MISSING VOICES OF DISABLED PEOPLE
This project connects accessibility requirements in the Danish Building Regulations (BR18) with statements posted by disabled people on various web-based platforms. The aim is to bring the lived experience of disabled people into a vocabulary of space-making for architects.
EXPLORE THE DATABASE BY VISITING ON DESKTOP
This project connects accessibility requirements in the Danish Building Regulations (BR18) with statements posted by disabled people on various web-based platforms. The aim is to bring the lived experience of disabled people into a vocabulary of space-making for architects.
By elevating the missing voices of disabled people – describing what matters, how and why – the project supports the decision-making processes of architects to make the built environment more inclusive.
We have developed a graph database in which statements posted by disabled people in virtual space, and paragraph sentences of BR18, are related through specific architectural features of room, element and object.
Using the architectural features as point of reference, the website not only highlights some of the most common building situations encountered by disabled people, but also allows anyone interested to explore their relationship to the real lives of disabled users and the statutory requirements.
About
The project critically questions the role legislation plays in shaping our built environment. Codified rules and standards have played a significant role in reducing inequalities in the built environment by defining minimum obligations and basic architectural performance measures. The Danish building regulation BR18 (www.bygningsreglementet.dk) prescribes requirements and guidelines in most parts of the built environment.
The requirements for residential buildings are described in BR18 as most common building situations encountered by users in their everyday lives. Situations such as ‘access’ (§48-62), ‘kitchen work’ (§202) and ‘outlook’ (§378) are articulated through specific requirements that are formulated as descriptions and measurements of architectural elements, spatial dimensions, and/or minimum performances required.
The codified rules and standards, based on generalized and decontextualized expert knowledge, provide the essential point of reference for architects. Yet they suppress the differences that human bodies possess and simplify the complexity of bodily interactions with objects, buildings and their surrounding environments; all of this leads merely to standardized and generic design solutions.
For these reasons, questions must be raised about how well these rules and standards can respond to the real experiences of users. This state of affairs elucidates the need not only for critical evaluation of the quantitative methods and defined standards – but also of the legislative framework itself. Accordingly, we must creatively explore ways to develop knowledge of inclusion that enables architects to gain more nuanced understanding of spatial experiences.
The project approaches this challenge by visualising data sets that are highly personal (qualitative); and yet becoming largely available for public use through the development of web-based platforms (quantitative). The website is an alpha-version of a framework based on Web Scraping, Natural Language Processing and a Graph Database System that includes and relates perspectives of individual users and legislation.
The aim is to offer valid and interconnected information to architects, building authorities, engineers and designers considering user experience. We hope that users of the database are able to gain a better understanding of some aspects of disabled users’ experiences in the built environment – leading to more inclusive designs.
Graph Guide
Optimal use of the database requires prior knowledge about database structure, linguistic labels, and the search/explore features of the website – which are explained below.
DATABASE STRUCTURE
The structure of the database is based on connections between different sentences that share specific words, not meaning. No content analysis has been made of the users’ statements, partly because we do not think it makes sense, partly because we believe that it is the designer’s task to interpret the narrative information that shapes the design. This can lead the user of the database to sentences that appear irrelevant in one context but that may provide important information in another.
Blogger-nodes contains the alias used by the blogger.
Blogpost-nodes contain the title of the blogpost and a link to the actual blogpost, where the sentences can be found in their original context.
Sentence-nodes contain each individual sentence in the blogpost.
Action-nodes contain verbs used in the sentence that match a list of predefined verbs found with potential relevance to architectural context and use. Examples of these “actions” would be verbs such as, “move”, “sit” or “see”, among many others.
The four dark grey coloured nodes represent how features in the Architectural element/object/fixed object/room-nodes are used syntactically:
_Subject-nodes link Sentence-nodes with room/element/object-nodes, if one of the specific architectural features is the linguistic subject of the sentence. The subject is often the individual or thing that is performing the action and is often related to the main verb of the sentence. An example of such a sentence would be: “The tables were too close to each other.”
_Object-nodes link Sentence-nodes with architectural features that are linguistic objects of the sentence. Objects are often the receivers of the action in a sentence. An example of such a sentence would be: “I booked a table at the nice sushi restaurant.”
_Relation-nodes link Sentence-nodes and architectural features if the feature is used to describe a relation between itself and something else. A relational use of “wall” is a sentence that describes the wall in relation to something else. This could be a sentence like: “…the space between the table and the wall was too narrow.”
_Compound-nodes link Sentence-nodes with architectural features if the architectural feature is found in the sentence in combination with something else to describe a third condition. An example would be: “The (dining table) is too low!”
Room / Element / Object / Fixed Object consist of 58 pre-selected functionally defined rooms (bedroom, bathroom, kitchen…), architectural elements (wall, floor, ceiling…) and objects (door, chair, handrail).
Paragraph sentence-nodes contain the individual sentences of the paragraphs from BR18.
Paragraph-nodes contain the entire paragraphs of BR18 which relate to accessibility requirements.
SEARCH AND EXPLORATION
Relevant data can be located through either search or exploration.
The website features a word-search function where specific words and word combinations can be searched for across all nodes in the database. Below the search bar, a list of node-groups can be used to select all nodes within a group.
All nodes can be explored in a more intuitive fashion: by clicking a node, all those nodes connected to it will appear, which can, in turn, be clicked and so on.
At the right side of the canvas, an information box gives a quick overview of the things to which the most recently clicked node is connected. This feature is especially relevant when nodes are connected to many other nodes.
Contact
Uservoices.dk is developed at the Royal Academy of Architecture, Institute of Architecture and Design by researchers working in the field of inclusive architectural design. The project is generously funded by Bevica Foundation.
We encourage anyone who has questions to ask, who notices any website-errors, or who has ideas for improvements or future collaborations to contact:
Emil Ballegaard, architect MAA, PhD-fellow at the Royal Academy of Architecture, Institute of Architecture and Design.
Masashi Kajita, architect MAA, Associate Professor at the Royal Academy of Architecture, Institute of Architecture and Design.