design for disability that’s dynamic not dreary

On a hill overlooking the city of Bordeaux is a spectacular glass and concrete house constructed in a trio of layers. What really sets the 1990s structure by architecture studio OMA apart, however, is the “James Bond-esque” platform lift in the middle of the building, says Christopher Scarffe. The London-based architect with Universal Design Studio pinpoints the property as a bold example of design that prioritises the desires of its disabled inhabitant, who used a wheelchair.

“Contrary to what you would expect, I do not want a simple house,” the homeowner said in his brief. “I want a complex house, because the house will define my world.” OMA’s response was not simply a technical solution, but a form of “liberation”.

“When we talk about disability, we often ignore the quieter moments in our lives,” says Natalie Kane, curator of Design and Disability, an upcoming exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London that draws attention to accessibility in a holistic, experiential sense; how it can and should do more than the bare minimum. “For me, the home is where it starts, and then it goes outwards.” 

The exhibition celebrates “the radical contributions of disabled, deaf and neurodivergent people to design history and contemporary culture” — and demands that society does more to cater to them. The discussion comes at an inflection point for architecture and design, when building regulations are regularly being reassessed along more sustainable lines, when housebuilding is under the spotlight, and when retrofitting and repurposing heritage buildings is top of mind. With people living for longer, there is also growing pressure to cater to the needs of an ageing population. Why is it that disability is still often framed as a problem to solve, not a lived experience that shapes how one in six people globally, according to the World Health Organization, relate to the world?   

A raft of architects is challenging this imbalance, creating buildings for people to flourish and enjoy themselves, not simply complying with legislation. Often their experiences, while forging new paths, expose flaws in the system. 

In England, 9 per cent of homes meet the basic accessibility standard. Some 400,000 wheelchair users live in unsuitable homes. The built environment sector must up its game, says Amanprit Arnold, a disability urban strategist who advised the Greater London Authority on its design policy and founded the DeafCity Hub. “Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s better business. The spending power of disabled households in the UK alone is £274bn per year, and there is a clear market gap.” 

In 2023, the DisOrdinary Architecture collective, which campaigns to shift paradigms about disability across the UK built environment, published Many More Parts Than M! — a compendium that rails against the Building Regulations’ minimum accessibility standard: Part M. It is a manifesto for spaces to go “beyond the limitations of banal ‘one-size-fits-all’ technical solutions, especially when these tend to be mere ‘add-ons’ at the end of the design process”.

Not only is it the right thing to do, it’s better business. The spending power of disabled households in the UK alone is £274bn per year, and there is a clear market gap

Currently, the regulations are largely focused on mobility — there’s little reference to the needs of deaf or blind people, or those with neurodivergence or learning disabilities. The sector has waited since 2022 for a second consultation on raising expectations. DisOrdinary Architecture draws on disability scholarship and activism to think not just about the ability to “get in”, but also about pleasurable, beautiful places. 

This includes sound, smell and touch. The V&A exhibition highlights a boarding school for blind children in India, where as well as walls with different textures to aid navigation, corridors are designed with echoes in mind, and the scent of an aromatic courtyard draws the children outside. 

Accessible design need not be medicalised and clinical; it can be holistic and beautiful. In 2019, Tigg + Coll Architects extended a Surrey home for a couple whose two children have Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a disorder characterised by progressive muscle degeneration and decreasing mobility over time. The L-shaped addition, shortlisted for the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) House of the Year award in 2021, is topped with a latticed timber roof that also wraps around the existing building. It is light and airy, yet the “diagrid” structure is strong enough to support hoists. The large canopied, open-plan space evokes “the spirit and enjoyment of being in the garden”, says architect David Tigg, while the architecture should still work as their needs change.

On a practical level, large bedrooms can fit adjustable beds and motorised wheelchairs, non-load-bearing walls can be easily moved, and sliding doors offer unimpeded navigation. “The final design captures what we were after: intelligence, creativity and practicality . . . to meet our sons’ needs, present and future,” says homeowner Nick Taussig. “It is life-changing and life-affirming; it will make a deep impact on the quality of Theo and Oskar’s lives. It will enable them, not disable them further.”  

Often the key is in creative thinking rather than technical fixes, which Tigg says doesn’t have to cost more. “You just need to use more brain power and imagination to develop it — with details that avoid a clinical aesthetic.” 

Architecture today tends to subscribe to the social model of disability, which asserts that people are not disabled by their bodies but by social and physical barriers — just as not having stairs prevents an able-bodied person from going up a floor, so does the absence of a ramp for someone in a wheelchair. 

“But where is the ramp?” asks Scarffe. His research into how spatial design can empower or disable, and his advisory role for the mayor of London and the Greater London Authority (GLA) both drew on his own experience of disability — he has congenital upper limb difference. “Yes, it’s important to remove barriers, but how you’re removing them is important: are you sending people in wheelchairs through the back or front entrance? You perceive people differently if they enter a building like a second-class citizen.” 

As well as OMA’s Bordeaux Bond lair, Scarffe points to the Edinburgh home created in 2013 by Thea McMillan for her own family, by way of positive example. There, a ramp — ostensibly for her daughter, who has cerebral palsy — is a central feature for everyone to enjoy, with spaces emanating from it. 

