Crip Space
Cripping is the action of invention. Just as Long Chu defines gender as the universal reaction to being female, so we might consider architecture to be the universal reaction to being crippled.
The objects that people rely on daily—glasses, pills, adhesives, crutches, hearing aids—make up a kind of cabinet of curiosities. These visible aids are symbolic of the way the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sorts disability by the impairments of mobility, cognition, hearing, vision, independent living, and self-care. According to the agency’s oft-cited data, around 20 percent of the US population is considered disabled. The Social Security Administration (SSA), on the other hand, categorizes potential impairment through the body’s mechanics. For example, its nested subsections shrink from the respiratory system to lungs, then from lungs to breath.
In spite of the stringent criteria used to categorize them, the needs that the CDC and SSA identify are often met with threadbare nets. The American health care system is plagued with high insurance premiums, gaps in coverage, and limited sick leave. People worry about falling ill, affected by the possibility of illness even when they are well. To borrow from critic Andrea Long Chu: everyone is crippled,…
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