Core Projects

The Inclusive Environments Lab at Simon Fraser University focuses on assessing housing, neighbourhoods, and the built environment for older adults and individuals with mobility, sensory, and cognitive disabilities. Through our projects, we have collaborated with universities such as UBC, Dalhousie University, Université Laval, and Western University. We are committed to bridging the gap between academia and practice, actively engaging with community partners. Recent collaborations include the municipalities of Metro Vancouver, and organizations like Brightside Community Homes and Whole Way House, ensuring our research is grounded in real-world insights.

Currently we have three major projects under the lab each with their own methods to explore the built environment:​

1. ​The Stakeholders’ Walkability/Wheelability Audit in Neighbourhoods (SWAN) is a sub-project of the Mobility, Accessibility, and Participation of People with Disabilities (MAP) partnership under the stream of Navigation and Pedestrian Environment
2. Project Sidewalk, a tool developed by the Makeability Lab at the University of Washington for collecting street-level accessibility data, has been adopted to gather data from the city of Burnaby
3. NeighbourABLE Vancouver is project funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) with the goal of developing a tool that assesses “person-environment fit”—how well housing and neighbourhoods fit the needs of residents with disabilities​

As the projects under the lab have commonalities in terms of research stream and location, the combined efforts under the lab can achieve the following objectives:​

• Engage with local communities, stakeholders, and people with disabilities in the design and evaluation of neighbourhood environments, ensuring that their voices are integral to the research process​
• Promote collaborative research on neighbourhood inclusivity, combining insights from various projects to build a comprehensive understanding of the built environment’s impact on diverse populations.​
• Integrate knowledge mobilization activities and knowledge products across projects, enhancing outreach, promoting wider dissemination of findings, and ensuring the efficient use of resources ​

​Through interdisciplinary research and innovative methods, the lab strives to create inclusive environments that enhance the quality of life for these communities.​