220 EAAE no 35 Teaching and Experimenting with Architectural Design: Advances in Technology and Changes in Pedagogy
within the space. Dance. Inhaling, reaching up, building up energy before moving around and
reaching out to the edges. This was contrasted to contact with the ground, and the ground
plane. Drawing interacted here with the body where tape was used instead of paper and pencil
as a way of drawing stasis and connectedness of the body.
Group 4 Architecture Studio Touch
The students started off by blindfolding themselves, and soon realised that all it was doing was
to prevent them from seeing and not helping them understand touch. Touch is interconnected
with the whole, and as soon as the students started to explore through movement and with
each other they made progress, and could start to record the process. Involving themselves
bodily with the work also gave rise to expressing our tactile relationship with the space. Mak-
ing use of the everyday use of the space was another way in.
Student Self Evaluation
“I felt I have learnt an unexpected amount from the dance and drawing workshops. Prior to
this project my comprehension of disabled access was limited as a list of regulations set out in
the ‘Architect’s Pocket book’, ramps and widened corridors. However in reality, disabled access
is an opportunity for a building to truly improve the experience fro the 8% of the population
registered disabled.
I have redressed the tendency to stereotype the disabled, as a group of people with a weak-
ness, for this is more often than not, widely off the mark. In fact David and Isolte taught me
that in most cases a disabled person would not choose to trade for a fully abled body, instead
a disability can define a person and make them stronger. Watching David, who is totally deaf,
in perfect harmony with the music, dissolved any thought of his disability being a ‘weakness’.
So next time, and every time I am designing a building, I will think of Isolte moving so grace-
fully in the face of her acute arthritis, of David and the others with their finely homed senses
and ask myself what my design can offer them.”