Jo Yao
Architectural Representation: Challenging Architectural Description from The Embodied Experience of People with No Sight
Summary
Broadly attentive to the disability and architecture beyond access, scholars conduct the discourse learned from disability to interrogate a more inclusive space vision in an age of co-existence. The unique perceptual experience of a specific group of disabled people in architecture due to their impairments at the physical level has been largely ignored in the current debate on disability design. People with no sight tend to be more skilled in using their bodies as eyes to describe space. Their embodied experience could enlighten non-disabled people to rethink the boundary of architectural representation to ideas beyond the basic elements such as style, order, and function. This research will explore the Darwin Building, one of the historical buildings at the Royal College of Art Kensington Campus in London, as a case study to capture the spontaneous adaption behaviour of people with no sight into this public building through space and proximity, sensory perception, light and colour, acoustics, materiality, and mobility. Based on the existing description of the Darwin building, this research will compare the description from the embodied experience of totally blind people in contrast with non-disabled people. This research will regard the architectural description as a medium, recording and challenging the current architectural representation method from an untested and more inclusive perspective.
Additional info
In order to conduct the embodied experience of people with no sight entering a new space and record it as an architectural description for a more explorative and sensory representation method to navigate architecture, I invited Jane Manley as a participant to have a trip to Darwin Building (completed in 1963), one of the historical buildings at the Royal College of Art Kensington Gore Campus in London. This research could regard as a test or experiment to capture the spontaneous adaption behaviour and sensitive perception of people with no sight through sensory research, light and colour, acoustics, materiality, and temperature. But I have to admit that it is a pity that due to the lack of a large number of participants, this is only an attempt to analyse based on the personal experience of one participant.
Existing Descriptions ➡️ Strollology/ Embodied Experience ➡️ New Description
The procedure summarized by this diagram starts with the existing previous historians’ descriptions or official descriptions from the government, which are also based on non-disabled, or based on the perspective of the “abled, white, male” body to describe the architecture. Participants left a concept and impression of the building through these descriptions, and then come to the building and surrounding environment in person to observe the real embodied experience by strollology, and based on their own unique perspective (in this experiment, the perspective of a person with no sight) to articulate their experience by walking, talking, feeling, sometimes touching. In the final stage, participants will translate the experience into a new perspective on the architectural description.
One characteristic of the whole scheme, and one that is often overlooked by the general public in the process of architectural re-presentation, is that language appears not only in the final stage but also in every preceding stage.
The workflow of this research abandons the drawings as the material to represent architecture in the first stage, not only considering the participant's situation but also trying to emphasize the language/descriptions in architectural cultures. This kind of architecture is not presented in the form of drawings, but completely in the form of words, which has always been a possibility.
Disability or ‘Differently Abled’
Jane and her guide dog (Rosie) standing on the floor routine guide sign
Groups under the 'disability' label are surprisingly heterogeneous. Jane Manley, the participant in this research project, works as a social media analyst in the research and insight team at the Royal National Institute of Blind People, explained in the interview with the author:
It is less popular to use impairment to describe disability. Although some disabled groups, such as the deaf group, are not as divided as the blind group, they are more united because they are all able to achieve the same abilities in daily life with lip language and hearing aids. But it's still ambiguous when it comes to referring to people who are visually impaired or blind -- completely blind and partially blind people are completely different groups, and they cannot use external forces to achieve the same capability. It is more suitable to use people with no sight or people who are totally blind to indicate a specific disability group.
This trend may be to clarify the differences between groups under the disability label, so that people can better understand different groups' needs and abilities. Jane Manley also mentioned the phrase "differently abled," which she likes a lot. The term "differently abled" was created by the Democratic National Committee of the United States as an alternative to "persons with disabilities."Currently "differently abled" is not the language of choice as some in the disability community find the term condescending or offensive. Critics argue that the term is euphemistic, designed to avoid talking about a person's disability in an honest and concrete way.
