Doing Disability Differently
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Doing Disability Differently This ground-breaking book aims to take a new and innovative view on how disability and architecture might be connected. Rather than putting disability at the end of the design process, centred mainly on compliance, it sees disability – and ability – as creative starting points. It asks the intriguing question: can working from dis/ability actually generate an alternative kind of architectural avant-garde? To do this, Doing Disability Differently: • explores how thinking about dis/ability opens up to critical and creative investigation our everyday social attitudes and practices about people, objects and space; • argues that design can help resist and transform underlying and unnoticed inequalities; • introduces architects to the emerging and important field of disability stud- ies and considers what different kinds of design thinking and doing this can enable; • asks how designing for everyday life – in all its diversity – can be better embedded within contemporary architecture as a discipline; • offers examples of what doing disability differently can mean for architec- tural theory, education and professional practice; • aims to embed into architectural practice attitudes and approaches that creatively and constructively refuse to perpetuate body ‘norms’ or the resulting inequalities in access to, and support from, built space. Ultimately, this book suggests that re-addressing architecture and disability involves nothing less than re-thinking how to design for the everyday occupa- tion of space more generally. Jos Boys is a Teaching Fellow in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sci- ences at the University of Northumbria. She brings together a background in architecture with a research interest in the relationships between space and its occupation, and an involvement in many disability related projects. She is co- founder of Architecture-InsideOut (AIO) which brings together disabled artists and architects in collaborative explorations of building and urban design. In Memoriam Georgie Wise Doing Disability Differently An alternative handbook on architecture, dis/ability and designing for everyday life Jos Boys First published 2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 Jos Boys The right of Jos Boys to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. The purchase of this copyright material confers the right on the purchasing institution to photocopy pages which bear the photocopy icon and copyright line at the bottom of the page. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Boys, Jos. Doing disability differently : an architect’s alternative manual / Jos Boys. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Barrier-free design. Architecture—Human factors. 3. Architecture and society. I. Title. NA2545.A1B69 2014 725'.54—dc23 2013043300 ISBN13: 978-0-415-82493-4 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-82495-8 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-1-315-77755-9 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon Contents List of figures vii List of plates xi Acknowledgements xiii Introduction: why do disability differently? 1 SECTION I Starting from disability 9 1 Challenging commonsense 11 2 Beyond accessibility 23 3 Unravelling dis/ordinary occupancy 41 SECTION II Re-connecting architecture with dis/ability 61 4 Destabilizing architecture? 63 5 On feeling and beauty 80 6 Bodies, buildings, devices and augmentation 94 SECTION III Doing architecture and dis/ability differently 115 7 Alternative mappings 117 vi Contents 8 Strategies and tactics 144 9 Re-thinking the normal 175 Glossary of terms 193 Bibliography 200 Index 214 Figures 0.1 Balls! One of a series of performances exploring disability through playfulness, Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London by architects Architype and disabled artists Caroline Cardus and Joolz Cave Berry, as part of Arts Council South East funded Architecture-InsideOut event (AIO), 10 May 2008. Photography: Jos Boys. 3 0.2 Experiment in Happiness, 2008, Noemi Lakmaier. Photography: Hannah Facey. 8 1.1 Sue Austin, Creating the Spectacle, Unlimited commission as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, co-curated with Trish Wheatley. Copyright: www.wearefreewheeling.org.uk. Photography: Norman Lomax. 