FVG Accessibile: the Regional research system to support accessibility policies

In Italy, spatial accessibility is still a problem that affects public spaces in small, medium or large cities. The national law addressed to foster the removal of architectural barriers (no. 41/1986) has had only limited implementation; however, in recent years and at a local scale, important efforts to tackle this issue have been made in public works and planning practice. In particular, since 2018, the Italian Friuli Venezia Giulia Autonomous Region - RA FVG has signed an agreement with the Universities of Trieste (UNITS) and Udine (UNIUD), in order to bring Universal Design - UD at the core of the implementation of the Regional Law no. 10/2018 on spatial accessibility. This has provided a valuable opportunity to enhance and develop further the teaching and research activities that both Universities, since the establishment of their degree courses in Architecture, have been carrying out in the field of environmental accessibility. FVG Accessibile is the project co-designed and co-developed by RA FVG, UNITS, UNIUD, and CRIBA FVG. The project provides an overall framework of actions, policies and instruments aimed at: supporting municipalities through financial contributions; raising the quality of building and urban design by providing a methodology for UD, new quality standards, and ICT tools. Specifically, the contribution offered by UNITS and UNIUD is to support the region in delivering very concrete online tools that can help re-address the vision and action of public administrations and professionals towards the assumption of ‘accessibility for all’ criteria as the first requirement when designing and maintaining urban built and open space. Following the publication of the Plan for the Elimination of the Architectural Barrier - PEBA guidelines in 2020, RA FVG is now delivering a number of innovative tools that contribute to enrich the integrated system of accessibility in the region. In this frame, the fundamental work of the two universities has focused on the definition of: an ontology for spatial accessibility; a methodology to identify spatial criticalities against spatial accessibility; and a set of performance criteria to solve them.