How can we approach the body in universal design?
This Lunch Bag Lecture unfold how we can approach and understand the human body as more than just a physically measurable entity, when working with Universal Design within the build environment. The significance of this scope and topic is rooted in the original definitions of Universal design as a concept that both emphasizes supporting physical access to the build environment and our possibility to stay in the build environment by supporting shared experiences of well-being and possibilities of social participation.
To unfold our understanding of the human body, this Lunch Bag Lecture focuses on a specific case study carried out amongst midwives at a maternity ward in Copenhagen. Studying how midwives apply and experience lighting in the delivery room, the case study unfolds how midwives orchestrate the process of birth from an understanding and awareness of the human body as both a physical, sensory and feeling entity. This threefold understanding of the body may be grasped from a phenomenological concept of atmosphere and may ultimately inform the ways we integrate the concept of Universal design into the build environment – embracing people across physical capabilities by meeting and supporting sensory experiences and feelings through the designs of lighting and materials in the build environment. Ultimately focusing on what a body also is and is capable of.
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Scientific articles
Stine Louring Nielsen (2022) The Midwifery Feel of Light. In: Shanti Sumartojo (ed.), Lighting Design in Shared Public Spaces. New York: Routledge.
Stine Louring Nielsen, Ute Christa Besenecker, Nanna Hasle Bak & Ellen Kathrine Hansen (2021) Beyond Vision: Moving and Feeling in Colour Illuminated Space. Nordic Journal of Architectural Research 33, vol. 2.
Camilla Ryhl, Marie Eiriksson & René Sørensen (2021) Universal Design – introduktion til et designprincip, der udfordrer tanken om at være menneske. Bevica Fonden.
Books
Juhani Pallasmaa (2012) The Eyes of the Skin. John Wiley & Sons.
Gernot Böhme (2013) The Aesthetics of Atmosphere. Jean-Paul Thibaud (ed.). Routledge.
Hermann Schmitz (2019) New Phenomenology. A Brief Introduction. Tonino Griffero (ed.). Mimesis International.
Comment
Emil Falster & Marcus Merit (2021) Personer med funktionsnedsættelse sætter også pris på hygge og æstetik. Information, 21. januar.
Cases
In respect of our presenters at Lunch Bag Lectures, the terms, language and use of concepts that the researchers find appropriate in their field of research are used according to their choice.
Stine Louring Nielsen
Anthropologist, PhD in LD
Work as a Project Developer at the Bevica Foundation’s Universal Design HUB
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Read Stine’s research profile: Design Solutions Must be Created for Humans as Sentient Beings
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