Jos Boys and Richard Dougherty open up a radical approach to spatial equity and inclusion in their New Now Next talk with Irish Architecture Foundation.
New Now Next is an international and high profile series of talks that take on topical and urgent issues in architecture and the built environment in an open, creative, and inspiring way. Now in its 10th season, New Now Next 2022 returns to in-person talks taking place at The Complex in Dublin city centre. The themes of this year’s talks are the circular economy, spatial equity and sustainable urban development.
In this double bill, Jos Boys will discuss the work of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project, which she co-founded with disabled artist Zoe Partington in 2008. This is an informal platform that has been developing and promoting new models of practice for the built environment, led by the creativity and experiences of disabled and deaf artists. Richard Dougherty will discuss his experience as a deaf architect and his collaborative work with The DisOrdinary Architecture Project on a festival project design in Braunschweig, Germany, that starts from the sensory and performative space of deaf culture and sign language. Together, they reveal how disability can be a creative generator rather than a ‘problem’ for design, critically challenging conventional forms of architectural education and practice.
Jos Boys is a co-founder of the influential 1980s feminist architecture practice and research group Matrix Design Co-operative, which was the subject of a recent major exhibition at the Barbican, London. She is currently Director of the Learning Environments Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Centre at The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.
Richard Dougherty is a deaf architect and Director of Richard Lyndon Design, Belfast. Previously, as an Associate at Hall McKnight Architects, he was a lead on design and master-planning work for Gallaudet, a university for the deaf in the USA.