At the beginning of the SWIN work, we wrote to all the UK Heads of School of Architecture to ask them how they currently explore disability issues.

Professor Jeremy Till, now Head of School of Architecture, University of Westminster, offers a good summary of the situation:

…one cannot cover all aspects of the design of the built environment, but one can set up an ethos in which issues such as inclusion, access, autism, the vernacular, safety (to name just of the few recent surveys) are inculcated as values to be taken seriously. I would say, but then maybe I would, that this is the ethos (...). We explicitly refer to the user as a core part of our focus, and in this see the user as diverse (including issues of disability). Our 'mission' is specifically about the social and environmental responsibility of the architect. I argue that the development of this ethos and responsibility then can be applied to the more specialised areas.

Without doubt, many people within architectural education and practice would agree with this comment. But how precisely is this general attitude being translated into specific educational and design approaches, or through particular projects or subjects? Given all the other demands on architectural education, how are disability issues best integrated?

The Seven Deadly Sins project was for students enrolled in the third year of an architectural technology program by a professor called BobTopping at Sheridan College - a community college near Toronto, Ontario. As part of a design elective course, "Universal Design" where students had studied the principles of universal design, they were here asked to design an entrance which excluded as many people as possible. The image shows a design where you can only get in via a rope ladder.

Participatory design is one, very important, means to explore relationships between clients, users and designers; and many architectural schools run live projects on a regular basis, often very successfully. However, we need to be sensitive to potential tensions between people (with little knowledge of architecture) being 'consulted' as 'users' of buildings and the architectural 'setting of design education.

Too often - and without meaning to - tutors or students can use stereotypes of disabled people, or make assumptions about what they need. It is important to speak with disabled people, not for them. And it is essential to see that disabled people are as varied as any other section of the population and that they are more than just a disability.

Working with disabled and Deaf artists (already happening in some architectural schools) is one way of making shared creativity central, rather than only focusing on access needs. The aim here is not so much to for students to try and find out ‘what disabled people want’ as users of buildings, but to engage together in opening up new ways of looking and thinking.

Squarinthecircle was a public art programme initiated by the Disability Arts development agency Dada-South with Diablo Arts, in partnership with the University of Portsmouth, St George’s Beneficial School, the Portsea community, and disabled artists.

The project involved architecture students, other local young people, the Portsmouth Disability Forum, local disabled artists and the University estates team. It included workshops by Signdance Collective with architectural students and with school children; and the commissioning of a sculpture from disabled artist Tony Heaton (pictured).

There are plenty of good examples of inclusive design projects. Many architects and tutors prefer this term to accessibility, because it takes the emphasis away from disabled people and instead focuses on designing appropriately for everyone. Americans often use the term universal design, and various definitions exist. For example, see Universal Design Education Online.

The So What is Normal project takes a different direction. This is for two reasons. First, whilst good inclusive design is very aware of the conflicts, complexities and sheer impossibility of making environments that work well for everyone, the concept itself builds in an assumption that such a goal is possible. Second, despite its good intentions, inclusive design continues to be perceived as a specialism, separate from 'normal' architectural practice.

Within architectural education it still fails to have a purchase, somehow sitting awkwardly with other aspects of learning and teaching design. Two architectural and landscape tutors, Ruth Morrow and Kathryn Moore, with many years experience in this area, have suggested that the underlying problem is in the continuing false divide between ethics (doing what 'users' want) and aesthetics (making beautiful buildings). Click here to download the pdf of their discussion.

Rather than Inclusive Design as an idea, what about Design for Imperfection?

Part of this different direction is to think about practices and processes, rather than inclusive design 'solutions'. Architects have a legal responsibility to their clients and users called Duty of Care. In architectural education, this is also about students developing their own moral and ethical positions, thinking about how they place themselves within a wider context, and what the social responsibilities are in becoming an architect or related professional. Critically engaging with different groups as equal participants - and most importantly having opportunities to reflect on ways of working together - becomes a key element of design project work. Setting projects which explore disability – and diversity issues more generally – enables ethical concerns to be central and explicit. For example, the Making Discursive Spaces project, at the University of Brighton, attempted to open up debates between students and some disabled and deaf artists, who were involved as visiting tutors.

It really put a rocket up my ar*e and I think that was important – it got me going. It should really extend to everyone, everyone should have this opportunity.

