WP 3 Revised: Filling the Gaps: Toward a More Inclusive Architectural Education

Continuing my exploration of disability and architecture, I questioned the way architectural pedagogy does not engage in a meaningful way with accessibility. Architectural education’s approach to accessible design reflects broader systemic failures in the profession’s engagement with disability. While some texts and instructors gesture towards inclusive design, accessibility is often treated as a technical requirement or an afterthought, rather than a foundational concept. This limited framing not only fails to engage with the lived experiences of disabled individuals but also reinforces a narrow and compliance-based view of access.

This essay argues that architectural education must move beyond performative accessibility and instead integrate it as a foundational design value by adopting the social model of disability and principles of universal design. Therefore, accessibility education should not be treated as a separate or optional component of architectural education, but rather must be embedded into its very core, shaping how we understand space, people, and design.

Through my research and reflection, I have seen how unlearning the idea of disability as a disadvantage is the first step toward designing a more inclusive world, and that change must begin in the classroom.

Unlearning Disability as Disadvantage

The social model of disability reframes what we traditionally see as “problems.” It suggests that disability is not caused by an individual’s impairments but by the interaction between those impairments and societal barriers. As Rachel Caldwell writes in A Disability-Inclusive Theory of ‘Ordinary’ Care: Redistributing Accommodative Labor in Torts, “the social meaning of the impairment [is] the source of the person’s oppression rather than the person’s impairment itself” (Caldwell 2279). By positioning disability as a social construct, the model places responsibility on society, which includes architects, to adapt its systems, environments, and assumptions to accommodate all people, not just the majority.

This model challenges the default thinking in architectural education, which often presents accessibility as something extra, a burden to be managed instead of a fundamental design goal.

It wasn’t until my grandmother’s amputation that accessibility became personal and urgent for me. Watching how she navigated the world differently shifted my understanding of space and made me more attentive to the real implications of design. Her disability became a disadvantage only because the spaces she once navigated freely had become restrictive. It is not her fault that the built environment around her was not designed with her impairment in mind. Her identity as a disabled person should not be her disadvantage.

Seeing this clear shift in how she navigated the built environment, accessibility became something I considered instinctively at the beginning of every project. It is a topic I care about deeply, not just because of her experience, but because it exposes how accessibility was an afterthought.

At the same time, I recognize that my approach is still developing. Much of what I know has come from personal experience rather than from formal education. This reflects a broader shortcoming in architectural training, where accessibility is rarely treated as a foundational principle. Instead, I have had to unlearn the tendency to view accessibility as a technical requirement, something to add in after the design is complete. Caldwell supports this by arguing that “rather than accommodating people with disabilities in the law by providing an extra rule, the law should strive for a universally designed rule that includes the experiences of people with disabilities” (Caldwell 2280). The same can and should be true for architectural pedagogy.

Deconstructing Disability Narratives

To go even further, we must rethink how disability is represented. Too often, disability is framed through the medical model (as a problem to be fixed) or the charity model (as a condition to be pitied). As Eli Clare writes in Exile and Pride, these models dehumanize disabled people by treating them as either broken or dependent. In short, Clare reiterates that it is not individual people’s problem, but “systems of oppression as the problem…ableism [is what needs] the cure, not [disabled] bodies” (Clare 122).

The social model offers a more just and empowering alternative. If we change the environment and the assumptions embedded in it, then people are no longer “disabled” by it.

Accessibility, then, is not a special feature. It’s not a box to check. It’s a way of thinking, of engaging with the world and with others. It is a design philosophy rooted in justice, dignity, and care. In architecture school, we constantly talk about designing for the public good, yet rarely do we meaningfully include disabled people in that “public.” That has to change. This shift in mindset, from accessibility as a checklist to accessibility as an ethic, requires transformation in both the architectural profession and education.

In Moving Beyond Disability 2.0 in Composition Studies, Tara Wood and her co-authors argue for a model of education that is accessible not just in theory but in practice; accessible to different learning styles, bodies, and ways of thinking. They write that we must “broaden accessibility using multiple modalities,” like including image descriptions, captions, and transcripts, and designing with audience diversity in mind (Wood et al. 147). Although their work focuses on composition studies, the parallels in the architectural world are clear: we must design not just generic spaces but inclusive and universal spaces.

