The Designing Learning Spaces for Diversity, Inclusion and Participation ARC Linkage Project is a 3 year project investigating how to improve the designs of mainstream schools to better support the participation of students with disabilities in learning and the life of their school.

Students experiences of disability are extremely diverse and designing schools to support such diversity presents unique challenges. The project seeks to inform architects, educators, and policy makers about the spatial experiences of students’ and to develop strategies and tools to support the process of co-designing schools with people with lived experience of disability. The outcomes will include an inclusive learning spaces design framework. This is expected to benefit all students’ access and meaningful involvement in learning through the development of more inclusive learning spaces. The research is significant because it integrates previously dissociated knowledge from architecture, education and health.

You can read the article reflecting the research that led to the development of the ARC linkage project here.

You can also visit the project website here.

The pilot project previously received seed funding from the Melbourne Disability Institute in 2021.