However, in my point of view, the term ‘differently abled’ is a language used to break the boundaries of disabled people and non-disabled people, and also conduct the difference between the heterogeneous disability groups. This is not meant to avoid discussion of the term disability, but to provide a different perspective on disability. As my participant Jane Manley states as an abled disabled person - she uses hearing aids and a guide dog to promote her independence.To some extent, the term ‘disability’ limits the public's understanding and imagining of disabled people, ignoring their ability and different vision of seeing things. It is worth considering what can non-disabled people learn from disabled people, the Royal National Institute of Blind People applied “See differently” on their website as the core concept, it is not only the way of treating different groups of blind people, but it also enlightens the non-disabled people a unique perspective of engaging with the nature environment and society.
Architectural Descriptions of Darwin Building, Royal College of Art Kensington Gore Campus, London
1
Ian Nairn wrote in his book Nairn’s London (1966):
This is a very good place to feel the husky, direct temper of young British architects. It is the opposite of a firework; it smoulders through to your consciousness with quiet intensity: purple brick and concrete aggregate, humped up against the Albert Hall like a gruff egalitarian greeting. This building is meant to be used and worn and thumbed over and hugged, like the family’s big woolly dog. Seven storeys of classrooms, the staircase coming where it needs to: a lecture theatre on the ground floor, and bolshie paired roof-lights on top nudging the sky along with the Boeings and Caravelles. All of it is done with feelings for the students […] all of it is troubled, asking, questioning, scrutinizing. […]
2
However, there is another description of universities from the 1950s to 1970s contains Darwin Building, Royal College of Art in Kensington Gore, from The Buildings of England: London 3 North West by Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, 1991:
While the 1950s was the decade for schools, […] cheerfully detailed in the Festival [of Britain’s] spirit. A major enterprise was begun in 1968, when the decision was taken to provide new buildings for Imperial College on the site of the Imperial Institute at South Kensington, […] The same firm was responsible for the master plan of Brunel University; here the main college buildings of 1965-71, forceful, well-composed groups in dark brick, are complemented by Stillman & Eastwick-Field’s laboratories and engineering buildings (1965-7), which likewise exploit the aesthetic of exposed concrete and plain brickwork. A similarly brutalist approach is illustrated by the strikingly tall, functional frontage of the Royal College of Art in Kensington Gore, 1959-64 by H.T. Cadbury-Brown, […] an effective composition with concrete lecture theatre jutting out over the entrance. These are the best examples; handled with less confidence and skill, large concrete building could easily alienate both user and beholder. The move in the 1970s away from such uncompromising forms and materials led to an enthusiasm for bricks as the universal panacea.
3
Furthermore, the description of the Royal College of Art in the Survey of London (Originally published by London County Council, 1975) shows as follows:
CHAPTER XXI – Royal College of Art
The workshop, studio and administrative block on Kensington Gore (which accommodates the industrial design departments), and the exhibition centre and assembly-hall block opposite the Albert Hall were built in 1960–2 (Plate 76c), and the library, refectory and common-rooms block in 1962–4. The College has proposed building another block extending along Kensington Gore to Queen's Gate, to house departments of painting, graphic design and photography.
[…]
The architects have pointed to certain features of the design. The arrangement with the main entrance on the east is intended in part to give meaning to the space separating the College from the Albert Hall. The workshop block is designed to balance in tone and bulk the mass of Albert Hall Mansions on the other side of the Albert Hall, and particular attention was paid to the silhouette of the skyline partly to respond to Norman Shaw's gables and partly to counter the relative darkness of a north-facing front. In order to foster 'spiritual contact' between the building and passers-by the ground floor of this block is so faced as to require repainting and thereby produce the continual 'rebirth of the building'. Inside, the treatment is intended to be flexible and unobtrusive. Studios open into the workshops, and corridors are largely eliminated. The block (of reinforced concrete construction) is split longitudinally to give different ceiling heights front and back: all floors are designed to bear machinery if required. The natural lighting of rooms is, so far as possible, from more than one direction. The all-over plan has, however, been criticized for the restricted lighting of and outlook from the common-rooms block.
see full-text https://www.british-history.ac...
