Design for All: Accessibility, Technology, and Agency

*This event is occurring as a live webinar. Registrants will be emailed a link to access the program.*

How does technology make our interior environments more accessible? From smart homes and touch-free devices to temperature controls and robotic assistance, are we designing with technology that affords every user agency? How can technology be a tool but also a means to better understand the environment that we are designing? Has the pandemic shutdown given us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine and redesign our interior spaces for all? Panelists with a broad range of experiences will discuss technological interfaces in public settings as diverse as the public library, the subway station, and the campus building.

Speakers:
Quemuel Arroyo, Chief Accessibility Officer, MTA
Hansel Bauman, Principal, Hansel Bauman Architecture + Planning
Chancey Fleet, Assistive Technology Coordinator, Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, New York Public Library

Moderators:
Amy Hurst, Associate Professor, New York University
Barbara Weinreich, Assoc. AIA, NCIDQ, Interim Director of Undergraduate Programs, New York School of Interior Design

About the Speakers:

Quemuel Arroyo is Chief Accessibility Officer at the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Arroyo spent five years at the NYC Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) as Chief Accessibility Specialist and ADA Coordinator/Disability Service Facilitator. In these roles, he established the agency’s strategic plan on accessibility policy while representing NYCDOT on all matters of accessibility locally and internationally, including speaking at the United Nations and chairing an international summit on sustainable and accessible transport at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Most recently, Arroyo served as Interim President & Global Head of Community for GetCharged Inc, overseeing government relations and strategic partnerships.

Hansel Bauman is principal of Hansel Bauman architecture + planning, a recognized leader in human-centered design. He served as the Executive Director of Design and Planning and as an adjunct faculty member at Gallaudet University from 2009 to 2019. In 2006, Bauman co-founded Gallaudet University’s DeafSpace Project, a user-driven design and research initiative documenting socio-spatial dynamics of deaf experiences, for which he received the 2015 International Association of Universal Design Gold Award. Bauman lectures internationally, with work featured at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and in publications such as Metropolis, WIRED and The Economist. His current work applies human-centered design practices to urban- and regional-scale planning projects.

Chancey Fleet is the Assistive Technology Coordinator at the New York Public Library, where she founded and maintains the Dimensions Project, a free open lab for the exploration and creation of accessible images, models, and data representations through tactile graphics, 3D models, and nonvisual approaches to coding, CAD, and “visual” arts. Fleet is a 2018-19 Data & Society Fellow and current Affiliate-in-Residence whose writing, organizing, and advocacy aims to catalyze critical inquiry into how cloud-connected accessibility tools benefit and harm, empower and expose, communities of disability.

Amy Hurst is Associate Professor at New York University (NYU) with a joint appointment in the Occupational Therapy Department in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and the Technology, Culture and Society Department in the Tandon School of Engineering. She is the Director of the Ability Project, an interdisciplinary research space dedicated to the intersection between disability and technology.

Barbara Weinreich is Interim Director of Undergraduate Programs at the New York School of Interior Design and Co-Chair of the AIANY Interiors Committee.