Student feedback, Making Discursive Spaces project, University of Brighton Spring 2008

Most immediately this means not seeing disabled and deaf people as a category 'out there' who we 'do things for'; but opening up our awareness of, and taking responsibility for, non-disabled assumptions and stereotypes about disabled people.

As disabled artists and users, we are forced to constantly evaluate form and function and engage creatively with practical problems around negotiating space. This emotional and physical engagement with space allows for a much broader debate around how we as people relate to architecture and space.

Artist's comment, Making Discursive Spaces blog 08/04/07

Rather than divisions between designers and users, this positions us all as participants in a process exploring questions such as:

• What embodied knowledge and experience does each participant bring to the encounter?
• What are the routine social and spatial practices which frame the encounter? Who is included and who excluded?
• How can design build on and support the rich diversity of our social and spatial practices?
• How can design 'notice' that which is often ignored?

Many projects introducing disability into architectural schools are based on asking students to imagine themselves as disabled (perhaps by being blindfolded or going around in a wheelchair for a day). The problem for most disabled people about this approach is that it can reinforce the notion of disability as a lack, as something missing. Anyone put in the position of temporarily 'removing' one of their senses will be mostly aware of what they cannot do. This is a poor simulation of what it is like to be disabled.

A student, blindfolded for example, will compare themselves to how they 'normally' see. Compare this to Sally French's description of normal blindness:

We cannot always engage in the same activities as sighted people, we cannot do things as fast, we need more time to see, and we need the time to use our other senses to the full. When we are together, getting lost and having problems, we are engaging with the world far more than we ever could from a car or at someone else’s pace. We might not do as much, but what we do, we do on our own terms and at our pace without any need to explain ourselves.

Sally French “The wind gets in my way” in Mairian Corker and Sally French (eds) Disability Discourse Open University Press 1999 p27

The Art Council funded 'Sense of Place' project enabled architectural and interiors students to work with Vocal Eyes, an organisation who provide audio-descriptions of visual culture, such as theatre performances and paintings to blind and partially sighted people.

Vocal Eyes wanted to offer audio-described architectural tours for blind and partially sighted people. What was great about this project is that it enabled students and blind people to work together on discussing both what space 'felt' like, and demanded of students that they very closely observe material space so as to describe it accurately and poetically.

Based on this pilot and its evaluation, Vocal Eyes now do regular audio-described tours of buildings.

Many people do not know much about disability, whilst others may know it as an ordinary part of their life, or of a family member, or friend. Disability awareness training workshops should be an essential component of any project related to disability and architecture. These offer informative and valuable ways to think, talk and understand an issue that often makes non-disabled people uncomfortable.

Thinking about disability and architecture offers other possibilities which challenge 'what is normal' in architectural design . Re-imagining relationships between disability and architecture can provide opportunities to re-think concepts of users, to explore stereotypes and to imagine alternative 'figures'. Starting from disability can open up the assumptions built into our (non-disabled) environments and enable close and critical looking at un-noticed everyday 'normal' interactions with things, space and each other.

Revital Cohen, a second year MA student at the RCA, won the CABE 'Designing for our Future Selves' environment award, for her conceptual project 'Life Support.'. She was interested in re-imagining support equipment for people who were on dialysis or oxygen, not as machines but as as assistance animals. (www.revitalcohen.com)

There is also potential to shift from assumptions in the architectural educational process that design starts from abstract ideas and moves into the details; beginning instead from the poetics of practicalities (see next section: designing).

Starting from disability, diversity and difference also has the potential to impact on teaching and learning. By being more explicit and reflective about the assumptions we bring to the educational process (whether as teachers, students or critics), we can open up different kinds of creative spaces.

The Overalls Project grew out of an Access to Art programme for adults with learning disabilities. These students learnt in collaboration with students from art and design courses at the University of Brighton; everyone wore white overalls, which became a place to record or collect images. The course tutors then explored how this impromptu activity could be developed into a useful reflective tool.

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The University of Portsmouth employs Jon Adams, an artist with dyslexia and Asperger’s syndrome, as a Research Fellow, to work with students on projects, including architecture students. Jon is also working on ‘alternative Platform’ an ongoing collaboration with Southern Trains, Pallant House Gallery, DADA South and Sifer Design (illustration shows installation at London Bridge station).