Quantitative Interpretation of Universal Design Features in Shopping Malls: A Case Study in Kolkata, India

United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11 indicates the need for and importance of inclusive public spaces as a prerequisite towards sustainable cities. Shopping malls in urban India attract a significantly large population daily, making them an important typology of urban structures which deserve universal design. Thus, in this paper, universal design features of shopping malls in Kolkata have been considered. Despite a significant increase in the number of elderly and specially-abled people, civic administration in Kolkata has not been able to successfully implement the national guidelines on inclusiveness in its shopping malls. Five shopping malls from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation were considered case areas for the fieldwork. The accessibility audit checklist included in the ‘Harmonized Guidelines and Standards for Universal Accessibility in India 2021’ published by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, has been used in this paper. It was found that the accessibility percentage of shopping malls ranges between 14.4% and 44.8%, indicating the lack of universal design considerations. Pearson’s correlation between the year of establishment and the accessibility percentage of each case area was found to be −0.66, indicating an alarming deterioration in universal design considerations over the years. On comparing the accessibility performance with the diverse user groups, it was found that individual wheelchair users are likely to face the most difficulty in the case areas with a median accessibility value of 41.46%. This research indicated that accessible continuity in shopping malls in Kolkata can be imparted only by implementing case-specific universal design assessment through a primary survey.