Author:

Keywords:

Social Sciences, Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary, Social Sciences - Other Topics, architectural practice, disability, embodied experience, situation of use, spatial experience, spatial quality, actor of innovation, DESIGN, 1399 Other Education, 1503 Business and Management, 1608 Sociology, Education, 5001 Applied ethics

Abstract:

© 2015 Journal of Research Practice and the authors. Through their bodily interaction with the designed environment, disabled people can detect obstacles and appreciate spatial qualities architects may not be attuned to. While designers in several disciplines acknowledge disabled people as lead or critical users, in architectural practice their embodied experience is hardly recognized as a valuable resource for design. In this article, we therefore investigate what professional architects could learn from disabled people. To this end, the article reports on a field study, set up to explore ways of mobilizing disabled people’s embodied experience to inform architectural practice. Analysis of the field study’s.