Seats at the table
Re-Fabricate + The DisOrdinary Architecture Project
CO-DESIGNING EQUITY IN THE PUBLIC REALM
EVENTS NOW LIVE COME AND SEE US IN POSTMAN’S PARK THROUGHOUT JUNE
SEE THE FULL PROGRAMME HERE
We are delighted to have been successful in out bid for the London Festival of Architecture’s Co-Designing Equity in the Public Realm competition with our brilliant collaborators The Dis/Ordinary Architecture Project!
The project has been commissioned by The London Festival of Architecture, Culture Mile, The City of London Corporation, and Foundation For Future London. Following an open competition our team has been selected to run the project for our proposal Seats at the Table.
Over the coming months we will be running a series of workshops and events in both the City of London Smithfield Area and several East-London boroughs.
Celebrating and supporting difference in the public realm
Our Dis/Ordinary Architecture + Re-Fabricate team will work with local disabled and non-disabled young people to explore the themes of accessibility and participation through the table as a place for bringing people together, sharing, making, learning, nourishment and socialising.
Through ‘Seats at the Table’ we want to celebrate and support the vital richness of our bio- and neuro-differences. Our programme will invite participants to create a multitude of chairs and other artefacts that represent their relationships to, and accessibility requirements for, enabling equal places at the table.
By implementing alternative ways of working and making that are inclusive from the start, the project will explore how different materials, practices, places and people can produce equity. The wider ambition being to challenge perspectives on what kinds of bodies are valued and devalued in conventional design.
OUR AIM
Our overall aim is to redefine what counts as waste: whether through the over extraction and misuse of resources, or in the assumptions that certain kinds of bodies and minds are less valuable to the economy and society. By intervening with traditional design processes, we want to explore how different decisions can equate in equity, what is valued and devalued, and unravel what becomes admired and what is disposable.
It is vital the site used is inclusive, accessible and safe for all when hosting co-design and co-building workshops, events and gatherings. To enable this we will co-explore
the culture mile and the shortlisted sites through walking tours, sharing lived experiences and identifying when accessible interventions are needed.
SEATS AT THE TABLE
Our proposal to co-design a table and chairs intervention will explore how to make dining accessible for all. No chair will be alike, as everyone’s experience is different.
Workshops will enable disabled and non- disabled participants to take part in co-designing their own seats at the table. This will both be a creative expression of differences and an opportunity to share stories about access and inclusion, and to learn more about sustainability and the circular economy.
Project Name: Seats at the Table - Co-designing Equity in the Public Realm
Collaborators: The DisOrdinary Architecture Project
Date: October 2021 to July 2022
Audience: General Public, Disabled Artists, Young people from SEN and mainstream East London schools, Built Environment students
Commissioning Organisations: The London Festival of Architecture, Culture Mile, The City of London Corporation, and Foundation For Future London