Welcome to the IDEA Center at Buffalo.

Our Mission

The IDEA Center is dedicated to improving the design of environments and products by making them more usable, safer and appealing to people with a wide range of abilities throughout their life spans.

Originally based on the concepts of accessible or "barrier free" design and normalization, our work has expanded to embrace the concept of universal design, or design of places and products that are usable by and desirable to a broad range of people, including people with disabilities and other often overlooked groups.

IDEA provides resources and technical expertise in architecture, product design, facilities management and the social and behavioral sciences to further these agendas.