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Despite changes in technology and forms of representation, around the world, architectural models continue to address an important issue in aesthetic experience: Providing access to architecture for the visually impaired. "Whether it’s marveling at the height of the Eiffel... View full entry
For many architects, much of one's work depends upon the visual possibilities where space can transform. Often overlooked, many designers forget what it is like to design buildings and structures for the blind or hearing impaired. Universal accessibility and inclusive design methods are being... View full entry
I’m blind, so my nose tells me what neighborhood I’m in.
My dog and I – we walk. We’ll walk from 125th down to Houston. The smell of Harlem is definitely different now. It’s more open. There’s a new class of people. The whole thing feels like someplace else.
— The Guardian
To navigate a vast city, people often develop a set of idiosyncratic markers: personal landmarks, favorite coffee joints, or in Craig Taylor's case, the smell of a particular section of town. Should designers start thinking in terms of creating signature scents to help identify their work for a... View full entry
Many people view GPS and similar emerging interior-wayfnding technologies as a way to 'solve the blind wayfnding challenge.'...Architects still need to be better multisensory placemakers to design and create effective environments for the blind and visually impaired. — Dwell
Chris Downey, whose story as a blind practicing architect was recently documented in the AIA's "Look Up" campaign this past May, dishes in on his own experiences with embossing printers, wayfinding devices, and graphic input tools, and other emerging technologies that have the potential to vastly... View full entry
Enter Cities Unlocked, a project intended to help people with sight loss navigate cities. The brainchild of a blind Microsoft employee, it uses GPS, a 3D audio headset, and Bluetooth beacons, among other technologies. [...]
“I’m a blind person, I need to keep my ears open,” she says. The headset uses bone-conducting technology, in which vibrations create a “3D soundscape” around the user.
— nextcity.org
Related: Parsons and the Met team up to increase accessibility for disabled View full entry
The absence of these rules can frustrate the newly sighted, whose visual world can be both blurry and two-dimensional—paintings and people are often described as “flat, with dark patches”; a far-away house is “nearby, but requiring the taking of a lot of steps”; streetlights seen through glass are “luminous stains stuck to the window”; sunbeams through tree branches collapse into a single “tree with all the lights in it. — New Yorker
Now, go ahead and incorporate some of these images into your architectural visualization... View full entry
Downey needed something tactile to work with, and he found it in a kids' toy. Spread out before him on the table are stacks of embossed plans ... marked up with brightly colored wax sticks. [...]
The sticks warm to the touch and bend easily; they can make precise angles, and—crucially for Downey—their tackiness makes them stick to paper. "Once I realized that, I thought, 'Oh, I could use that to draw on top of an embossed drawing.'" Suddenly, he had a way not just to read, but to make.
— sf.curbed.com
Previously, the LA Times profiled Downey and his firm: Blind architect sports an upbeat vision View full entry
After Chris Downey, of Piedmont, lost his sight, rather than change careers, he stayed with architecture. Now, with the help of a white cane and drawings that have raised figures, Downey plans buildings for the blind. -- SF Gate View full entry
