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I'DGO logo and link to I'DGO website

Website: http://www.idgo.ac.uk

I’DGO TOO - Inclusive Design for Getting Outdoors, phase 2

Research team: Catharine Ward Thompson, Peter Aspinall, Susana Alves, and Archie Young (University of Edinburgh)

Keywords: EPSRC, EQUAL, I’DGO, older people, outdoor environment, quality of life, inclusive landscape, Home Zone

OPENspace research centre has been awarded a grant of £678k by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of a project worth over £1.6m. in total - the I’DGO TOO project - to continue research on outdoor access for older people. This is a unique achievement for researchers working in landscape architecture.

The I’DGO consortium is directed by Catharine Ward Thompson and combines the skills and experience of three research centres and academic colleagues across five academic institutions (Edinburgh College of Art, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh University, Oxford Brookes University and the University of Salford). It brings this expertise together with that of a range of collaborators from different organisations, agencies and groups, ranging from the Department for Communities and Local Government, CABE Space and Greenspace Scotland to the RIBA and Age Concern, who are keen to use the findings of the research and benefit from it.

The I'DGO (Inclusive Design for Getting Outdoors) research consortium has a continuing overall aim to identify the most effective ways of ensuring that the outdoor environment is designed inclusively and with sensitivity to the needs and desires of older people, to improve their quality of life.

I’DGO 1 (2003-2006) aimed to investigate how and why outdoor environments affect older people’s quality of life and to identify the aspects of design that help or hinder older people in using the outdoors and achieving a good quality of life. I'DGO TOO (2007-2011) focuses on particular policies and strategies that are currently being promoted by government as part of the sustainability agenda (urban renaissance, integrated communities and inclusive environments) where the potentially important, practical implications for older people's lives have not fully been explored and tested. It investigates how well outdoor environments in certain types of development, built in line with these policies, contribute to older people's health and wellbeing. It does so through research at three different levels of detail. It explores the implications of denser urban living on open space in housing, pedestrian-friendly approaches (such as Home Zones) in street environments and the practical consequences of using tactile paving in the urban environment. A range of innovative methods, some of which have been developed in earlier research by the consortium, will be used to examine in detail how design, and older people's perceptions of the designed environment, make a difference.