ADA vs Universal Design

In creating UniversalDesign.com, Universal Designers & Consultants, Inc. (UD&C), and its president and founder, John Salmen, AIA, believe that compliance with regulations and laws, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), is entirely different from practicing Universal Design.  Yet we have chosen to organize environmental information around the numbering system found in the 2010 ADA Standards.

This is not to say that the ADA is the basis or foundation of Universal Design, but rather to recognize that decades of scrutiny by construction and building code experts considering input from a wide range of personal and industry sources interested in understanding and defining how people use elements and spaces, resulted in the 2010 ADA Standards’ hierarchical numbering system.  It is comprehensive, available in the public domain and has been harmonized with the International Building Code.  It provides a convenient and logical framework upon which to build a relational information structure that can present both context and detail about elements and spaces found in human environments.  We welcome suggestions to improve the structure and/or organization of UniversalDesign.com.