16 1.2 Liz Crow, Bedding Out, 48-hour durational performance at Salisbury Arts Centre, April 2013. Photography: Mathew Fessey/ Roaring Girl Productions. www.roaring-girl.com 18 1.3 Caroline Cardus, The Ruby Slippers (2003). www.carolinecardus.com 22 2.1 Caroline Cardus and Jos Boys, Toilet Trauma, demonstrating an inaccessible ‘accessible’ toilet, Truman’s Brewery, London, 2007. Photography: Jos Boys. 26 2.2 Illustrative example from Molly Story, James Mueller and Ronald Mace (1998) The Universal Design File: Designing for People of all Ages and Abilities, NC State University Center for Universal Design, p. 39. www.ncsu.edu/ncsu/design/cud/ pubs_p/pudfiletoc.htm 28 2.3 Architecture-InsideOut (AIO), participatory event between architects and disabled artists, Lightbox, Woking, 21 June 2008. Photography: Jos Boys. 31 2.4 Architects and disabled artists work together at Architecture- InsideOut (AIO) design event, Tate Modern, 10 May 2008. Photography: Jos Boys. 32 2.5 Disabled artists working as design tutors: Making Discursive Spaces project, School of Architecture and Interior Design, University of Brighton, May 2007. Photography: Jos Boys. 33 viii Figures 3.1 Caroline Cardus, signs from The Way Ahead, 2004, Interaction Milton Keynes and touring exhibition. 43 4.1 Cover illustration to Content magazine, Rem Koolhaas, 2004, Cologne: Taschen. Photography: Jos Boys. 65 4.2 Interior of main lecture theatre, Kunsthal Rotterdam by OMA, completed 1992. Photography: Marianne (as part of Wiki Loves Art/NL project) via Wikipedia Creative Commons. 68 4.3 Exterior view, OMA, Villa at Bordeaux, France (1998). Photograph courtesy of Living Architectures, www.living-architectures.com/Koolhaas_houselife.php 70 4.4 Video still from Koolhaas Houselife (Bêka and Lemoine 2008) featuring Guadalupe Acedo, the housekeeper, as she looks after the house. Available from www.living-architectures.com/ Koolhaas_houselife.php 71 4.5 Interior view of the Villa at Bordeaux showing unprotected staircase. Photograph courtesy of Living Architectures, www.living-architectures.com/Koolhaas_houselife.php 75 5.1 Exterior of Thermal Baths at Vals, Switzerland, Peter Zumthor, 1996. Photography: p2cl. Downloaded from www.flickr.com/ photos/p2cl/354225161 CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0), via Wikimedia Commons. 82 5.2 Exterior view of entrance, St Benedict Chapel Sumvitg, Switzerland by Peter Zumthor (1988). Photography: unnamed author. Downloaded from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:S._Benedetg.jpg via Wikipedia Commons (GNU Free Documentation Licence). 88 5.3 Marc Quinn, ‘breath’, an 11-metre tall inflatable sculpture depicting a naked and pregnant Alison Lapper at the 2013 Venice Art Biennale. Photography: Jos Boys. 93 6.1 Marcos Cruz, Hyperdermis/Cyborgian Interfaces, 2004–7. Overall view with communication suits, in-wall sitting, relaxing cocoons, storage capillaries and gestural tentacles. 101 6.2 Revital Cohen (2008), ‘Respiratory Dog’ drawings as part of Life Support project. www.cohenvanbalen.com/work/life-support 104 6.3 Examples of student work from Unit 20, Porosity: A Material Shift Towards an Architecture of Permeability (MArch Architecture), Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, End-of-Year Exhibition 2013. Unit tutors: Marcos Cruz, Marjan Colletti and Richard Beckett. 107 6.4 Emily Yan, Inhabitable Thresholds, Undulating Apartments, Hong Kong. From Unit 20 (MArch Architecture), Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, End-of-Year Exhibition 2013. Unit tutors: Marcos Cruz, Marjan Colletti and Richard Beckett. 109 Figures ix 7.1 University of Brighton Interior Architecture student developing an audio-described architectural tour with blind and partially sighted participants, Brighton 2007. Photography: Jos Boys. 127 7.2 Architecture-InsideOut (AIO) event, InQbate Creativity Zone, University of Sussex, UK, 10–11 April 2008. Photography: Jos Boys. www.architecture-insideout.co.uk/?location_id=31 137 7.3 Henry Franks, Muglexia – mugs designed to illustrate how dyslexics often deal with inversion, here resulting in cups that are more stable and more balanced in the hand because of the handle position being upside down and lower down than normal. http://henryfranks.net 139 7.4 Interior Architecture student tutorials, Making Discursive Spaces project, University of Brighton, UK, 2007. http://www. discursivespaces.co.uk 140 7.5 Tony Heaton, Squarinthecircle? Sculpture, commissioned by the Arts