AXSChat Podcast with Mei-Yee Man Oram from the Access and Inclusive Environments team in Arup

Mei leads the Access and Inclusive Environments team in Arup, specializing in accessibility and inclusion within the built environment. Mei assesses the compatibility of the design in relation to relevant design guidance, regulations and best practice. This includes looking at trends and changing demographics, to consider the impact of current design on future populations, accommodating good design with regard to the lifespan of the building and futureproofing for changes in need.

Mei-Yee Man Oram

Mei has been involved in work both nationally and internationally, and has also been involved in the writing of standards and policies, actively shaping the world of accessibility. Mei is passionate about inclusion in design, and the implications that this has on health and wellbeing, sense of belonging, and opportunity. She is currently working with the International WELL Building Institute as an advisor on their Community feature, challenging the way that buildings are designed to optimize use for all regardless of personal circumstances or identity. 

Transcript

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Neil Milliken: Hello and welcome to access chat. This week I'm delighted that we're joined by Mei-Yee Man from Arup.

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Neil Milliken: architectural firm and Mei-Yee Man is responsible for the accessibility element of their work, which of course we think is extremely important. So Mei.

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Neil Milliken: Can you tell us a bit about the work that you do, how you came to be working in this field and what it, what it is and what it means for Eric to be accessible. Yeah.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Of course. So thank you very much for inviting me to join me to talk about this. So the team is called access and inclusive environments.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: What we do as a team has specialized in inclusive designers, as you mentioned, nail. And typically what that

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: What that involves is working with both internally within, within our with our with our colleagues.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: With the architects of the designers and the engineers within the company and also with external clients as well, to make sure that what we're designing

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Is accessible and inclusive, both from a physical perspective, but also in terms of how people actually experience space. How people you know whether or not that experience is actually equitable and whether or not that quality is equitable across different user groups.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: In terms of so you were asking about how I how how I got involved in this field.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: So I started off.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: studying architecture at university.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: I as part of that I was looking at sort of architectural history as well and thinking and as part of my dissertation thinking about how architecture has been used historically to separate people to segregate people

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: And so, as part of my dissertation. I was sort of very interested in you know the history behind that and and when I left University. It was like, well, actually, how, how can we reverse that. How can we use architecture and the built environment to actually

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Use that as a tool of integrating be one to getting getting people to understand each other more to get people to participate and to and to integrate communities.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: So when I finished University. I really wasn't aware of the fact that inclusive design existed as a as a career path happened to come across our and yeah, the rest is history never left

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Neil Milliken: Okay, and

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Neil Milliken: I'm

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Neil Milliken: From a family of town planners, so I'm also interested in this stuff like grew up around people thinking about how do we bring people together. How do, what are the mechanics of communities and so on.

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Neil Milliken: So,

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Neil Milliken: Architecture is more than just about buildings. Right. And our up is is absolutely engaged in thinking about the the larger scale. Yes, as an architecture firm, you've done you know some some iconic buildings around the world. But, but this is your practices about

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Neil Milliken: Particularly, and we met talking about city design and stuff like that so

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Neil Milliken: So what do you think of the really key ingredients in a in an inclusive city.

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Neil Milliken: And then I know Deborah's got some questions we'd like to sort of follow up afterwards.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Yep. So I think that's a, that's a really great question. I think, I think one of the sector, we recently completed a study with

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: There's a charity in the UK called sustrans who look at trying to encourage people to walk and cycle more. And so there's a

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Two year study that we recently completed and launched over the, over the summer, which I think summarizes that summarizes that, that sort of my answer to that question, really. So I think as you mentioned, Neil. It's about the sort of infrastructure and the built

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Environment and how that can support people in their cities and in their spaces to actually participate and to feel involved and feel a sense of belonging. But in addition to that as well. It's about the the

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: The, the support and the people and also about the governance as well. And the representation. And if we if we're able to look at that together.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: holistically, to make sure that actually soaps are using the the study. As an example, it was looking at how we can make cycling as an activity more inclusive.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: For communities who are currently underrepresented underrepresented in that cycling community. And so I think one of the things

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: You know, again, is that that we that we through user group consultations that we discovered through this is that people didn't feel

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Through the through the media representation that actually cycling was an activity for them that that was suitable for them because of the infrastructure, it wasn't, you know,

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: It wasn't able to accommodate different types of equipment that people might need. And because of the way that people have designed that space and the people that are involved in designing that space as well. It didn't reflect that that diversity.

