Accessibility beyond architectural barriers: how to broaden perspective and elevate design culture in Italy

Accessibility arises at the confluence of three domains: the person, society, and the environment, and depends on a plurality of indicators and the quality of their interactions. In design disciplines, accessibility aspires to realize the same opportunities for enjoyment for the widest possible range of people. It ranges from the object of use to the territory: each environmental element is a link in a chain of relationships, and if one of these links has access problems, the accessibility of the whole system is compromised. The responsibility of designers is therefore strong. The paper focuses on the initiative promoted by Friuli Venezia Giulia Autonomous Region (RAFVG), which through the project FVG Accessibile intends to contribute strongly to the elevation of the design culture of professionals in the territory and leveraging the importance of embracing the approach related to Universal Design (UD) starting from the theme of elimination of architectural barriers. With Regional Law 10/2018 and the launch of the project, RAFVG intervene to make up for a deficiency that distinguishes most Italian public administrations regarding the theme of the elimination of architectural barriers: nearly 40 years after the introduction of a national law for the predisposition of PEBAs (Law 41/1986), the majority of the Italian municipalities have never adopted it, and there are still numerous barriers to be addressed. The institutional partnership working on the project FVG Accessibile, including the two Universities in the Region to which the authors belong, enabled the implementation of a series of steps aimed not only at improving the accessibility of the regional territory, but also, at the same time, at increasing the quality of designing. The paper presents some specific actions and tools set up to guide designers to correctly interpret the meaning of accessibility in line with the philosophy of Universal Design. Specifically, FVG has the distinction of being the only region in Italy to have decided to invest in a digitalized system for the management of municipal PEBAs insisting on its territory, granting free access to specific software to the technicians in charge. Support to professionals is granted through training materials and courses to correctly interpret what a PEBA should mean.