Designing from a Disabled Body: The Case of Architect Marta Bordas Eddy

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 pa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Multimodal technologies and interaction 2018-03, Vol.2 (1), p.4
Main Authors: Pérez Liebergesell, Natalia, Vermeersch, Peter-Willem, Heylighen, Ann
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Architects
Architecture
Design
Design analysis
design practice
Designers
Disability
disability experience
embodiment
Phenomenology
technology
Violence
Vortices
Wheelchairs
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Summary: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.
ISSN:2414-4088
2414-4088
DOI:10.3390/mti2010004