Originally published here.

The COVID-19 pandemic has engendered changes in previously unimaginable timeframes, leading to new ways of working, which can quickly become the “ordinary” way of working. Many traditional workplace and educational practices and environments, however, are disadvantageous to people with disability and consequently are under-represented in the workforce and higher education. Design/methodology/approach Contributing factors include exclusionary societal and employer attitudes and inaccessible built environments including lack of attention to paths of travel, amenities, acoustics, lighting and temperature. Social exclusion resulting from lack of access to meaningful work is also problematic. COVID-19 has accelerated the incidence of working and studying from home, but the home environment of many people with disability may not be suitable in terms of space, privacy, technology access and connection to the wider community. Findings However, remote and flexible working arrangements may hold opportunities for enhancing work participation of people with disabilities. Instigating systemic conditions that will empower people with disability to take full advantage of ordinary working trajectories is key. As the current global experiment in modified work and study practices has shown, structural, organisational and design norms need to change. The future of work and study is almost certainly more work and study from home. An expanded understanding of people with disabilities lived experience of the built environment encompassing opportunities for work, study and socialisation from home and the neighbourhood would more closely align with the UNCRPD's emphasis on full citizenship. Originality/value This paper examines what is currently missing in the development of a distributed work and study place continuum that includes traditional workplaces and campuses, local neighbourhood hubs and homes.

We can decide that we are at an inflection point, see Dator (1979), and plan for alternative future scenarios, create new feedback loops, in which people with disability are meaningfully engaged in decision-making about how we all live and work. Embedding the UNCRPD’s guiding principles of accessibility, equality of opportunity, respect for difference and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity and full and effective participation and inclusion in society, into built environment education and practice, are crucial. Failures in the current system must be examined thoroughly, rather than simply accepting solutions that inadvertently become a “new ordinary”that still shuts out people with disability. On the one hand, this provides a framework around which decision-making towards a preferable future can be based. On the other, however, these scenarios generally reflect the experience and perspective of their authors. Currently, the majority of proposed COVID-normal scenarios emanate from large think tanks, business groups and consulting firms that service the business sector. While it is encouraging to see attitudes towards non- traditional working patterns being embraced, the work-life needs and wants of people with disability are rarely foregrounded.

This paper, however, has highlighted how the built environment including housing, streets, neighbourhoods and public transport systems is all critical in enabling people with disability to participate in an ordinary working life. Changing attitudes is not enough, the physical city must change and adapt as well. Therefore, when we as built environment practitioners reimagine the city, whether in terms of technology, infrastructure or the design of homes and neighbourhoods, our focus should always be on how we, in meaningful partnership with people with disability and other marginalised groups, engender a built environment that is equitable. In itself, this is not a novel idea, people with disability, representative organisations and advocates have been working towards removing built environment barriers well before the advent of the current pandemic. COVID-19 has, however, laid bare the structural inequality of our urban environments. Built environment form and detail should support the development of an accessible and inclusive distributed work and study place continuum. A continuum that includes traditional workplaces and campuses, local neighbourhood hubs and homes thereby maximises people with disabilities choice and control to self-determine an ordinary working life. In addressing the UNCRPD’s objective of full citizenship, all voices need to compose a future narrative together.

This will require coordination across multiple government and non-government agencies and interaction between the built environment and disability domains hitherto not often seen. But the current COVID-19 experience in Australia (and elsewhere) has demonstrated that a high degree of social cohesion and community-wide action and new  ways of thinking and doing education, research and practice are possible in times of crisis. It would be a greatly missed opportunity if government-led stimulus, such as the Victorian Government’s recently announced “COVID recovery”budget –billions of dollars pledged to employment creation with a focus on small business and a 5-billion-dollar investment in new social housing (Victorian Government, 2020) were not linked and coordinated in terms of working from home and neighbourhood. Actively involving and accommodating people with disability in the planning and design of urban, work-life environments would ensure that “normal-life lockdown”is consigned to history.

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