INTERDEPENDENT BODIES – Making Non-Normative Space(s) for Care

On October 29th, 2018, Dr. Gabrielle Schaad and Dr. Torsten Lange of the Visiting Lectureship of the Theory of Architecture at ETH initiated a roundtable discussion called „INTERDEPENDENT BODIES – Making Non- Normative Space(s) for Care“. Therefore, they invited Dr. Jos Boys (independent scholar, Dis/Ordinary Architecture Project, UK), Caroline Cardus (artist, UK), Dr. Nina Mühlemann (researcher/disability rights activist, CH/UK) and Prof. Adam Caruso (architect, Chair for Architecture & Construction ETHZ, UK/ CH).

The aim of that open event was to critically questioning the discipline of architecture in terms of accessibility of disabled people while raising awareness of existing inequality and searching for ways how to approach those problems. Architectural design and construction is mostly based on the abled body. But our society is made of all kinds of people including disabled ones. Unfortunately one often tends to fade out that fact while dealing with architecture.

Caroline Cardus is a visual artist interested in language, identity and sub-cultures. As a disabled artist, who sometimes is a wheelchair user, she started to question how her situation was handled in the past. Her practice approach is to close the gap between intention and action through her artwork which often contains text. Therefore, she presented us a series of her work, for example the installation ‚The Way Ahead‘ which reflects the everyday thoughts of disabled and deaf people talking and the access in different ways mostly outside this stereotype with several signs. She wanted disabled people to take center stage and say this is what we would want. As a disabled artist, she tries to communicate the anger of disabled people. She also mentions an example of the Paralympic Stadion which was partially accessible. So if you are a wheelchair user and went with your family you couldn’t sit together. Access was included but social access was not included. Another example from her own life was a little life hack which helped her to be independent like having the washing machine on a platform, so she can load and unload the machine easily by herself.

„Nothing about us without us“

Jos Boys trained in architecture and has worked as a journalist, researcher and design practitioner. She has taught architecture across many universities and is a co-founder of Matrix , a feminist architects practice in the late 1970s. They published several books, including ‘Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment’. She was showing us a short summary of her own practice and started with talking about the dis-/ordinary architecture project which is an informal platform. The main idea is to really try to develop ways of working with disabilities and architecture differently. Then she mentioned: „Before we start to talk about care, you cant’t even interrogate the concept of care unless you think about what you mean about disabled people.“

When talking about methods to think disability differently within architecture, she also mentioned the handbook for architects ‚doing disability different‘. Jos Boys had involved as many disabled voices as possible with many examples of work from disabled artists. The goal is that architects make much more use of this knowledge rather than ignoring disabled people’s experience. She believes that one can start architecture from disability and that means to start from valuing the richness of diversity.

„Make all infrastructure more useable and more enjoyable for everyone“

Nina Mühlemann is a Swiss writer and activist. She made her PhD in English literature about arts and performance during the 2012 Paralympics in London. In her Blog, Disability Arts Online, she writes about her research and disability in different contexts. By showing us an advertisement from the Paralympics in London, which presented the athletes of the Paralympics as super-humans or by an example where the sign language was implemented into a performance, Nina Mühlemann gave us an idea of how disabled culture differentiates from the mainstream culture.

Furthermore, she gave us some examples of her life, where her disability and her need of a wheelchair become a real challenge in terms of her daily routine. The aim for her would be, that accessibility becomes more implemented into the design process and not just remain as a set of requirements, one has to add to the design. Her suggestion was, to have more discussions between architects and disabled people, in order to come up with more inventive ramps or other facilities, whereby they would become a design product rather than a non-attractive addition to a building.

She craves to enter a building that is designed for all kinds of people, not just for the average. Therefore, our society has to realise that disability does not exist in a vacuum as she points out.

“We do not live single-issued lives.”

Adam Caruso is an architect based in London and Zürich. Since 2011 he is working as professor at ETH, previously he taught at several other universities. Being the only guest without a personal experience with disability, he decided to therefore show a small selection of his architectural work and giving the audience an idea of how architects deal with this theme.

Talking about The New Art Gallery in Walsall, he expanded the term accessibility to a broader social level. The project intended to offer a cultural program to a society that normally would not get in touch with art. In this sense Caruso mentioned the potential of exclusion or inclusion, architecture can have and how architects can influence, to some extend, who will be using the offered facilities.

He mentioned, that when he was at university, he would not be taught about what it means to design an accessible building. This, he thinks has changed. Nevertheless, the teaching system would still need to offer more opportunities for the students to work on these themes and incorporate it more into the design studios. But not only education would need to raise more awareness about accessibility, but it would also be crucial that investors become sensitised about this topic.

“Capitalism puts a lot of pressure on all of us, because some things just become impossible.”

After having heard all those different opinions and stories from the guests and also from the audience, among some were personally affected in conclusion, we can say it was e very relevant and eye-opening evening. This event made us realise once again, what it means to live with a disability in everyday life, to perceive the struggles some of us have to overcome on a daily bases. We also recognised that we, as students, don’t lack of social empathy but we sometimes tend to unintentionally fade out those problems we should seriously consider to solve.

It is indeed difficult to break with old norms that have become standard throughout the history of our modern world. But there has always been diversity among societies, more privileged and more handicapped people. Hence the question is: How do we deal with those circumstances? Should we keep things unchanged and exclude some people from equal participation or should we rather work towards inclusion?

We think after this evening the consent is clear. We have to start thinking architecture and accessibility together from the beginning, including the creativity, ideas and opinions from those who are actually affected.