When I think about how architectural studios treat accessibility, it becomes obvious that we’re stuck in a performative loop. Accessibility is usually treated as something you “add in” at the end of a project to pass a code check. It’s not seen as a creative driver. I resonated deeply with the words of another architecture student, Zeid Hassan, who in a Medium post writes about his disillusionment with how disability is treated in design: “There seems to be a lack of will, or lack of valuing architecture that provides inclusive environments…Students need to identify that we should be designing for all aspects of society including disabled people.” (Hassan Why Do Architects Keep Failing Disabled People?). He explains how we often forget the purpose behind legislation and guidelines, turning them into a checklist instead of understanding them as tools of inclusion and justice.

In my architectural education, accessibility and disability have often been mentioned only in passing, treated more as checklists than as integral parts of thoughtful, inclusive design.

In my freshman year, I wrote an essay that engaged with the topic of accessibility in the architectural profession, but it was framed around the lack of access for minorities in predominantly white academic and professional spaces. While important, this conversation centered on racial and social exclusion rather than on disability and physical accessibility. This was my first exposure to the term “accessibility” in an academic context, and already it was detached from the lived experiences and spatial needs of disabled individuals.

The second instance where accessibility was mentioned in my education came during my second year, in the first semester, during a project where we were tasked to design a large urban block in Los Angeles. Disappointingly, professors rarely engaged with accessibility in a meaningful way. When it was mentioned, it was typically in passing. We were occasionally provided with resources that included references to accessibility, such as The City of Los Angeles Complete Streets Design Guide, but these materials were not discussed through the lens of accessibility. I am grateful that these resources were given, as they could have served as a starting point for important conversations. However, the conversation itself was never initiated, leaving students to interpret and apply these principles without direction or critical engagement. For instance, the expectation was that if stairs were part of the design, we should simply add an elevator. This was considered sufficient to meet accessibility requirements. There was no further exploration of how people with disabilities experience space, or how design could be reimagined to prioritize access from the beginning. Accessibility was not integrated into the design process, but treated as an afterthought. This approach continues to reflect a deeper issue within architectural education, where accessibility exists in the curriculum but is not treated as a central or critical design value.

The third notable mention of accessibility occurred in my third year, during the first semester, where the project was to design affordable housing. Accessibility was covered in week 3 of the semester, where we were introduced to the wheelchair symbol as a way to mark spaces that meet basic requirements. The syllabus and grading rubric required our housing projects to be “accessible”, but again, this translated into simply adding an elevator or making doorways wide enough for a wheelchair. The discussion involving accessibility was limited and never deeply integrated into our design thinking.

Universal Design as a New Default

This is where universal design enters the conversation, not as an add-on, but as a new default. Universal design, a concept popularized by architect Ron Mace, promotes environments “usable by all people” regardless of ability (Williamson 148). It challenges the idea that accessibility is a separate category. Instead, it suggests that designing for people with disabilities benefits everyone. Wider hallways, level surfaces, and clear signage don’t just help wheelchair users, they help people with strollers, delivery workers, non-native language speakers, and the elderly.

Universal design begins by engaging with accessibility not as a chore, but as a catapult towards good design. In her book Accessible America, Bess Williamson explores how universal design was embodied in iconic projects like the Guggenheim Museum. Here, accessibility is not quiet, it is loud and designed with pride. The central spiraling ramp is highly visible and a beautiful example of what architects can do once they start seeing accessibility as not only a fundamental but a design inspiration. Williamson also points out the less obvious features that support a broad range of users, such as “audiovisual tools built into community meeting rooms,” “oversized elevator buttons placed at floor level for foot operation,” and “unified typefaces on signage to avoid overstimulation” (Williamson 187). Accessibility in design can be both loud and quiet. It shows up in bold architectural elements like prominent ramps and wide circulation paths, and also in subtle choices like tactile signage, user-friendly door hardware, or thoughtfully adjusted lighting. Both aspects are essential to creating truly inclusive spaces. This kind of architecture does more than meet regulations; it communicates that everyone is welcome and that all people deserve the freedom to move, participate, and belong.

