive design. The sample frame consists of participants in gems and jewellery activities in Tanzania whereby sample was drawn from Dar es Salaam and Arusha. Semi-structured interview was used to collect quantitative data to establish evidence of Tanzanians’ SSJs linked to global value chains (GVCs).

Results revealed the benefits of exploitation of artisanal industrial clusters to Tanzanians’ SSJs when linked to global value chains (GVCs). Findings of the study demonstrate the importance of artisanal industrial clusters in facilitating Tanzanians’ SSJs to access GVCs. Further, insufficient education, trust and social protection directly affects inclusive GVCs, inferring that the impact of artisanal industrial clusters on inclusive GVCs in social normalisation and economic resilience.

Study findings reveals shortcomings in existing regulatory framework of linking Tanzanians’ SSJs to artisanal industrial clusters, for improvements to better support the inclusiveness in GVCs. Findings of this research invite interventions on institutional capabilities and entrepreneurial competencies to enhance the capabilities of small-scale jewellers (SSJs). Like other studies, this study involved cross-sectional data, limit targeted study population as representative of SSJs in industrial clusters and GVCs in economic crises at limited time.

The study findings makes important practical contributions to the Tanzania’s SSJs by examining mediating role of artisanal industrial clusters hence informing policymakers of mining sector how to improve accessibility on GVCs by focus on offering great institutional capabilities and entrepreneurial competencies. These findings will help SSJs and policy makers to get better understanding of the relationships in exploitation of artisanal industrial clusters when accessing GVCs. Therefore, they can make better decisions on implementing artisanal industrial clusters as well as management accessing GVCs, so that SSJs will attain the best possible performance.

This emphasises the importance of community empowerment in the GVCs process through artisanal industrial clusters. Study findings indicate the influence of industrial relations to social dynamics which are previously inadequately addressed and scantly researched. In actual fact study propose initiatives that ensure local communities benefit socially from the integration of SSJs into GVCs through artisanal industrial clusters. Findings suggest local communities that take into account inter-sectionality of artisanal industrial clusters and inclusive GVCs, by considering how factors like education, trust and social protection status intersect to influence the social inclusiveness of SSJs.

There is limited evidence of linking Tanzanians’ SSJs to GVCs in social normalisation and economic resilience and few researchers have explored this topic. This article leverages exploitation of industrial clusters in normalisation and economic resilience to developing countries such as Tanzania as way of improving shared prosperity, sustainability, inclusive growth, cohesion, value chain upgrading and financial inclusion to SSJs.

In this article, we highlight ways in which disability critical race theory (DisCrit) (Annamma et al., 2013), inclusive education and community-based participatory research (CBPR) can be used within professional development schools (PDS) to provide students with disabilities with more access to inclusive classrooms. At a grade 4–6 elementary school, we developed a model of a critical PDS to promote inclusive education and facilitate the transition of students of color with disabilities from self-contained to inclusive classrooms. We conducted semi-structured interviews and used action plan meetings with school administrators, teachers, professionals and students with disabilities and their parents to assess the impact of our critical PDS model. Findings suggest this model had a positive impact on administrators’ and teachers’ critical consciousness, ideological and instructional practices, students of color with disabilities’ social, academic and personal outcomes, as well as a schoolwide culture of inclusion and social justice. This study can inform tailored professional development efforts to improve educators’ inclusive practices.

We conducted semi-structured interviews and used action plan meetings with school administrators, teachers, professionals and students with disabilities and their parents to assess the impact of our critical PDS model.

The findings of this study suggest this model had a positive impact on administrators’ and teachers’ critical consciousness, ideological and instructional practices, students of color with disabilities’ social, academic and personal outcomes, as well as a schoolwide culture of inclusion and social justice.

This study can inform tailored professional development efforts aiming to improve educators’ inclusive practices.

We developed a model of a critical PDS to promote inclusive education and facilitate the transition of students of color with disabilities from self-contained to inclusive classrooms.