Design Competition as a Pedagogical Tool to Teach Concepts of Universal Design in India

Abstract

Universal Design Education has become a worldwide movement but demonstrated limited acceptance amongst architecture, planning and design schools in India. There are no specialized courses on universal design in the country, this is perhaps because the benefits of designing in a more inclusive way are not immediately apparent and also because there are many other pressing issues that require attention. Center for Human Centric Research in School of Planning and Architecture Bhopal organizes an annual National Student Design Competition on Universal Design (NSDC-UD) together with a Hands-on Workshop and Exhibition, to explore creative ways to offer universal design to the students of diverse design disciplines in the country. The center has organized three such events since 2010, which provided an intense and experiential universal design understanding to the students. The events also provided an opportunity to explore Student Design Competition as a pedagogical tool to meet educational objectives that the school is striving to include in Academic Curricula. The paper presents this annual academic event in brief and summarizes the lessons learnt for the contextual aptness of Universal Design and Universal Design Education.