Changing the Way We’re Taught to Design

If we want to design differently, we have to be taught differently. Architectural pedagogy must shift from viewing accessibility as a limitation to embracing it as a generative force. In my private research, I’ve come across terms like “universal design” and “social model of disability” many times, but it wasn’t until I dove into the history and scholarship behind them that their depth and transformative potential became clear. We often treat design codes as an arbitrary set of rules, forgetting that each one was created to address a real human need. If students were taught the history and reasoning behind these codes, especially those related to accessibility, they would be more likely to respect them, engage with them, and innovate within them.

It is inspiring to see architecture students like Zeid Hassan who are contributing and advocating for an inclusive architecture. Another example I found of a student taking charge of filling the gaps in architectural education was on Reddit. A landscape architecture student asked in the disability forum for disabled people to describe what makes a space feel inaccessible or accessible. The answers were revealing: handrails on both sides of stairs, door buttons placed too far away or too high, floors that slope excessively, doors that are too heavy, and more. These may seem like minor details, but they shape whether someone feels welcome or excluded. And every one of these elements is designed by an architect. These aren’t accidents, they are decisions. Now, I understand that these decisions, most of the time, are not made out of malice, but as a default. It is both the passive way architecture school has taught accessibility and also the disengagement with disability as a social construct that makes these decisions the default.

The other important aspect of this online forum interaction is engaging with disabled people to understand what architects need to do better. These small details reiterate the fact that accessibility is an afterthought and without proper intervention,n continues to be the norm. Therefore, we not only need to engage with our perception of disability but also engage with it in an academic context that begins to see accessibility as foundational, not additive. This way, we can create a generation of architects who build spaces that welcome, include, and empower.

This shift in mindset starts by listening, and it must also be reinforced through education that centers empathy and lived experience. One moment that clarified this for me was a talk by a guest lecturer from the USC School of Gerontology, who was also an architect. He said something that still resonates with me today: design as if you were an “80-year-old grandmother.” That phrase reframed how I think about accessibility. It moved the idea away from codes and symbols and toward empathy, care, and lived experience. Accessibility does not always mean adding an elevator or widening a doorway. Technically, a person may be able to access a building, but that is not enough. For me, accessibility must do more than allow entry, it must also create a sense of welcome. I have my reservations about the word “accessibility” itself, because it implies that access alone is sufficient. But access is not the same as ease of access or a feeling of belonging. True accessibility should ask: Can you enter this building comfortably? Will the experience of a disabled person be equal to that of a nondisabled person?

Conclusion: Designing Futures

Accessibility must no longer be treated as an afterthought in architectural education. It must become a default value that leads to better, more inclusive design for all. Through the lens of the social model and universal design, we can reframe disability not as a personal failing but as a call to reimagine the systems and structures that exclude. By embedding accessibility into the foundation of architectural pedagogy, we empower students to not do the bare minimum of adding ramps and elevators, but to question the very assumptions behind our built environment. When we start from a place that assumes inclusion, we stop designing additions. We start designing inclusive futures.

Sources

Caldwell, Rachel. “A Disability-Inclusive Theory of ‘Ordinary’ Care: Redistributing Accommodative Labor in Torts.” The University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 91, no. 8, 2024, pp. 2269–316. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27346575.

Clare, Eli. Exile & Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation. Duke University Press, 2015.

Hassan, Zeid. “Why Do Architects Keep Failing Disabled People.” Medium, Medium, 9 Dec. 2018, zeid-h-h.medium.com/why-do-architects-keep-failing-disabled-people-16a12e5ddc64.

“R/Disability on Reddit: Accessible Design.” Reddit, 2022, www.reddit.com/r/disability/comments/xh55p8/accessible_design/.

Williamson, Bess. “Beyond Ramps: Cripping Design.” Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design, vol. 2, NYU Press, 2019, pp. 185–208. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvwrm3zv.10.

Williamson, Bess. “From Accessible to Universal: Design in the Late Twentieth Century.” Accessible America: A History of Disability and Design, vol. 2, NYU Press, 2019, pp. 147–184. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvwrm3zv.9.

Wood, Tara, et al. “Moving Beyond Disability 2.0 in Composition Studies.” Composition Studies, vol. 42, no. 2, 2014, pp. 147–50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43501860.