Abstract
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.
Highlights
Technical solutions and technological artifacts enhance, extend, compensate or restore human capabilities among a plurality of bodies
After outlining the role of the body in architectural design in general, and presenting the methods and material used, we report on the findings of our analysis
This case study offers a nuanced insight into how a disabled architect uses, experiences and
Summary
Technical solutions and technological artifacts enhance, extend, compensate or restore human capabilities among a plurality of bodies. Fully operational and present, may fall into the background of people’s perception [1,2]. In the relationship between a person and their wheelchair, for instance, Myriam Winance [3] recognizes Don Ihde’s idea of a background relationship with technological artifacts: when a person sits comfortably, the wheelchair disappears from their conscious attention. Ihde’s idea of embodiment relations seems to be at play: by becoming an extension of the body, the wheelchair modifies how that person perceives, behaves and connects with the world. The (un)awareness of the technological aid relates to the (un)awareness of the body
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