The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes Beyond Access by David Gissen. University of Minnesota Press, 224 pp., $25.
A shock of recognition comes early in The Architecture of Disability. Author David Gissen argues in his introduction that while providing adequate access for disabled people is necessary, making it the dominant principle by which architecture responds to impairment not only is insufficient but also reinforces alienating functionalist narratives. And then, toward the end of this initial essay, he turns the mirror on the discipline itself—to the hustles of studio, site visits, and archival work that compose common design and research practices. In short, the ways that architecture cultivates an unwritten doctrine of, as Elon Musk might put it, hard core.
Grind culture has come under fire as symptomatic of labor exploitation, but Gissen, a disabled designer and historian, expands and redirects the critique. He asks that we consider activities through the lens of disability. “Too often scholars and design…