A medium high, healthy, without physical or sensory impediments, standard man is the traditional user for the design process. That concept, however, is severely limited as it does not properly consider large groups of individuals who does not have these characteristics, either permanently or temporarily.

Through the concepts of “accessibilità (accessibility)”, “visitabilità (visitability)” and “adattabilità (adaptability)”, Italian regulation incorporates what above by introducing obligations so to allow people with reduced motor or sensory ability to reach buildings or individual accommodations and to use spaces safely and independently.

Such an approach, although significant because it promotes a real social integration for people with reduced motor or sensory skills, can be further improved.

Firstly, users should include anyone with movement or perception difficulties, both permanently and temporarily: individuals with disabilities, but also children, elderly people, pregnant women, convalescent persons or people with plaster.

A second aspect concerns the design measures imposed by regulation, which can result incoherent and disconnected from the rest of the building or the context and may discriminate or marginalize the users who need them, generating anguish and frustration in some cases.

In order to cope with all those things, a different design approach is growing: the DESIGN FOR ALL, which aims to overcome the concepts of accessible or specifically created spaces, to promote the construction of safe environments, comfortable and usable for lifetime by a wider category of users, like described above.

In doing so, human beings and their needs become the centre of design, taking care of the changes they might meet in lifetime, whether temporary or permanent.