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Neil Milliken: And I know I promised that I would speak.

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Debra Ruh: If you want to follow it.

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Neil Milliken: And and and I was in my Twitter feed this week.

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Neil Milliken: And I was seeing a lot of tweets from people who are in the disability space and also working in transport and we've implemented these sort of priority cycling lanes.

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Neil Milliken: Recently, but they've also said that they should be used by wheelchair users and other people and

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Neil Milliken: The the

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Neil Milliken: Wheelchair using

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Neil Milliken: People in my stream are saying this is a nightmare. You know, so, so how do we resolve those kind of

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Neil Milliken: Challenges where

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Neil Milliken: We have well meaning intent.

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Neil Milliken: But we're not really, you know, consulting the community when we're when we're implementing these kind of projects.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Absolutely. I think you've hit the nail on the head.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: So I think, you know, in the UK, you know, I think there was like you say good intentions in terms of trying to get cycle lanes up trying to get people

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: To be more active especially under the current covert situation as well so that people are able to access fresh air access exercise and maintain

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Maintain social distance. So there's been lots of things that are happening, sort of in in my local area elsewhere across the UK and probably elsewhere across the globe as well.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: But I think in the urgency to try and get that have a, you know, to get those those things implemented and to get

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: People out and support that that activity. I think that there was a huge, huge oversight in terms of actually not consulting

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Not consulting people and not consulting enough people as well. In order to really capture that diversity across different sectors of our society.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: So I think, yeah, as you said, nail consultation and getting people involved in that, in that discussion is absolutely critical.

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Debra Ruh: And I think more and more we're realizing that we're hearing that

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Debra Ruh: That that mistake made over and over and over and over again in every conversation we're not getting the right people into the conversations so that we can make sure that we're creating things that are accessible but

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Debra Ruh: I wanted to sort of go back to something that you said may

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Debra Ruh: And we really, really are grateful for your work because people like you are actually going to change the world. And so this is we really want to support efforts like yours, but you said that when you were in school. This wasn't really brought up, but I know that here in the United States.

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Debra Ruh: We just tell her I'm not going to politics we just celebrated our Americans with Disabilities Act for 30 years and so

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Debra Ruh: You know, we've been trying to teach architects to include us for a really long time, but it's still is an afterthought. So I know one

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Debra Ruh: Pair of former pure Olympic and she's actually in Texas, but she works, mainly in Latin America that is building accessible.

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Debra Ruh: Buildings in homes and smart cities, and I know of a woman in an old say Maria that does amazing work but

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Debra Ruh: And then I know about you and I'm sure there are others, but I'm fascinated. Why you know you weren't taught in school but thrilled that

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Debra Ruh: You have figured it out and then got a wonderful company that supports you, and the work you do. But what, what can we do to make sure you know other architects understand the value of actually, you know, building something that works for all people.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: So I think, I think part of it might be when I went to school. So I'm not going to reveal how old I am. But, um, I think part of it is, is the fact that it just wasn't

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: On the curriculum when when I was at university when when when I was studying sort of architecture with the built environment.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: I think there are efforts to introduce that so. So as an example, it's you know that there's now.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: In terms of the, the Royal Institute of bit shocked at the Rebbe sort of curriculum. There is

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: inclusive design.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Arm or branch to that now. And so I think there are efforts. But I think as you said very often in practice.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: There is still the the

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Tendency to leave it, I suppose, until it's until it's too late or, you know, not getting not not thinking about inclusive design early enough.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: And there's there's one example, or there's a couple of things I suppose that that I think are important to races. So as part of the ADA over in America as part of the building regulations in the UK. I think it's important to you know to acknowledge the fact that actually the data that

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: That

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: That that kind of build up those those recommendations in those in those guidance documents are that you know that the averages that's data that that has