4
The final selected existing description of the Darwin Building is from National Heritage List for England (2001):
[The Royal College of Art] School for art and design. Designed 1956-9, built 1960-63 in three phases; architect H T Cadbury-Brown, in collaboration with Sir Hugh Casson and Robert Goodden. Reinforced concrete clad in dark red-brown brick intended to complement Norman Shaw's Albert Hall Mansions, then uncleaned, on the other flank of the Royal Albert Hall.
There are three linked blocks. Facing Kensington Gore is the Darwin Building (1960-1), of eight storeys, conceived as a rectangular block of flatted factories, with projecting staircases on the north and south elevations, that to the north with passenger lifts and that to the south with a goods lift, each serving spaces designed to be infinitely flexible. There is a central line of columns, and central service core. […] Metal windows with opening casements and toplights set between concrete mullions, paired on the long elevations; rooflights on the eighth floor. […] The interior was designed to be extremely flexible about these fixed points, and lightweight partitions continue to be inserted and removed as required, in the spirit of the original brief. The building was designed to take extremely heavy loadings of industrial machinery, which is concentrated in the higher spaces. […] Main staircases and internal stairs between levels have terrazzo flooring. Staircases with thick timber balustrades on steel upstands. Full-height glazed door, a distinctive Cadbury-Brown feature, on fourth floor. Otherwise the partitions, doorways and other internal features are not of special interest, and are designed to be moved as the College requires. The ground floor, or Henry Moore Gallery, was remodelled in 1986-7 by the RCA Project's Office, with an extension into the central courtyard and a shop designed by James Gowan. The basement hall and caf' are also of this date.
[…]
The exhibition block is a long, low building facing the Albert Hall. The entrance is defined by two angled, projecting columns. Behind it, at an angle, a highly glazed library links it to the common room block and principal lecture theatre. The Senior Common Room retains the finest interior, though despite its sophisticated timber finishes this like the rest of the building was intended as a neutral space for the display of works of art. Despite alterations the building retains its powerful presence, fulfilling Cadbury-Brown's aim of an architecture he describes as `lean and spare'. It also well reflects the building's industrial function, and he suggests that Casson and Goodden left the design to him to ensure it had a `gritty' feel. Like Cadbury-Brown's own house and his lecture block at Essex University it has a meticulous geometry which sets it apart from the other, generally mundane, buildings of the time constructed for technical subjects. Ian Nairn described the RCA as having 'the greatness and staure that so many of the physically great new buildings in London so conspicuously lack'.
see full text https://historicengland.org.uk...
New Description from A Person with No Sight
Research Journey Routine of Dawin Building Lower Ground Floor
Research Journey Routine of Dawin Building First Floor
From the participant who is a person with no sight, Jane Manley’s description of Darwin Building, the Royal College of Art Kensington Campus, written five days after her embodied experience:
I entered the area in which the main entrance door of the Royal College of Art is situated from the main road (where the surface is made up of uneven square flagstone that were radiating heat, sounds of nature from the park opposite clash with cars and public transport, and the air creates a feeling of openness and space) into a noticeably narrower space between two buildings (the surface was cobbled, the temperature much cooler, the air more still which acted as a barrier so that sounds from the main road were locked behind me somehow), which led after a few steps to a more open, but still smaller, roadway. As the space widened, I could hear conversations ahead of me, footfall but no traffic and these sounds seemed enclosed so I [am] imaging the buildings run[ing] either side of the cobbled street.
Turning to my left my guide dog led me up an ascending ramp, flag stone squares some unsettled, to a small open area and we sat on a wooden bench under a tree. I could hear the tree was in leaf, and its shade meant the wooden picnic bench remained cool. Someone was on my right behind me tapping on their phone and taking a call.
I sat on the bench facing the ramp, Jo (the author) then took me to touch the brick wall situated behind me and slightly to my left. The wall was comprised of standard London bricks, clay based, you could feel the what the pollution had speckled and indented the surface.
