No abstract

Critics point towards an excessive visual emphasis in (western) architecture bringing about a weakened sense of belonging, and a disconnection from places and from other people. Architects' visual way of knowing and working is further criticized for contributing to an alienating "architecture of the eye." This article aims to challenge this critique by offering a more nuanced understanding of vision and its connecting potential. To this end, it engages with how a d/Deaf architect, George Balsley, uses and attaches meaning to vision, partially prompted by the highly visual and spatial dynamics inherent to sign language. It relies on several interviews, observations, and a guided tour through a building he helped designing, the Sorenson Language and Communication Center (SLCC) in Washington DC. The article looks specifically into the building's vision-centered features in relation to George's d/Deaf ways of being. His way of seeing is reflected in distinct characteristics of the SLCC that sustain (sign) language, mediate interpersonal communication, and facilitate connection to and understanding of spacesfeatures that are relevant for but also beyond the d/Deaf community. The architecture that issues from George's d/Deaf ways of seeing thus challenges the critique that vision-centered architecture by definition disconnects.

Studies on design, disability and phenomenology offer rich insights into how the designed environment is experienced by people with different abilities. In architectural design, this experience is only starting to become recognized as a valuable resource for designers. Considering disability as a particular kind of experience, we report on the focused ethnography of architect Marta Bordas Eddy's design practice. We analyze how her design practice and outcomes connect with her embodied experience of being a wheelchair user and the role of architecture therein. We interviewed Marta, her sister/co-worker and her life partner/co-habitant, gathered design documents, and analyzed the house she designed for and by herself. Our study highlights how Marta's experience of being disabled, combined with her background, informs how she assesses design and establishes distinct architectural qualities. Being a disabled person and a designer enables Marta to detect problems in an intuitive body-based manner and think of solutions at the same time. The analysis of Marta's house moreover raises awareness of architecture's role in (disabled) people's lives insofar it can support or impair human capabilities. It challenges prevailing views of what a house for a disabled person looks and is like, and how design can neutralize apparently restricted capabilities.

It certainly seems like a fortuitous accident that four wheelchair users have ended up studying at the same school of architecture, at almost the same time. Maybe it is even the same kind of twisted fate that has confined us to a wheelchair in the first place, as none of us was born in it. With different ages, backgrounds, interests and sets of difficulties to master, we committed ourselves to initiate careers in architecture several years ago. Accessibility issues, especially in terms of mobility, have (always) been an intrinsic and fundamental part of our approach to academic projects, and they will most certainly continue to maintain a strong presence in our professional lives. This book reflects a set of principles and motivations that fuel our daily concerns. First and foremost, it is our desire to introduce people to a wide range of viewpoints, other ways of perceiving the environment in general, and architecture in particular. Furthermore, we aspire to break nonsensical stereotypes, particularly those that claim everything dealing with accessibility and universal design is ugly or sad, or that it only exists to assist a ridiculously small chunk of the population that is (un)fortunately affected by some kind of affliction. In terms of academic training, we’d like to voice our concern that very little is being done to approach architecture through anything other than a pure ocularcentric bias that precludes other basic concepts. If anything, architecture is created by means of and for the entire human body. Finally, it is also our wish to present our final theses projects, not because they are particularly extraordinary or look especially nice, but because they were conceived in a unique way: they were created with a view to fostering the closest possible relationship between user and designer.

Prevailing conceptions of disability in architectural discourse give rise to the devaluing of disabled people's lived experiences. However, several studies in architecture and disability studies show how disability experience may lead to a careful attentiveness toward the qualities of the built environment that are relevant for design. Using focused ethnography, we examine how architect William Feuerman's disruptive vision impairment restructured his attention. The insights gained from his experience were incorporated conceptually into his design practice, and the resulting design principles were realized in one of his office's projects-Urban Chandelier, a design intervention positioned in an urban installation. Feuerman's experiences encouraged him to deliberately introduce disruption into his design, aiming not to disable everyone, but to make passers-by attentive to their surroundings. He reorganizes people's modes of attention through the distinct visual qualities of architecture, generating new meaning, in a similar manner as the stroke that affected his attention. We conclude that considering disabled people's lived experiences demonstrates potential in designing artifacts experientially interesting for a broad population, including but not limited to disabled people.