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Tried to find an average amongst a very, very diverse set of communities. So anyone who's an outlier to that, that still doesn't work, even, even if you're we're compliant with the ADA, if we're compliant with building regulations.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: It doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do it. You know, there's still so much more that we can do and just just going back to the the comment that I made earlier about that diversity within our teams as well and how we actually approach solutions. There's, there's an example that

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: That I think anyone who knows me has heard before us way too much, but that there was a case.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Probably about a few years ago now, where there was a company who manufactured and designed a automatic

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: water dispenser tap

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: And

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: When they launched it what they had not appreciated was the fact that the automatic sensor didn't recognize particular skin tones. So if

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Yeah, it's like so complete oversight from their side not intentional, I'm sure.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: But I think, again, that that really goes back to the last point about the fact that, you know, as well as, as well as consulting and actually speaking to people and making sure that you capture that diversity in in how you're testing your products testing your environments.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: It's also really important to make sure that people within your teams as well internally that, but you've captured that diversity.

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Debra Ruh: I agree. And I'd forgotten to mention to who is somebody that we had on the show. Not long ago, she's so there there is brilliant people in the field, but

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Debra Ruh: It just seems like it is an opportunity to be more innovative and I know architects like to be innovative, and now there's this

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Debra Ruh: World renowned architect in the United States is blind and some of the architect sure that he's built. It's just stunning.

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Debra Ruh: And and so accessible and so creative and and the thing of course that we all know is the more accessible. We make it the more use a bullet is for everybody so it's

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Debra Ruh: A and I know that you had mentioned before we went on air that you know you're also very focused on sustainability and making sure that the buildings.

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Debra Ruh: That you build in, you know, the cities that you build that they they're taking care of our planet as well. And we that Neil actually

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Debra Ruh: Has talked about that. Not being accessible is like pollution. So I I'm fascinated with leaders like you and your company that understand the value of

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Debra Ruh: Making sure it works for all of us innovatively and at the same time protects our planet at the same time. So I think that's very exciting, but I am still very discouraged that

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Debra Ruh: We are not talking about this more meaningfully in education.

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Debra Ruh: And I would love to see leaders like you going in and teaching classes because that's what we need to see. We need the leaders that are doing and actually teaching the younger architects.

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Debra Ruh: And the older architects, how to do this. So I want to applaud you. And I know Antonio has a question. So I will turn it over to you. May to comment and then also turn it over to Antonio

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Antonio Santos: Thank you for joining as mayor. It's I've been in some of your buildings in the past and and I know our good design can work and

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Antonio Santos: Not also for people to access the building, but also to create a good environment between the employees that work in a certain space.

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Antonio Santos: So lately, and I'm sure this came across, you were a lot of conversations about creating system more sustainable. So every event that every conference veto or not.

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Antonio Santos: That talks about cities, but a lot of emphasis on sustainability and sometimes associated with sustainability comes a connection with technology, technology, technology, and that's what we see.

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Antonio Santos: But how can we, when you are engaging with your customers or potential customers are you engaged. Okay. No, that's really important. It is, but

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Antonio Santos: It's also important to make them accessible and inclusive for for individuals because we are talking about huge investments.

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Antonio Santos: Sometimes we're talking about public money and how can we make sure that we look at the accessibility from the beginning of the planning to make sure that in the end, everyone gets a good outcome.

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Antonio Santos: Yeah.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: I again really really great question that I i think one of the things

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: You know that that that we're definitely noticing more of in terms of some of the clients that we're working with is like you're saying that focus on technology and the desire for their buildings to be smart. And I think one of the things that we

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: You know, we're always conscious of that what the end the discussion that we have with our clients is that regardless of what technology is put in

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: If we were to strip all of the technology out as a building as a space, it should still work. People shouldn't have to rely on the technology for it for it to be usable and for that experience to be to be equitable. So in relation to

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: In relation to sort of the work that we do. The technology is always there as a enhancement to not as a replacement to to what we're actually trying to provide. And what we're trying to achieve within those spaces.

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Debra Ruh: I'm going to jump in. Since nobody said

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Debra Ruh: Are you finding that your clients are starting to ask for it because I just think, you know, the reality is when we are business owners or wearing, you know, corporations.

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Debra Ruh: We have to do what our clients tell us, and we can encourage them.

