So you want to… Build an equitable future?

How can the architecture profession go beyond the minimum requirements of codes and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to create more equitable and inclusive spaces for all? Today, designers are looking at how the built environment can affect a person physically, mentally, and socially. On August 9th, 2022, the Young Architects Forum (YAF) Advocacy Focus Group hosted their third webinar of the “So You Want To…” series bringing together an audience of young architects to learn how to be advocates for incorporating principles of universal design in their projects—to achieve not only more successful designs but more equitable communities where all may thrive.

The event was moderated by Olivia Asuncion, project architect at Quattrocchi Kwok Architects and American Institute of Architects (AIA) YAF California Representative, and she was joined by panelists Seb Choe, Associate Director at MIXdesign, Jade Ragoschke, vice president of World Deaf Architecture, and Ileana Rodriguez, principal of Design Access, LLC (Figure 1). The YAF Advocacy Focus Group includes Monica Blasko, Anastasia Markiw, Laura Morton, Melissa Gaddis, Trevor Boyle, Christopher Fagan, and Kaitlyn Badlato.

Informed by lived experience An architect’s work and values are informed by their identity and lived experience. Each of the panelists shared anecdotes from their upbringing, describing how those experiences and challenges shaped their focus and impacted their decision to become design professionals. From a young age, Olivia was aware of her surroundings and space because of her physical disabilities. Growing up in the Philippines, she found that many environments, including schools, were not accessible. She moved to the United States at age 11, less than a decade after the passage of the ADA, and “accessibility was just there. It wasn’t perfect then and it still isn’t, but it was already built into my surroundings… I very quickly and very clearly learned that the design of the built environment has the power to foster independence, promote inclusivity, and create community.”

Olivia’s experience of the built environment in the Philippines and the United States led her to pursue a career in design, advocacy, and research. “One of the keys to ensuring justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion [JEDI] is providing access to the built environment… How can we expect diversity otherwise?” While at the University of Oregon, she was able to perform design research into accessible evacuation, improving fire safety, and building evacuation for people with disabilities. Her professional work focuses on universal design across multiple sectors, including higher education and fire houses. Currently, Olivia is serving as a Fulbright Scholar, assessing the accessibility of elementary schools in the Philippines and the impact it has on enrollment of disabled children. Her practice is supported not just by expertise and research but by her own valuable insights from lived experience.

Above: So You Want To…Build An Equitable Future Webinar Panelists courtesy of Monica Blasko

Inclusion means advocacy for all Seb’s work is rooted in the idea that “any project that aims to utilize inclusive design and [focus on] community needs requires us to acknowledge the many identities and roles we play in our communities. This often exceeds the narrow roles of our professional lives and influences our approach to design.” As an educator, performance artist, city council agitator, digitally embodied raver, and community facilitator, they wear many different hats in addition to their professional role as associate director at JSA/MIXdesign. The think tank and consultancy approaches inclusive design “based on this conviction that human experience and embodied identity [are] constituted by a variety of overlapping factors.” MIXdesign advocates for the active participation of stakeholders and endusers. This ensures that those who are most impacted have a seat at the table along with an in-house team of experts in design, policy, and public health who specialize in working with and for deaf, autistic, and physically disabled communities. The firm’s work with the Queens Museum prioritized the spatial needs of diverse visitors who fell outside the cultural mainstream. MIXdesign assembled an interdisciplinary team and organized extensive community engagement. The

museum design team formed a cohort of 25 Queens residents that reflected the audience the museum wanted to attract, including seniors, wheelchair users, parents with young children, native Spanish speakers, people with low vision, nonbinary people, and more. The paid cohort worked with the design team to create inclusive design recommendations that provided value to the project and broadened the museum’s local audience.

Performance beyond a baseline After graduating architecture school, Jade Ragoschke was contracted by the Department of Education in New York City (NYC) to bring public schools across the city to 100% accessibility under the ADA. It was during this time that she discovered the ADA’s limitations. Her current role as a thirdparty accessibility code reviewer for the Chicago Department of Buildings has exposed to her how some architects interpret the ADA requirements in ways that miss the mark or simply default to general notes or standard details.

