Utilising Coping Mechanisms as a Creative Catalyst in Inclusive Architectural Design

Background This article draws on a doctoral study exploring how people with learning disabilities experience architectural barriers in shopping centres. It aimed to identify the barriers participants faced, coping mechanisms employed, and the opportunities these mechanisms present for informing inclusive architectural design. Methods The study was conducted in Cardiff, Wales, using a participatory action research approach supported by ethnographic methods. It involved collaboration with a self‐advocacy organisation and the employment of a co‐researcher with a learning disability. Data were collected through walking interviews and analysed through reflexive thematic analysis. The article is co‐authored by academic researchers and a co‐researcher with lived experience. Findings The analysis identified barriers related to sensory load, familiarity and wayfinding. Participants used a range of coping mechanisms, including sensory regulation strategies, reliance on companions, and improvised wayfinding techniques. These mechanisms were translated into insights to inform inclusive architectural design. Conclusions This study reframes coping mechanisms not as individual adaptations but as diagnostic of environmental failure and sources of creative design intelligence. Involving people with learning disabilities in architectural research, therefore, creates an opportunity for designers to translate lived experience into inclusive and practically grounded design solutions.