DisOrdinary Dialogues

The DisOrdinary Architecture Project
  • 5.0 (1)
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DisOrdinary Dialogues is a space for exploration, advocacy and creativity, led by the experiences and lived realities of Disabled artists, architects and designers. Building on our compendium ‘Many More Parts than M!: Reimagining Disability, Access and Inclusion beyond Compliance (2024), The DisOrdinary Architecture Project started ‘DisOrdinary Dialogues’ to document the complex conversations around access beyond how it is functionally coded. Conversations which are commonplace within DisOrdinary Architecture, but less well-known outside of it. Together we are creating architecture which is not only about inclusion or compliance, but creatively driven by Disabled creativity and ways of knowing space. Conversations are grouped as miniseries, each with their own hosts, producers and themes. ______ The DisOrdinary Architecture Project is an informal platform foregrounding disabled creativity, to shift modes of practice beyond conventional access. Find out more about The DisOrdinary Architecture Project here. Find out more about the ‘Many More Parts than M!’ compendium here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  1. DMA Project Intro: Round Tower with Jos Boys and Aimi Hamraie

    EPISODE 1

    DMA Project Intro: Round Tower with Jos Boys and Aimi Hamraie

    Disability Meets Architecture is a co-created podcast miniseries, enabling conversations that cross boundaries between architecture, Disability studies and related disciplines; and across theory and practice beyond the conventions of conventional access. Each conversation featured in Disability Meets Architecture draws on a different productive friction and places two activists, architects, designers, writers or artists in dialogue. This ‘project intro’ with Jos Boys (The DisOrdinary Architecture Project) and Aimi Hamraie (Critical Design Lab) takes place at the Round Tower, Rundetårn, in Copenhagen. It was recorded just as we were planning the series when Jos and Aimi found themselves in the city at the same time. This tower, completed in 1642 for Christian IV of Denmark, features an equestrian ramp which would enable a horse and carriage to rise 34.8m to the observatory at the top. This ramp is not accessible under design guidance. However, it highlights how a design feature, often associated with access, is reimagined as desirable, going as far as displacing the staircase as the primary way to move vertically up this 17th C. tower. It shows how thinking differently about how we move through space, beyond the human, beyond the upright human, can create different forms of pleasurable architecture. Aimi Hamraie (they/them) is the founder and director of Critical Design Lab, a multi-disciplinary and multi-institution arts and design collaborative rooted in disability culture. Aimi is author of Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017) and host of the Contra* podcast on disability and design. They are a 2022 United States Artists Fellow, Canada Research Chair in Technology, Society, and Disability and Associate Professor of Social Science at York University. Jos Boys (she/her) is the founder and co-director of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project with Zoe Partington. Jos was also part of Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative in the late 1970s and 80s in the UK. Through her work, Jos has co-authored and acted as editor/co-editor on a number of books including Disability, Space, Architecture: A Reader (2017), Doing Disability Differently: An alternative handbook on architecture, dis/ability and designing for everyday life (2014) and Making Space: Women and the Man Made Environment by Matrix (1984/2022). Jos is an Honorary Associate Professor at UCL (UK), and served as a Guest Professor at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen (2022–2025). A film accompanies this episode and is available on both DisOrdinary and Critical Design Lab’s websites. Transcript here: https://disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk/s/DMA-intro-Transcript.pdf ____ DMA is brought to you by The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and Critical Design Lab, with this miniseries funded by The Graham Foundation. Your hosts are Aimi Hamraie and Jos Boys, with Scar Barclay and Paul DeFazio supporting the series production. Ilana Nevins is our editor, with Scar finalising edits for the DisOrdinary Architecture version. Find out more about this project and related projects at disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk and criticaldesignlab.com. Find out more about Aimi’s work here:  Websites: aimihamraie.com criticaldesignlab.com labsforliberation.org Find out more about Jos’s work here:  Websites: josboys.co.uk disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk matrixfeministarchitecturearchive.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    17 min
  2. DMA Conversation 1: Access Washing with Karen Braitmayer and Natasha Trotman