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Debra Ruh: And oh, well, do you want it, you know, but are the clients asking for it more. Are y'all feeling more confident to be able to say by the ways we're doing this design, even if they didn't ask

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Debra Ruh: There's an opportunity to do this and also by the way it makes it more accessible to everyone. So it seems like there's a push and pull there but i i'm assuming that

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I think the there are different types of clients that we work with, that there are the ones which

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Because there's that need to comply with legislation with regulations, you know, it's a case of can you help us to make sure that we've done what we have to do.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: We've got other clients that are that are very forward thinking where they're saying

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Actually, you know, we want the best for the people that are using our buildings, whether that staff, whether that's visitors whether, you know, whoever whoever that might be

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: So we've got those attitudes which are very, very positive and and you know they they really want to do the right thing.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: And then we've got the people that are sort of in between that we try to kind of push towards that direction. So, again, I think, you know, whoever it is that we're working with.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: There's always that conversation that we have with them to try and make them understand, I suppose. What, like you say what the benefits are why why it's important.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: And we can tackle that from from different ways as the there's this little social responsibility and the fact that actually we, you know,

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: We should be doing it as responsible employers as responsible service providers.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: There's the business case to it as well. If it's more accessible than actually you're going to attract more people to your premises, whether it's again people visiting if it's a public building, whether it's

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: You know, a more diverse workforce because of the fact that your, your office building is is much more inclusive.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: So there's different ways that we can approach it depending on what the clients objectives are, but

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Yeah.

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Antonio Santos: We have seen some interesting observations in relation to designing a 15 minute neighborhood know

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Antonio Santos: So here in the industry in this in Cork, there was some discussions about how can we enable that in the city. So, of course, you know, when you are building in cycle lanes know it's something that you are able to achieve or

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Antonio Santos: even easier in some places because of geography geography of the city itself. It could be an older or newer city, but how do you see we making this possible also for people disabilities, how can we design a 15 minute city that is also inclusive and allows people to benefit from it. Yeah.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: So I think, I think that kind of brings us back to the to the comment that we had earlier from from from Neil's comment about

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: About consultation about making sure that we really understand who the communities are because what might be appropriate for a city center in London.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Might not be appropriate for the city center over in Cork, or over in the state or, you know, somewhere in the states or so we need to understand who knows who those communities are you know what the cultural sort of context of that is. And again, what then is appropriate for

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: For for for trying to adjust and to and to incorporate more inclusive features within that space.

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Right.

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Neil Milliken: tangentially going on from that. So we talked quite a bit now about these civic spaces, but our cities rules are made up of

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Neil Milliken: housing stock and and when, when we look at our aging population and the housing stock that that we have. We don't tend to build

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Neil Milliken: Stuff that is adaptable and that can that can change with us and adapt to our needs.

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Neil Milliken: Over time, we had Anna from the Center for aging better on access to a while back, and she talked about the need for us to be thinking much more deeply about building housing stock that we can stay in that we can live in and we don't end up with

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Neil Milliken: Young people in you know houses of most multiple you can see, because all of the large houses are stuck with single people in

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Neil Milliken: We have opportunities in, you know, obviously we're building new cities and new housing areas and there's an opportunity there. What was sort of working Arab doing in the space of

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Neil Milliken: Of housing design and what are some of the constraints, because I know from my own personal experience. He goes to these large new estates.

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Neil Milliken: This doesn't seem to be that much in the way of actual intentional design there. There's just this sort of cookie cutter template of fairly sort of cheap boxy tricks with a

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Neil Milliken: With a small windows in. So what can we do, and what are you doing in this area because I think it's a really important area.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Yeah no absolutely and it's something which

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: You know, we've spoke about before nail in terms of, you know, allowing if we're if we're able to design housing stock in a way which accommodates

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: All life stages, then then actually there's much more flexibility there we can start to be more adaptable to some of the some of the things. Some of the items that you mentioned there.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: And I think it's it's is a big challenge, I think, you know, as you say, in terms of what's actually designed out there. I was having a conversation with a colleague

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Probably a couple of weeks ago now, but you know that the fact that, you know, again using using the UK building regulations as an example, there's certain space standards. But actually, if you looked at the first

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: You know that the top three wheelchair providers in the UK, they're turning circles that that those wheelchairs those most popular models of wheelchairs.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Actually use in comparison to the space standards that are actually being provided as as a minimum standard in the UK.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: There's a disparity between the between those two. So I think there's there's huge issues that we need to that that we need to sort of address and I think

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Unfortunately, it shouldn't be the case, but I think that building codes probably are where it you know that that's probably where the starting point is

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: I think a lot of the time, unless it's regulated people just don't pay attention. So I think, in my opinion, I think that's probably where we need to start making that change.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Okay, yeah.

