Design for All? Diversity as the Norm
Seminar, Department of Architecture, TUM School of Engineering and Design
Technische Universität München
October 2024 to January 2025
No design suits everyone. Every day, many find themselves confronted with obstacles. They are unable to use an object or access a building or means of transport due to physical and cognitive impairments, language difficulties, body type, gender, or age. This begs the question: Who is our world built for? Who is deliberately being excluded by design?
In the seminar “Design for All? Diversity as the Norm”, students will take a deep dive into inclusive architecture and design from a contemporary perspective and explore its broad scope: in the light of demographic change and the increasing importance of the mandate of inclusion for public cultural and educational institutions, questions of inclusion and design need to be negotiated more intensively. In addition, the seminar aims to provide a critical reflection on standardisation and norms in the built environment.
The seminar is structured around several theoretical and practical inputs followed by debates, site visits, and spatial analyses. A series of guest lectures by international architects and designers who deal with human diversity in their practice will broaden the perspective on the topic of inclusion.
Invited guests:
hirnerundriehl.de/project/bellevue-di-monaco
stadt.muenchen.de/infos/beraterkreis-barrierefreies-bauen.html