Civic Access Design
FIR Access Design is Sharona Franklin’s disability-led research and design practice, integrating civic infrastructure, care systems, and material ecologies. Its frameworks bridge art, access, and policy to create practical, real-world solutions that center disabled experiences, climate and lived usability.
FIR develops equitable pilots across housing, mobility, and care. Each framework emphasizes innovation with lived disability knowledge, into access infrastructure.
Two-Placard Accessible Parking System [TAPS]
A two-placard parking framework integrating universal design and economic-inclusion metrics. Presented to City of Victoria, 2025. Concept and pilot model developed under Driving Equity initiative. This iniative is in 2nd stage development post-presentation, and seeking collaboration. TAPS summary proposal and more detailed, 90 page mansucript available upon request.
[aligning with BC Motor Vehicle Act, Accessible Canada Act (2019), BC Accessibility Act (2021), City of Victoria Accessibility Framework, Canadian Human Rights Act, BC Human Rights Code, UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), Universal Design Standards Universal Design Principles (ISO 21542:2011)]
Retrofit Accessibility Micro-Grant Program [RAMP]
A framework addressing the barriers between accessible housing policy, lived disability experience, and displacement. RAMP proposes a bridge-microgrant model, to incentivize landlords to retrofit existing rental units into accessible housing, for potential future tenants. This initiative creates quick adaptations for suites in transition, not yet rented. RAMP has not yet been publicly presented and is open to adoption and collaboration. Full proposal
available upon request.
[aligning with Accessible Canada Act (2019), BC Accessibility Act (2021), BC Human Rights Code, Canadian Human Rights Act, National Housing Strategy Act (2019), CMHC Accessibility Standards, BC Residential Tenancy Act, UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)]
Navigation, Equity + Support Toolkit for Youth in Care with Disabilities [NEST]
A rights-based educational infographic Toolkit designed to support youth with disabilities in government care, and through aging out. NEST toolkit outlines disability tenant rights for minors, legal, financial, educational, and accessibility supports, translating policy into actionable pathways. NEST was developed from lived-experience as a former youth in care with childhood disabilities. Currently in development phase, additional information available upon request.
[aligning with BC Child, Family and Community Service Act, UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), Canadian Human Rights Act, BC Human Rights Code, Accessible Canada Act (2019), BC Accessibility Act (2021), Youth Agreements and Post-Care Supports Framework (BC), Duty to Accommodate in Education]
PWD Accessibile Coactive Education [PACE]
PACE [2017] was an early accessibility framework presented to Emily Carr Institue of Art + Design to support students with life-limiting disabilities - for chronically ill and medically vulnerable students who faced complex educational barriers. It proposed flexible pacing and at-home (online) study for a medically accessible attendance policy. Students could remain enrolled and progress without penalties during flare-ups, treatments, or critical health instability.
Structured around the social and human rights models of disability, PACE identified limits within the medical and moral models that frame disability as an individual shortcoming rather than a socio-structural barrier. PACE’s goal was to resolve buracratic rigidity that inevitably ‘pushes out’ disabled students from educational culture and accreditation. An academic form of harm reduction to health, equitable access, and cultural inclusion.
The framework remains available for institutions to adopt, adapt, or scale.
[aligning with BC Human Rights Code, Canadian Human Rights Act, Duty to Accommodate in Post-Secondary Education, Accessible Canada Act (2019), BC Accessibility Act (2021), Institutional EDI Policy Standards, Social Model and Human Rights Model of Disability]
Laminar Flow Sessions
L-Flow Sessions [2016] was a digital-access equity program designed for people with disabilities experiencing long-term hospitalization, or homebound immobility. The sessions included signups, offering one-on one workshops for isolated and immobile disabled creatives to learn digital art tools including Adobe Suite, Illustrator, Photoshop and design literacy skills. Laminar Flow defined by fluid motion where particles move in smooth, parallel without mixing, yet create high momentum. This flow represents the often isolation of physical immobility, challenging stillness. The project worked to connect disabled creators with tools and education, to reach a creative flow state while creating art & design bedridden through tech and digital devices.
This program grew from my own lived experience from an early life extended stay at GF Strong Rehabilitation Center [2006], when I was still learning basic computer skills, with no high school diploma, and wishing to one day learn how to design.
L-Flow Sessions was my quiet hope of turning an early wish into access infrastructure for future creators isolated by disability barriers.
[aligned with early digital-equity and disability access frameworks including the Canadian Human Rights Act, BC Human Rights Code, UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and emerging digital-inclusion policies later formalized in the Accessible Canada Act 2019]