S5E8 - David Gissen on the Architecture of Disability

Architecture’s traditional approach to disability revolves around “fixing problems” by securing adaptations that will allow disabled people to access the ideal world of full biocapacity. Architect and scholar David Gissen wants to “shift the conversation about disability away from a focus on the problems of a disabled user and their problems engaging with rooms and bathrooms and sidewalks,” he explains, and toward the acknowledgment that weakness and impairment are woven into human and natural history.

In his 2023 book The Architecture of Disability and in this conversation with Paola, David explores how disability can be seen as a lens...