Design with Pity vs Compassion

Connectioncommunity
Written By Erin Peavey

Summertime in our house growing up meant that my mom was up early and spent the day in her element. Some people are trained to be special education or vision teachers, but mom was born for this, and you could see her giddy excitement spending summers with teen and pre-teen kids at Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in central Austin.

My brother, my bestie, and I would take turns going up to the school to join in on lesson plans in my mother’s anything-but-orthodox, amazingly practical class on life skills and transitioning through puberty and into young adulthood. My personal favorite was teaching line dancing! The joy and laughter in those times together, and the sheer talent and ability was so cool to be a part of.

Perhaps that is why I still find myself confused at the reports of pity that I’ve heard when it comes to teaching understanding around disabilities, and why I want to dedicate this newsletter to exploring the ways we relate to others and contemplate together ways to shift from pity (very unhelpful and distancing) to compassion (helpful and uniting).

For Disability Pride Month, and every day, it’s important to talk about designing for more inclusion in our environments. Creating more inclusive, universally designed spaces can have positive ripple impacts on our lives and societies. In the United States, 1 in 4 adults live with a disability; with more than 23% of those people fall into the category of having mobility, hearing, or vision disability according to the CDC, making it especially hard to navigate many built environments. In addition to many more people with so called "invisible" disabilities such as chronic illnesses (e.g., MS, cancer), PTSD, and chronic pain or fatigue.

Because design is inherently social; and the way we design built environments impacts on the social lives of countless people – for those with disabilities and those without.

Universal design is a way of designing that includes all stakeholders of the built environment and users of a space – from those with seen disabilities – things like blindness, mobility challenges, those with unseen disabilities, and all of the range of people who benefit from an integrated and inclusive world. As a process, this means designing with empathy, compassion, and inclusion that centers the voices of people with disabilities and their needs. As a product, it means creating environments that are safe, inviting, and support physical, emotional, and social inclusion – something that Harper’s Playground in Portland does beautifully! (Look forward to an interview on Shared Space on with Cody on HP later this year -image below!)

Harper’s Playground at Arbor Lodge Park

Throughout the design community there is a discussion around designing with empathy, and empathy exercises that help others momentarily experience some small piece of what it is like to have X, Y, or Z type of difference or disability. But in recent years, these exercises have been critiqued for provoking unhelpful and inaccurate responses from some. Things like “oh my gosh, I’m so glad I don’t have (insert condition here)” or “oh wow, so this is what it is like to have (insert condition here)”. Both miss the point – no one needs your pity, and you can never truly walk a mile, or even a step, in another person’s shoes. The best we can do is be curious, kind, open, understanding…. And hey, follow, support, read, and be an ally to people with lots of differences.

This month, as we celebrate Disability Pride Month, there are so many people who are making an amazing different in creating a more compassionate and inclusive world.

Who else would you add to the list? What else do you think we should be discussing?

What are great projects and examples from around the world we should know about?

Erin Peavey https://erinpeavey.com
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