Design for People’s Autonomy. Rights to Independent Living

Accessibility, autonomy and inclusion are such cross-cutting societal issues that the biggest impact is achieved if they can be mainstreamed and implemented in programmes such as youth, gender, education, employment, education and public and private service, thus safeguarding the “no one is left behind” principle. The researches and the practices presented in this issue of CPCL describe accessibility and autonomy topics through the lens of fields of investigation and experiences in different environments, giving examples of theoretical and practical work. The contributes explores the concept of accessibility as a design tool, capable of translating individual and collective instances, needs and topics into design elements for new services, products, use of the spaces. An approach that goes beyond the logic of a simple cause-and-effect sequence to take into account the complexity, leaving precise metrics to accept a development by successive approximations placing the user (the citizen) at the core of social life and public realm definition.