Beyond Known Worlds. A Fragmentary Exploration of Encounters between Autism and Designing Space. (Een andere wereld tegemoet. Fragmenten van ontmoetingen tussen autisme en het ontwerp van ruimte.)

Engaged in designing the built environment, architects play an important part in shaping the setting of our daily life. Given that the process of designing implies that architects delineate the design problem in a personal way by selecting some parts of information at the expense of others, and by recording and reformulating this information in complex ways, their ideas and positions may have a considerable impact on the environments that are created. On the other hand, designed environments are actually used by a diversity of people. Since all people building on their own capacities and previous experiences have their own point of view regarding the built environment and interact with it on the basis of a personal frame of reference, designed environments may be interpreted in different ways by different people in different contexts.While this diversity poses intriguing challenges to the field of architectural design, current design discourses and practices show a tendency to generalise people s characteristics by putting them into categories. Attempting to counter this tendency, this research aims to draw attention to different relations between people and the built environment. Moreover, by weaving through the research a notion of autism, which advances the particular way of thinking of autism as a valid interpretation of lived experience, this research aspires to use the diversity of people even amongst such a category as autism to put architects prevailing frames of reference in a different light.To this end, this thesis reports a set of individual case studies that relate encounters between autism and the design of space. Guided by two research tracks the one attending to the world of experience of people with autism themselves, the other to the process of designing space we examine in depth several real-life situations in which aspects of both perspectives are intertwined.Where the different case studies, as peepholes , bring into focus certain fragments of encounters between autism and the design of space, the collection of different case studies invites us to take a look beyond the borders of individual cases. Triggered by particular fragments, which are affected by the running theme of autism, this research throws a new light on ideas that seem to be taken for granted in our own way of thinking, both concerning the built environment, the process of designing space, and the knowledge on which it is founded. And although autism seems to represent only one specific point of view, the in-depth examination of a diversity of relations in this research precisely demonstrates how doors can be opened to discover a variety of worlds, and encourages to move beyond the edges of prevailing ways of thinking.<w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" defunhidewhenused="true"  <w:lsdexception="" locked="false" priority="0" semihidden="false"  nrpages: 148status: publishe

Performing Their Version of the House: an interpretation of an architectural response to autism

In conceiving the built environment, architects instigate a material setting for people's life. Given the diversity of the society in which a design will end up, it will always be a designers’ challenge to anticipate the interpretation of future users. To avert 'normalised' considerations, the paper gives account of the unique experiences of particular people, putting into perspective the interpretations of designers themselves. This research particularly considers the point of view of people with autism spectrum conditions. Due to their peculiar cognitive style, those people view, and engage with, the environment in a characteristic way. In a study of a collective housing facility, specifically designed with an eye to occupants diagnosed with autism, we explore how the notion of autism took shape in the design of this environment and to what extent the realised design takes effect in the everyday use of the house. Interviews with actors involved in the design and an analysis of the resulting housing facility reveal how the story of the building opens up in different directions. While the material world of the house is enveloped in different interpretations, we try to unravel how people with different relationships to the building qualify this built environment in a personal way. Qualifications of the building by different people reveal that the material world of the house only acquires its full meaning in the real action of dwelling. Through mutual adjustments, the house (as the final result of the design process) and the occupants (shaped by their own experiences) continuously evolve. Concurrently, each occupant, routed by personal interactions with the house, seems to have an own conception of this built environment. Regardless of the purposeful efforts during the design, in the worlds of different people an own version of the designed environment exists, which develops in a personal way.status: publishe

The Eyes of the Mind

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Capturing Experience: An Autistic's Approach to Designing Space

In conceiving the built environment, designers are inherently involved in shaping spaces people will live in. On the assumption that their interventions in space affect people's experience, many designers take up the responsibility to take people's experience into account. However, given the diversity of people who interact with space, it is still a challenge for designers to anticipate the diverse experiences of future users. Building on designers' challenge in anticipating experience, this article discusses the particular design process of a man, diagnosed with autism, who aspires to capture experience in designing his own living environment. Although his structured sequence of well-reasoned design decisions could be read in the light of an autistic way of thinking, the story of the man himself offers a more nuanced picture of his design approach, which raises fundamental questions about issues that seem to be taken for granted in our own context of designing.status: publishe

The Eyes of the Mind

The design of spaces has an important impact on our daily life: it can open up or restrict certain patterns of use. Moreover, dependent on a person’s disposition, the interpretation of spaces may change, as well as the way it is brought in use. This research studies the real patterns of use in the built environment considering an “other” mental disposition: that of people with autism. Analysis of stories and autobiographies of these people identifies their characteristic way of sense-making as key to an autistic way of thinking. The connection between sense-making and use of the environment is further explored through observation of persons with autism in the built environment. Preliminary findings suggest various kinds of mental thresholds, which present architects with intriguing challenges.status: publishe

