Exploring disability as a Creative and Critical Challenge to Design Norms

Through a shared dialogue the co-authors of this paper aim to rethink disability as a creative generator for architectural designers rather than as a ‘problem’, and as a challenge to norms about which bodies matter and which don’t in the design of the built environment. Using a process of iterative questions and answers, through written and online conferencing formats, we developed a set of key themes that can inform future work in this field. These are: the importance of centring creativity, both in terms of disability as a concept, and in relation to diverse disabled people as creative experts in negotiating built environments not designed for them; the potential value of focusing in on everyday social, spatial and material practices so as expand access and inclusion through an emphasis on enabling ‘small pleasures’; re-thinking the frameworks and methods we can use for mapping and analysing diverse bodies in space; connecting disability and inclusion to low-tech, sustainable and adaptable improvements of built space, including the design of inclusive services; and exploring how learning and practicing inclusivity is not only about teaching design principles and guidance, but also about changing current educational and professional modes of practice.