The Right to Enjoy Space: Narratives of ability, inclusion and access
KoozArch speaks to Zoe Partington — co-founder, with former Matrix member Jos Boys, of DisOrdinary Architecture — together with architects Lauren Li Porter and Takuya Oura from the practice Manalo and White, on the creative and generative possibilities of designing for accessibility and inclusion.
KOOZ: Firstly I’d like to congratulate you on the publication of Many More Parts Than M!1, a compendium of knowledge and information drawing from The DisOrdinary Architecture Project’s storied experiences and narratives on inclusive design. Zoe, could you share with us a little of your journey in working with disability access?
Well, I am a disabled person, and I’ve been working in this field since the mid-nineties. I studied architecture in Birmingham, but I was really more interested in the philosophical aspects and in art practice; in many ways I was a bit of a misfit. I ended up doing a lot of work with cultural organisations — because I loved art, culture and architecture — which was a really good grounding for me to start working in that capacity, training people and talking to organisations.
At the same time the UK Disability Discrimination Act came into force (1995, replaced in 2010 with the Equality Act) At the Royal National Institute for the Blind, under Peter Barker — who was very forward thinking — our department really considered cross-impairment around disability as a holistic thing: ideas like tactile paving, thinking about wayfinding, signage, lighting, colour and contrast, texture — all the different ways affecting how deaf or blind might orientate in environments. Nowadays that's more common but early on, charities focused on a certain area and didn't necessarily think about crossovers of intersectionality.
I was really interested in all of that, and through my work met a lot of disability activists — who famously stopped traffic on London’s Oxford Street, to make sure that their voices were heard; loads of incredible disabled people who were fantastic thinkers. Academics and disabled artists came together as quite a vibrant, radical force, which was really interesting. So a lot of my work developed out of that into disability arts.
- Zoe Partington, The DisOrdinary Architecture Project