[…] [I] entered the building. We were greeted by 2 voices coming from a lower (so take it they were seated) and Jo explained I was her guest etc. Whilst this was happening, I was aware because of the air flow and sound, that to my right the building was opening up and that people were walking on a plastic/silicone type of floor, you could hear trainer's squeak. I could also hear people moving through a set of doors [Jo told me after] which I now know to be glass.
As Jo led me through these we turned to my right to a small area where I could feel a slight warmth on my right as I faced ahead and smell dust which emphasised this was a small, little traversed area. I was encouraged to touch the walls which were, I was told, white. I could feel that the depth of paint varied and there were dried drips and paint runs over the bricks. This section in essence loops back towards the brick wall I touched outside (in my mental map), and I think the tree and benches would be outside the windows. […]
We then moved back into the 'corridor' area, it wasn't enclosed, but it is clearly a through path given the footfall use. Although there is no tactile contrast the floor Jo said is coloured green against grey. […]
We continued forward and took a seat on the right. When seated I was able to feel the environment more keenly, identifying windows on my right, that were not in open sunlight because the warmth from them was tempered somewhat, […], I imagined this to be an enclosed space open to the elements but enclosed within buildings. The ceiling above me felt lower than in the reception area as the noise from others seated around me was being held down. I do not feel that there were any windows or open areas, other than for seating, to my left at this point.
[…]
Walking ahead a few paces we came to a set of double doors which Jo opened for us, they seemed heavy like fire doors from the sounds of their closing and because the air behind them was immediately different and felt like it hadn't been 'disturbed' by any/many students.
There is a downward ramp/slope immediately after these doors, it smells of the paint but not in a fresh sense, but old, slightly damp. The temperature there is cooler, and I think there were walls on my right and windows on my left as we walked forwards turning a sharp left to a lift on my left as we turned the corner. The lift button must be a distance away from this lift as Jo's voice when speaking to me moved away from me at one point.
Rising in the lift (I am unsure how many floors the lift is not audible) we came out onto a wide landing, with my back to the lift I was aware that ahead of me was a tall, wide-open area beyond which externally, was a busy road. Using my brick wall as a marker I believe it to be the main road opposite the park where I started from.
With my back to the lift, Jo told me that […] ahead of me [were] flights of stairs going up/down. I explored the wooden handrails, you can feel the smooth areas of most use, the variation in the lacquered varnish, cuts, deliberate and accidental. The atmosphere was very still, the heat from windows somewhere (ahead of me?) was creating a gradual smell of the building. Someone came down the stairs and from the sound of their feet on the steps I imagine the floor surface to be a sort of faux stone, […].
We then turned to my right, went through a set of double doors, covered a small space and went through another set of double doors into a wide-open area that moved to my left and right as we entered it. we turned left and walked through this space which was occupied by people. I could hear computer keyboards being tapped, chatter, smell scents, artificial and body.
[…] [When] entering another large open space […] sounds as if there is a wall or a screen in front of you and slightly to the left as you enter because the sounds were separated and we walked to the left, before moving to the right and stopping at Jo's desk where again we had windows on the left side of me as I faced Jo which opened onto the main road again. Jo took me to a section of wall and an encased area […] the wall area making a corner of the room using the outside wall, and the encased area being paint covered plaster adjacent to that. Again, I could feel brickwork beneath the paint, and that the paint was put on haphazardly with runs, drip marks and a variation in depth.
Jo then walked back the way we had come, […], until we get to an outer door which opened to a partially (no roof covering) enclose wooden corridor with wooden 2x4 timber slats rising upwards from the ground along which was a hand rail on the right as we move through it (exiting the door, moving forward a few paces, turning left towards the open decking area). […] when touching the wood to the right as we exited the door I initially thought that because the lacquered varnish was desiccating that the wood was poorly maintained but as I learnt the area leading away from it I realised that that section of wood was taking the full impact of the afternoon sun and it was that causing the damage as the shaded areas of wood I touched were smoothly varnished still waves! This wooden walkway opens out to reveal the tree on your right with other plants Jo advised. This was the enclosed courtyard I imagined when sitting for coffee earlier. With the building we had just exited to my back I was advised I was facing the library […].