    EPISODE 2

    DMA Conversation 1: Access Washing with Karen Braitmayer and Natasha Trotman

    Disability Meets Architecture is a co-created podcast miniseries, enabling conversations that cross boundaries between architecture, disability studies and related disciplines; and across theory and practice beyond the conventions of conventional access. Each conversation featured in Disability Meets Architecture draws on a different productive friction and places two activists, architects, designers, writers or artists in dialogue. This one, on ‘access washing,’ an expression coined by Stacey Milbern, considers the power dynamics in the design process and projects, where and how Disabled practitioners are involved, and to what extent ‘access’ is understood on a deep, systemic rather than superficial level. This episode features Karen L. Braitmayer, FAIA (she/her), a licensed architect and accessibility specialist who is a full-time wheelchair user with hearing loss. Karen founded Studio Pacifica, an access consultancy in Washington State which foregrounds Disabled practitioners. Karen is in conversation with Natasha Trotman (she/they), a UK-based Neurodivergent and disabled international Equalities Designer and Researcher advancing inclusive, accessible, evidence-led design with neurodivergent, disabled, and underserved communities. Natasha is a frequent collaborator with DisOrdinary Architecture. Transcript here. ____ DMA is brought to you by The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and Critical Design Lab, with this miniseries funded by The Graham Foundation. Your hosts are Aimi Hamraie and Jos Boys, with Scar Barclay and Paul DeFazio supporting the series production. Ilana Nevins is our editor, with Scar finalising edits for the DisOrdinary Architecture version. Find out more about this project and related projects at disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk and criticaldesignlab.com. Find out more about Karen’s work here:  Website: StudioPacificaSeattle.com  Instagram: @StudioPacificaSeattle Find out more about Natasha’s work here:  Website: natashamtrotman.com  Instagram: @trottykins Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    51 min
  3. DMA Conversation 2: Care with Teeth with Anthony Clarke and Jeff Kasper

    EPISODE 3

    DMA Conversation 2: Care with Teeth with Anthony Clarke and Jeff Kasper

    Disability Meets Architecture is a co-created podcast miniseries, enabling conversations that cross boundaries between architecture, disability studies and related disciplines; and across theory and practice beyond the conventions of conventional access. Each conversation featured in Disability Meets Architecture draws on a different productive friction and places two activists, architects, designers, writers or artists in dialogue. This one, on ‘care with teeth,’ takes its name from the expression “joy with teeth” in Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems and Meditations for Staying Human (2024) by Cole Arthur Riley. It considers the plurality of care, what it means to fiercely care and be cared for, care as a radical embedded practice and one which brings with it at times conflict and challenge. This episode features Jeff Kasper (he/him), an artist, writer, and educator working across public art, design, and social practice. Jeff’s project ‘Wrestling Embrace’ (2017-present) uses physical contact, guided contemplation and embodied practices to navigate consent, conflict and care in interpersonal relationships. Jeff is in conversation with Anthony Clarke (he/him), Architect and Director of Austrailian architecture practice BLOXAS. BLOXAS has a radically empathetic and anti-hegemonic approach with their clients. Anthony is a co-editor with Judy Illes, Jos Boys and John Gardner of Neurodivergence and Architecture (2022) Transcript here. ____ DMA is brought to you by The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and Critical Design Lab, with this miniseries funded by The Graham Foundation. Your hosts are Aimi Hamraie and Jos Boys, with Scar Barclay and Paul DeFazio supporting the series production. Ilana Nevins is our editor, with Scar finalising edits for the DisOrdinary Architecture version. Find out more about this project and related projects at disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk and criticaldesignlab.com. Find out more about Jeff’s work here:  Website: jeffkasper.co Instagram: @JeffKasperStudio. Find out more about Anthony’s work here:  Website: bloxas.com Linkedin: Dr Anthony Clarke Image credit: Sayher Heffernan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    54 min
  4. DMA Conversation 3: Who Counts with Micha Frazer-Carroll and Samir Pandya

