Accessibility and Universal Design – 2027
Enchanted Hills Camp for the Blind and Visually Impaired
This on-site tour of the Enchanted Hills Camp, a 70-year-old summer camp for the blind and visually impaired, features firsthand interviews with the project architect, camp leadership, and a blind design collaborator and lessons that extend far beyond camp design to any public-facing project. Learn how tactile pathways, cane-detectable wayfinding, acoustics that support orientation, and hardware choices translate accessibility principles into everyday independence. You will also understand how tactile drawings and models enable visually impaired people to collaborate on designing facilities.
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Enchanted Hills Camp for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Neurodiversity and Autism Center
Join Dake-Wells explains how their recently completed Neurodivergent and Autism Center incorporated design strategies for creating higher education opportunities and spaces for neurodiverse students. You will learn to identify spatial elements that may be distracting, uncertain, or painful for neurodiverse individuals, and how to accommodate neurodiverse learning modes and sensitivities with a variety of scales and types.
The design incorporates seven criteria from the Autism ASPECTSS™ Design Index, the first set of evidence based design guidelines worldwide to address built environments for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
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Neurodiversity and Autism Center
Accessibility for Historic Buildings: Congregation Emanu-El
Join Mark Cavagnero Associates Architects as they take us on a tour of and explain how San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El’s historic set of buildings were remodeled to accommodate the disabled community. Deftly navigating both accessibility and historic preservation requirements, their design provides expanded access throughout the facility while reinforcing the historic nature of three buildings centered around a reconstructed and accessible open-air courtyard.
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Accessibility for Historic Buildings: Congregation Emanu-El
Accessibility and the Fair Housing Act: Upstream and Downstream
Most accessibility problems surface late in construction — but they're created early in design. Join two veteran accessibility experts, a former HUD Senior Advisor and a practicing architect/access specialist, as they unpack how ADA, Fair Housing, Section 504, and state accessibility codes stack together and where projects go wrong.
Through a real-world case study and a rapid-fire "top ten" of recurring field accessibility failures, you'll learn to ask the right questions from day one, know when to bring in specialized expertise, and treat accessibility as core design criteria rather than a compliance afterthought.
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