5-minute Fellowships: Barbara Balocating Dunn – Developing Inclusive Design for Dementia Standards
Barbara Balocating Dunn is a PhD student at Loughborough University funded under the Inclusive Design for Dementia (ID4D) Dunhill Medical Trust PhD Studentships. Barbara is a qualified architect with a background in Architecture and Human Factors for Inclusive Design, and her work focuses on enabling future home adaptations for people living with dementia.
As the number of people living with dementia increases, the need for supportive home design is crucial. In her talk, Barbara describes how her research is aiming to fill the gap in mainstream housing standards by creating the Inclusive Design for Dementia Standards (IDDS). She explains that existing building regulations mainly address physical accessibility but lack specific provisions for cognitive health conditions.
Barbara outlines her research process, which includes interviewing housing industry professionals, occupational therapists, dementia nurses, and technical standards officials, as well as retired people living with dementia. The data gathered from her research has informed the development of IDDS, with some of her key findings including the importance of main entry-level access, wider entrance halls, and flexible home layouts.
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Meet the speakers
Barbara Balocating Dunn
Barbara is a final year PhD student based at Loughborough University, she has a background in Architecture and Human Factors for Inclusive Design and is a qualified architect. Barbara’s PhD project focuses on developing UK inclusive design standards for mainstream housing to enable future home adaptations to support people with dementia.