    EPISODE 4

    DMA Conversation 3: Who Counts with Micha Frazer-Carroll and Samir Pandya

    Disability Meets Architecture is a co-created podcast miniseries, enabling conversations that cross boundaries between architecture, Disability studies and related disciplines; and across theory and practice beyond the conventions of conventional access. Each conversation featured in Disability Meets Architecture draws on a different productive friction and places two activists, architects, designers, writers or artists in dialogue. This one, on ‘who counts,’ explores which bodyminds are thought of as productive. We are thinking about histories of systemic ableism and racism and how to go about challenging architecture’s understanding of diverse identity and lived experience, so that Disabled lives and experience is rightfully valued. This episode features Micha Frazer-Carroll (she/her), a writer and journalist who is a former editor of gal-dem magazine and founder of Blueprint magazine. Micha authored MAD WORLD: The Politics of Mental Health (2023), a call for radical politics and a revealing account of the ever changing construct of health under capitalism. Micha is in conversation with Samir Pandya (he/him), an architect, writer and educator who is Associate Head of College at the College of Design, Creative and Digital Industries at the University of Westminster in London. Samir’s edited book After Belonging: Architecture, Nation, Difference (2023) examines the relationships between architecture, spatial politics and identity. Transcript for conversation here. ____ DMA is brought to you by The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and Critical Design Lab, with this miniseries funded by The Graham Foundation. Your hosts are Aimi Hamraie and Jos Boys, with Scar Barclay and Paul DeFazio supporting the series production. Ilana Nevins is our editor, with Scar finalising edits for the DisOrdinary Architecture version. Find out more about this project and related projects at disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk and criticaldesignlab.com. Find out more about Micha’s work here:  Website: michafrazercarroll.com Instagram: @micha_frazercarroll  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    58 min
  5. DMA Conversation 4: Antifascism with Beatrice Adler-Bolton, Paul DeFazio and Scar Barclay

    EPISODE 5

    DMA Conversation 4: Antifascism with Beatrice Adler-Bolton, Paul DeFazio and Scar Barclay

    Disability Meets Architecture is a co-created podcast miniseries, enabling conversations that cross boundaries between architecture, disability studies and related disciplines; and across theory and practice beyond the conventions of conventional access. Each conversation featured in Disability Meets Architecture draws on a different productive friction and places two activists, architects, designers, writers or artists in dialogue. This one, on ‘anti-fascism,’ attends to the rise in right-wing, populist movements and their rhetoric. It asks what it means to continue to operate against the political pendulum, how to find gaps for resistance and how to fortify our movements in the face of erasure. It swings between the need to be legible to hold on to the basics of functional access versus a desire for illegibility and more expansive notions of access. This episode features Beatrice Adler-Bolton (she/her), a disabled and chronically ill writer and artist based in the U.S. who co-hosts the Death Panel Podcast with Artie Vierkant, Phil Rocco, Jules Gill-Peterson and Tracy Rosenthal. She also co-authored Health Communism (2022) with Artie Vierkant. This text sets out the history of the monetisation of health in the U.S. and identifies the necessity in a radical politics and approach which severs health from capital. Beatrice will be in conversation with both Scar Barclay and Paul DeFazio. Scar (they/them) is a UK-based neuroqueer architectural designer, whose work explores Disabled, neurodivergent, trans+ and queer ways of being. They have worked with The DisOrdinary Architecture Project since 2023. Paul (he/him[fluid]) is a legally blind architect and artist who works for Critical Design Lab and the Institute of Human Centred Design. Transcript for conversation here. ____ DMA is brought to you by The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and Critical Design Lab, with this miniseries funded by The Graham Foundation. Your hosts are Aimi Hamraie and Jos Boys, with Scar Barclay and Paul DeFazio supporting the series production. Ilana Nevins is our editor, with Scar finalising edits for the DisOrdinary Architecture version. Find out more about this project and related projects at disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk and criticaldesignlab.com. Find out more about Beatrice’s work here:  Websites: www.beatriceadlerbolton.com / www.deathpanel.net  Instagram: @beatriceadlerbolton / @deathpanel_ Bluesky: @reallandsend.bsky.social / @deathpanel.bsky.social X: @realLandsEnd / @DeathPanel_ Find out more about Scar’s work here:  Website: disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk Instagram: @scarbarclay @disordinaryarchitecture Find out more about Paul’s work here:  Website: criticaldesignlab.com humancentereddesign.org Instagram: @defazio_paul Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 13m
  6. DMA Conversation 5: Takeaways with Aimi Hamraie, Jos Boys, Scar Barclay and Paul DeFazio

