How do people with physical disabilities or chronic illnesses experience different environs and spaces? 

ROM is hereby announcing a third open call that seeks to shed light on who has the power to define architecture and urban development. We want to hear from architects, writers, curators, activists, and artists who in different ways are interested in the topic of bodies and places, with a focus on illnesses or physical disabilities.

When you are used to navigating a world that is not built for your particular body, you find many creative solutions. And focusing on these solutions makes it possible to uncover unfair structures both in society in general and in buildings in particular. Who has the power to define when planning and constructing buildings meant for everyone, and what alternative practices might enhance our surroundings and make them more diverse?

As early as the year 2000, the architects Iain Borden and Jane Rendell urged the field of architecture to include more voices from marginalized groups so that a more nuanced perspective on architecture and its history could come to the fore. This also applies to people who live with a physical disability, something the architect Jos Boys has discussed in her writings. In Doing Disability Differently (2016), she writes of how disabilities often become a technical or legal question in architecture, where people with disabilities often become an afterthought in the design process. Instead, Boys wants architects to conceive of buildings and cities with physically disabled bodies specifically in mind.

Apply with your project

We are inviting a wide-ranging community of professionals to submit their ideas for projects that can shed light on what either helps or hinders people with physical disabilities in regard to architecture and to small town and urban development, whether they practise as an architect, planner, or artist, and however they help those with physical disabilities to experience architecture, public spaces, and art.

Do you have a text you want to write? Are you thinking of a lecture you want to hear? An exhibition? A workshop you want to organize? A project for children and young people? ROM works with many and innovative project formats, and you are at liberty to suggest relevant ways of discussing the topic. We would ideally like to receive preliminary ideas that we can develop together. Send your tentative ideas (about 200 words or a 1-minute video or audio file) on the form provided HERE. The deadline is 26 August 2022. In the next phase, selected applicants will be invited to submit a more extensive project description.

The project has received funding from the Balansepotten scheme.