Outside of the office, Jade is dedicated to improving the baseline of accessible and universal design. Jade is profoundly deaf in her right ear, and while she wasn’t integrated into the deaf community or in a position to access deaf culture until college, she soon began learning about the impacts of the built environment on the community. She became involved with World Deaf Architecture, which provides networking and education for deaf and hard-of-hearing architects and designers. Through this organization she has served as an advisor for the AIA Guidelines for Equitable Practice and is working with a committee developing Deaf Space guidelines and best practice—designed for the deaf community, by the deaf community. Deaf Space is entirely separate from the ADA and provides a creative approach to improving the quality of space for people with and without hearing loss.

As a Paralympic athlete, Ileana Rodriguez believes in the impossible. “You see athletes that can do all things regardless of their disability because this is not what defines them, but what they decide to do.” Ileana uses her agency as an architect to change the perspective that people have on people with disabilities. “If we allow them to perform, if we allow them to have a better life, space can influence the potential of a person… [To do this] we need to move way beyond the code.” Accessibility is often integrated later on in the design process, rather than at the beginning. Ileana wanted to change this, so she started Design Access, LLC to be able to dedicate time and resources to getting it right. This has allowed her to work with the International Paralympic Committee to find opportunities in the venues and facilities of the Paralympic Games where the

Above: Matrix created for Stalled! considering the diversity of end-users and activities of a restroom that lead to design strategies to improve the experience; image courtesy of Seb Choe

Above: Accessibility improvements at the site of the Paralympic Games. The left image shows the original entryway with stairs and a steep, small ramp. The right, ‘after’ image shows a wide ramp with a gentle slope and a person entering in a wheelchair; image courtesy of Ileana Rodriguez

accessibility could be improved and become more inclusive. Her work spans the world, in countries that don’t even have an accessibility code as extensive as the ADA. In fact, some of these countries are where the best opportunities for improving accessibility lie, since there are so few regulations.

Inclusion in action Our panelists have used their expertise and passion to create high-performing spaces of inclusive and universal design.

Stalled!, presented by Seb Choe, is MIXdesign’s inclusive design process, which aims to be intersectional. Stalled! - Presented by Seb Choe; MIXdesign’s design process aims to be intersectional. The diagram (Figure 2) considers the many different overlapping identities we inhabit as well as the activities that we perform. Restrooms are spaces in which there are many different activities taking place; thus, they need to serve a diverse group of individuals, families, and caregivers.

“There ultimately isn’t a perfect, universal, one-size-fits-all solution,” says Seb. Instead, the prototype, Stalled!, analyzes the many demands of the space and generates spatial strategies that foster sharing space while also rethinking traditional design.

Seb reinforces that this design work is more than just design; it is about “working between design, research, and advocacy.” Stalled! is more than just a prototype; the work includes design recommendations, lectures, workshops, as well as legal initiatives, including amending the 2021 International Plumbing Code to allow for all-gender restrooms.

This tennis club, presented by Ileana Rodriguez, was one of the biggest challenges Ileana faced while consulting for the Paralympic Games in Lima. The owner was hesitant to make any changes, so the team studied and identified both permanent and temporary changes that would provide the biggest impacts for accessibility. After the Games, the owner was so impressed with the improvements that he decided to keep all of them (Figure 3). The club is now used by a lot of the local elderly community; indeed, anyone can take advantage of the club. Ileana says, “I like to do this work because you have an impact beyond the infrastructure. You have the ability to change the lives of people. You have the ability to change the perspective of people with disabilities, and also improve the experience of people.”

The takeaways Inclusive and equitable design is not created from a singular code or set of guidelines. True equity is found by including multiple, diverse perspectives throughout the process. This includes not only subject-matter experts and professionals but also the users that you are designing for. As Jade says, “There is a need to advocate for dedicated spaces for many different communities, but it’s not just about making those spaces accessible. It’s also about communicating to users through architectural design that they have permission to engage and belong in that space… As architects, we need to become agents of change and be more civically engaged with the communities] that we design for.” By creating inclusive environments, we create agency for all to utilize the spaces we design, building community and bringing more customers to our clients. “We need to share our own unique experiences that influence our perspectives and approaches to solving problems, while also being willing to take a step back and listen and support the voices of others.”

Kaitlyn Badlato, AIA, EDAC, WELL AP, LSSYB

Badlato is a medical planner at HKS in Washington, D.C. She serves as the AIA MidAtlantic young architect regional director.