On inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility in civil engineering and architectural design. A review of assessment tools.

Since the mid-20th century, assessing the performance of the built environment was recognized as an instrument to improve the efficiency in the design and construction processes. However, it appears difficult to identify assessment tools that currently include a holistic assessment of inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility criteria for the built environments. A systematic literature review was performed to define the state of the art of assessment tools in the domain of civil engineering and architectural design, and to identify gaps in the criteria of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility. The review highlighted three fundamental aspects. First, how the binomial relationship between regulations and assessment tools is not mutually exclusive. Second, how the process of assessing buildings is shifting towards mixed evaluation methods. Third, how assessment tools have been developed with a perceivable evolutionary latency from when standards were released. With this work, we produced a state-of-the-art overview about inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA) in the built environment, to inform the development of tools that will foster the design of future inclusive environments.