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What Can a Body Do? (First Year Read, 2024)

A guide to the First Year Reading Program selection for 2024: What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World, by Sara Hendren.

Street

 

street by WEBTECHOPS LLP from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)

Image: street by WEBTECHOPS LLP from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)

 

“The sensory world is a weird mix for human bodies, each of us moving around in a singular flesh envelope.”
(What Can a Body Do?, p 141)


Accessible Urban Design

sidewalk next to green space, with an unpaved path walked into the green space

Desire Lines

"In any sizable park or green space, you’ll likely find two kinds of paths: the formal kind, paved with brick or concrete, and the informal kind, the paths made by people walking over and over a stretch of grass, wearing away the green and carving a scruffy emergent line in its place."
(What Can a Body Do?, p. 141)

Image: "Metro Centric - Desire path" by Belem, CC BY 2.0

 

Brightly colored umbrellas hanging over a narrow city street

Tactical Urbanism

"Tactical Urbanism is an approach to neighborhood building and activation using short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions and policies."
(Tactical Urbanism, Lydon and Garcia, 2015, p. 3)

Image: "Inexpensive street decoration and shade cover, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico," by Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sidewalk granite curb cut for wheelchair ramp, Philadelphia PA

Curb Cuts

“Although originally designed for users of wheelchairs, they are also used by parents pushing baby carriages, people pulling baggage carriers, bicycle riders, skateboard users, kids on tricycles, and any number of other people.”
(Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics, Vanderheiden, Jordan, and Lazar, 2021, p. 1219)

Image: "Sidewalk granite curb cut for wheelchair ramp, Philadelphia PA", by Nick-philly - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

A kneeling bus with the ramp extended to the ground

Kneeling Bus

"A kneeling bus is a bus that not only has no steps between the door and the bus floor, but also has an air-adjustable suspension. This feature allows the driver to actually lower the bus to the curb to make entering and exiting the bus much easier."
(What is a Kneeling Bus? (Wikimotors))

Image: Champaign–Urbana Mass Transit District kneeling bus, by on Flickr

Accessible Urban Design: Books from the Library

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