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Neil Milliken: And I think that the building codes, give us that very baseline.

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Neil Milliken: I think there's also a mismatch between people thinking that they've met building codes.

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Neil Milliken: And therefore accessible. So, so I think there's some education to be

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Done on that still see

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Neil Milliken: The other, the other area we talked about before.

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Neil Milliken: Is it is going back to technology and that that is actually, you know, how do you

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Neil Milliken: Plan to design for technology that is

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Neil Milliken: Slow to move

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Neil Milliken: An embedded long term where when technology trends are moving at a hugely rapid rate. So, you know, when you build a building that the technology that you put in is not going to be refitted again for maybe 10 1520 years so so

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Neil Milliken: What, what are the differences in considerations in implementing tech inside in architecture compared to sort of implementing tech as a technologist, you know, technology for them. Like, like the one I work for

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: So I think, I think in terms of the approach that we take as a firm. I'm gonna shout out to a couple of other teams that that has far more

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Far more expertise in this, but we've got a foresight team that kind of looks at those future trends that that starts to think about, you know,

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: As you say, what we're looking at. If we're considering a building with a 50 year 100 year lifespan.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: And thinking about what sorts of things we need to think about at this point when we're designing things that can accommodate that flexibility and accommodate those

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: You know that ease of adaptation to meet those future needs. We've got other teams sort of within, within the company that kind of specialize in smart technologies. And again, sort of lining, all of that together to really understand

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: You know where where society where buildings. You know where that's all going will help to help to build in that that adaptability.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: We've got a few buildings or few projects at the moment where, again, that that desire to have smart buildings to have that technology built in.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Is a really key focus for the client. And again, for us, then it's a case of understanding. You know what it is that they're wanting to achieve in the immediate term understanding where those trends are heading as well.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: And then making sure that the infrastructure is built in to be able to accommodate any of those scenarios.

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Neil Milliken: I think that's that's so important because you don't want to be

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Neil Milliken: Building immediate obsolescence.

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Neil Milliken: Because the technology is moving so fast that that that it's very difficult to

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Neil Milliken: From you know taking it from the drawing board through the planning process.

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Neil Milliken: To

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Neil Milliken: Building this stuff. It takes years so so so that

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Neil Milliken: Thought to be able to build in the flexibility, I think, is really key.

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Neil Milliken: Our time has gone really way too quickly.

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Neil Milliken: Nouns already whizzed by so I just like to say thank you very much and and also thank Barclays access my clear text or micro link for keeping us on and supporting us to get the message out there about accessibility and inclusion and

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Neil Milliken: Really look forward to you joining us on on Twitter, your handle is at Arab accessible. Yeah.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: That's right.

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Yes.

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Neil Milliken: We will see you on Tuesday. It's been a real pleasure may

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Neil Milliken: Thank you for joining us.

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Debra Ruh: And I just wanted to say.

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Debra Ruh: Thank you to May and

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Debra Ruh: Go Biden.

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Go Harris.

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Debra Ruh: We are taking our country back

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Debra Ruh: That's right. The United States is going to elect President Biden.

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Debra Ruh: Do the White House.

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Neil Milliken: Yeah. Yeah, you're good. Yeah. So was that your, your, your, your please with your queue and on conspiracy theories

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Debra Ruh: I know I gotta go. Eat some babies, but

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Debra Ruh: Or whatever.

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Antonio Santos: Okay, so

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Debra Ruh: Thank you may

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Debra Ruh: Thank you so

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Mei-Yee.ManOram: Thank you.

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Debra Ruh: We really appreciate your leadership and I appreciate even more that you're a woman leader. So thank you so much.