Another successful example is a RIBA award-winning London project by 6A Architects where a winding new wooden intervention between a pair of existing Grade II-listed cottages catered to the needs of a busy mother who used a wheelchair; as well as a direct route to the garden and additional ground floor space, it allowed her to see the kitchen, people moving through the old houses and the street beyond.

Accessibility is among the judging criteria for RIBA awards. It specifies that winning projects balance “ideas of beauty and culture, history and context with societal concerns for inclusivity and diversity, ecology and sustainability, all bound together in a memorable and emotional spatial experience” — rather than thinking of it as a silo.

When Alexander Hills Architects converted old stable buildings at the Norfolk home of a retired farmer who used a wheelchair, the design not only considered accessibility — level thresholds and wide doorways, for example — but also the journey through the home, lowering sightlines to open up expansive views across the Glaven Valley landscapes he farmed for 70 years. 

These projects demonstrate the possibilities of visionary architecture. But most must make do with what already exists. Mark Carlisle, a former property estate manager who lives in rural Oxfordshire, has adapted his privately rented home over time as his multiple sclerosis has progressed, and he has moved from using a walking frame to a wheelchair — by knocking down a wall between two smaller rooms, adding ramps, grab rails and remote control switches. “It’s worked for five years, but it’s not perfect and what works today won’t necessarily tomorrow,” he says. “And even though the landlord is relaxed, the changes we make have to be generally acceptable or reversible.”

The fact is that, in the UK, there simply aren’t enough homes that prioritise disability. While new-builds and conversions have to comply with accessibility regulations, developers are often driven by cost considerations to do only the bare minimum. Research by Habinteg, one of the country’s few accessible social housing providers, revealed that someone joining a local authority waiting list for a wheelchair-accessible home in England today could have to wait up to 47 years, based on the estimated 20,000-person backlog. 

In the private rented sector the Equality Act compels landlords to make “reasonable adjustments” for tenants’ needs, but what that means is subjective and market realities limit choice. “Trying to rent in London means you’re competing with 200 people for each place, which might be the only one in weeks that’s suitable for me,” says Poppy Levison, an architecture student and researcher who is blind and advised on the V&A exhibition.

Christopher Laing, an architect at Stirling Prize-winning architectural studio Haworth Tompkins and founder of advocacy group Deaf Architecture Front, says part of the problem is the underrepresentation of people with disabilities in the building process (there are only seven known deaf architects in the UK). This means there’s a lack of understanding of specific needs, such as “DeafSpace” principles. “For example, reflective tiles in a kitchen could alert a deaf person that someone is behind them while they are cooking,” he says. 

For example, reflective tiles in a kitchen could alert a deaf person that someone is behind them while they are cooking

The same applies to other disabilities. Levison points to the mistaken assumption that you don’t need to consider lighting when designing for visually impaired people. “If you get a bunch of blind people in a room together, the one thing they will not shut up about is what lighting levels they like,” she says. “Some people have light sensitivity, for others a really bright light means they can see things. Something small like having a light over a hob in a kitchen can be completely groundbreaking — it means I can cook.” 

Levison, who is currently studying for an MA in architecture at the Royal College of Art, believes the necessary shift in mindset starts with education. “Over my four years of study I haven’t had one lecture about accessibility,” she says.

As a result, it is treated as a box-ticking afterthought. “Which means it’s often ugly, reinforcing the idea that it’s an inconvenience,” continues Levison. “But if you’d considered it from day one, it wouldn’t look incoherent with the rest of the building.” Just as sustainable design is associated with a particular aesthetic, accessibility can be too, if architects see it as desirable and life-enhancing. 

Demographic realities may soon force a shift. “Not necessarily because people want to do things for disabled people, but because non-disabled people are ageing and demanding it,” says Levison. It’s increasingly common to find housing developments for older people that eschew an institutional look: among them is Stirling Prize-winning architect Witherford Watson Mann’s Appleby Blue Almshouse in Southwark, south London, a social housing development for over-65s.

For Levison, the London home that architect Sarah Wigglesworth designed for herself and her husband — a live-work unit in an old forge — is an unusually forward-thinking example. “They did a retrofit to make it more accessible as they age, with nicely designed grab rails and a step-free shower,” she says. It is refreshing, she says, to “see people being upfront with the fact their needs will change: usually it’s reactionary”.

If it’s possible to create spaces that consider accessibility and experience for older people, what would it take for developers and architects to consider disability more broadly? 

Scarffe’s own particular interest is in retrofitting — a pertinent subject given that the UK’s housing stock is the oldest in Europe. He’s adamant that protecting heritage should never be an excuse to deny equal access, but also that refurbishment represents a chance to assert more progressive values. “Some of the most celebrated buildings were designed in a time where disabled people were ostracised,” he says. “Retrofitting them boldly is an amazing opportunity to send a message that we are rejecting the ideas of the past.” 

And yet, he concludes, “Even in a world where everything was ramped, disability would still exist, because there are cultural barriers when it comes to how you view someone with a disability.” He is calling instead for an affirmative model of disability: “We need to go beyond legislation to a cultural change, where disability is treated as an identity to be celebrated.”

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