A special message of gratitude goes to His Excellency Dr. Abdullah Al Rubaish, the President of Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University for his enthusiasm and belief in the mission and vision of the Inclusive Design Unit as well as his endless support and contribution to all the IAU activities.
His encouragement and guidance- within all phases of this work- enabled the IDU team to accomplish it along with the rest of the IDU publications and projects in the IAU City.
Dr. Saleh AlRashed
Vice President
About us
The Inclusive Design Unit is a full service unit for Design Innovation and Design consultancy devoted to create inclusive and sustainable academic settings, systems and services.
The Inclusive Design Unit was founded in 2015 and is currently affiliated to the Office of the Vice President of the University.
The Inclusive Design Unit reflects the IAU's goals, mission statement, and its future direction as a leading and distinctive University in the GCC that is responsible for providing creative Design and knowledge as well as professional services with effective community partnerships.
The scope of work includes design the built environment (Architectural, interior and urban design), systems, products and services and training services
Vision
Optimal Usability- Full productivity- Green and Healthy Environment.
Mission
THE INCLUSIVE DESIGN UNIT (IDU) is founded as a joined-up approach to Innovative Design and Design consultancy in inclusive and Sustainable design. The Unit aims to deal with actual and future universities and other organizations challenges, to explore design from the civic realm to the detailing of the products and technologies, with a special focus to develop, promote, and accelerate the understanding and use of Universal and Sustainable Design in the design and development of the public buildings, products, and environments. The IDU team, thus, strives to identify and address potential challenges for inclusive design, including spatial orientation, active transportation, inclusive usability, green environments and assistive technologies.
Goals
The main goal is to enable IAU to become a regional and global leader in inclusive and sustainable design interventions for other universities and organizations in the kingdom and the region to follow. This goal is achieved, initially, by transforming its campuses' settings and services into a living laboratory for experiential learning, demonstrating progressive Applied Studies in universal and sustainable operations within a lively and engaged community. For this purpose, the team aims to create an inclusive system that promotes the sustainable lifetime of buildings and products, from their design, simulation and testing to their ongoing operation and management. The inclusive system includes environment interventions and assistive technologies that are sustainable, incorporated and universally design (fig. 1).
(Figure 1) The 3 main pillars of the IDU Design System
