Title of the research : From Designed Accessibility to Experienced Accessibility: Bringing Together Users’ Experiences and Architects’ Perceptions to Understand Inclusive Quality in Architecture
under the supervision of Dr.Jean-Pierre Chupin
Abstract : What can an architect truly know about a spatial experience that he or she has not yet had? To design is to anticipate a future experience without being able to predict how the space will actually be inhabited. This research uses inclusion as a lens to examine the limits of architectural knowledge and the way in which quality is constructed and assessed. It is based on the hypothesis that an architect cannot fully understand what they have not experienced.
Drawing on award-winning buildings and post-occupancy evaluation studies, the method is based on three components: the collection of users’ lived experiences (observations, observational drawings, satisfaction ratings); the analysis of project files to reconstruct the architects’ representations; and semi-structured interviews with the designers. The research aims to understand what architects recognize as quality and what escapes their notice given the diversity of ways people live.