Healthy and Inclusive Neighbourhoods: The Design for Inclusion Perspectives in the Urban Health Approach

Literature suggests focusing on the built environment for designing healthy and inclusive neighbourhoods by applying the urban health approach. However, it is still difficult to address these issues through an urban product design perspective and an inclusive lens. This paper aims to clarify this aspect starting from the data provided with an action research project aimed at finding scenarios for healthy and inclusive neighbourhoods. Specifically, from this project best practices were extracted and analysed for understanding how to assume an inclusive perspective to design healthy and inclusive neighbourhoods. As a result, the study proposes categories divided into design instruments, best practices, and urban products that may help in designing healthy and inclusive neighbourhoods from a micro-level perspective. Finally, the paper discusses these categories as a toolbox for the positionality toward inclusion of designers, policy-makers and citizens.