    EPISODE 6

    DMA Conversation 5: Takeaways with Aimi Hamraie, Jos Boys, Scar Barclay and Paul DeFazio

    Disability Meets Architecture is a co-created podcast miniseries, enabling conversations that cross boundaries between architecture, disability studies and related disciplines; and across theory and practice beyond the conventions of conventional access. Each conversation featured in Disability Meets Architecture draws on a different productive friction and places two activists, architects, designers, writers or artists in dialogue. This one, on ‘takeaways,’ brings together themes and tensions arising over the series. It reflects on what worked with the format, the themes which arose and what questions we did not get around to. This episode features all of the people from The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and Critical Design Lab who coordinated this series. This includes Aimi Hamraie (they/them) who is a disabled designer, researcher and director of Critical Design Lab. Aimi works with Paul DeFazio (he/him[fluid]), a legally blind architect and artist who works for Critical Design Lab and the Institute of Human Centred Design. Next we have Jos Boys (she/her), who lives with a chronic condition, and is an architecture-trained artist, activist writer and founder of DisOrdinary. Jos works at DisOrdinary with Scar Barclay (they/them), a neuroqueer architectural designer and maker. Transcript here. ____ DMA is brought to you by The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and Critical Design Lab, with this miniseries funded by The Graham Foundation. Your hosts are Aimi Hamraie and Jos Boys, with Scar Barclay and Paul DeFazio supporting the series production. Ilana Nevins is our editor, with Scar finalising edits for the DisOrdinary Architecture version. Find out more about this project and related projects at disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk and criticaldesignlab.com. Find out more about Aimi’s work here:  Websites: aimihamraie.com criticaldesignlab.com labsforliberation.org Instagram: @criticaldesignlab Find out more about Paul’s work here:  Website: criticaldesignlab.com humancentereddesign.org Instagram: @defazio_paul Find out more about Jos’s work here:  Website: josboys.co.uk disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk matrixfeministarchitecturearchive.co.uk Instagram: @josontheline Find out more about Scar’s work here:  Website: disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk Instagram: @scarbarclay Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 5m
See All Season 2 (6)

About

DisOrdinary Dialogues is a space for exploration, advocacy and creativity, led by the experiences and lived realities of Disabled artists, architects and designers. Building on our compendium ‘Many More Parts than M!: Reimagining Disability, Access and Inclusion beyond Compliance (2024), The DisOrdinary Architecture Project started ‘DisOrdinary Dialogues’ to document the complex conversations around access beyond how it is functionally coded. Conversations which are commonplace within DisOrdinary Architecture, but less well-known outside of it. Together we are creating architecture which is not only about inclusion or compliance, but creatively driven by Disabled creativity and ways of knowing space. Conversations are grouped as miniseries, each with their own hosts, producers and themes. ______ The DisOrdinary Architecture Project is an informal platform foregrounding disabled creativity, to shift modes of practice beyond conventional access. Find out more about The DisOrdinary Architecture Project here. Find out more about the ‘Many More Parts than M!’ compendium here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    The DisOrdinary Architecture Project
  • Episodes
    9
  • Seasons
    2
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © The DisOrdinary Architecture Project
  • Show Website
    DisOrdinary Dialogues

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