Beyond the Designers' View: How People with Autism Experience Space

Harnessing all different dimensions of space is an immense, if not hopeless task. Thus the design of space is challenged by a complexity of meanings. The meaning attributed to a certain physical environment depends to a large extent on the personal interpretation people attach to this environment, influenced by their personal interests, attention and perceptual possibilities, whatever the designer's line of thought that generated this built environment. Aware of the diverse ways in which a designed environment can be received, this paper attempts to understand the built environment from another perspective. It reports on a study that starts from different people with autism spectrum conditions, throwing light on their spatial interpretation and the way they deal with the physical environment. Insights from an analysis of autobiographies of people with autism, tinged with the experiences of engaging with people with autism in different contexts, give an idea of what understanding another view on the built environment could imply. This paper presents fragments of a particular autistic world of experience as a challenge to open our eyes. It illustrates how some people with autism place an enforced confidence in the direct perception of the built environment, and it highlights the influence of extra connotations—exceeding the directly perceptible—which are inherently connected to space in our society. In an attempt to look at the built environment from this perspective, this stance enables us to be critical of the way we—architects and designers—think about designing space and it spurs us to be alive to the multiple complexity of space.status: publishe

Harnessing Different Dimensions of Space. The Built Environment in Auti-Biographies

An understanding of diversity is a key principle in the development of theories, tools and techniques of design for inclusion. Aiming at more accurate insight into the diversity of interactions of people with the designed environment, we explore other people's perspectives, in particular, those of people with autism spectrum disorders. Noticing their unique way of making sense of the world, our research questions the relevance of the meaning attributed to the built environment in our society. In this paper, we investigate the way people with autism talk about space and the importance they attach to their physical environment, as reflected in stories and autobiographies of people with autism themselves--in short, auti-biographies. By analyzing their own descriptions, we try to gain more insight into an autistic way of thinking and acting in relation to the built environment. These insights make us question our own way of dealing with space in the challenge of inclusive design.Book subtitle: INCLUSIVE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN PEOPLE AND PRODUCTS IN THEIR CONTEXTS OF USEstatus: publishe

Autism-friendly architecture from the outside in and the inside out: An explorative study based on autobiographies of autistic people

Researchers and designers each developed a particular vision on autism-friendly architecture. Because the basis of this vision is not always clear, questions arise about its meaning and value, and about how it can be put to use. People with a diagnosis on the autism spectrum are central to these questions, yet risk to disappear from the picture. Refocusing the discourse about autism-friendly architecture on them is the aim of the explorative study reported here. Six autobiographies written by autistic (young) adults were analysed from two different viewpoints. First, concepts from design guidelines concerning autism-friendly architecture were confronted with fragments from these autobiographies. The second part of the analysis started from the autobiographies themselves. This analysis shows that concepts can be interpreted in multiple ways. They can reinforce but also counteract each other, thus asking for critical judgment. An open space is preferred by some autistic people because it affords having an overview, which increases predictability, and distancing oneself from others without being isolated. Others might like this space to be subdivided into several separate spaces which affords a sense of structure or reduces sensory inputs present in one room. The six autobiographies provide a glimpse of autistic people's world of experience. Analysing these is a first step in revealing what architecture can actually mean from their point of view. For them, the material environment has a prominent meaning that is, however, not always reducible to design guidelines. It offers them something to hold on to, relate to or structure their reality.status: publishe

How do people with autism (like to) live?

Research on inclusive design focuses on designing environments that account for the diversity in human abilities and conditions. People with autism, for instance, deal with their environment in a particular way because their different way of processing information influences their spatial experience. Literature offers a growing number of concepts to create autism-friendly living environments. These concepts start from putting people with autism centre stage, yet in their formulation the autistic person him/herself often risks to disappear from view. This raises the question what meaning and value these concepts have, and how designers can use them. The study reported here aims to reconsider these concepts by refocusing on autistic people themselves. Interviews were conducted with 11 adults with autism who are living more or less independently and were willing to share their stories about how they (like to) live. On the one hand, analysis of these interviews shows that concepts of autism-friendly architecture are not indisputable rules that can be applied straightforwardly, and that one concept may reinforce but also counteract another. In each particular situation thus a balance must be sought, which will likely be easier when designing an environment for a single known inhabitant than when designing for multiple known or potentially unknown inhabitants. On the other hand, visits to autistic peoples houses often gave a sobering impression: very common houses where only details suggest that someone with autism is living there. Often, however, reality often does not reflect the ideal situation they described. The latter starts not so much from how it should be, but from how they would like it most, which does not necessarily fit the traditional view of a good place to live. As a result, this study contributes not only to a more nuanced understanding of concepts of autism-friendly architecture found in literature, but also to a more colourful image of what an autism-friendly living environment could be.status: publishe

Home in later life: A framework for the architecture of home environments

With the growing number of older people, architects face the challenge of designing appropriate residential environments for current and future generations of older people. Too often they live in houses that are not adjusted to their needs and desires, with few spatial and social qualities of a real home. Amongst architects and professional care givers awareness grows of the importance of 'feeling at home' in residential and care environments, rather than just meeting basic needs like food, shelter and medical care. This paper builds on this tendency. Based on literature from different disciplines, we identify a set of concepts, which together form a framework to understand (1) what is important in order to create a feeling of homeliness, particularly for older people and (2) how the physical house and its environment can contribute to that. Subsequently, we articulate how these concepts can be reflected in the architecture of the home by drawing on material from empirical research in the homes of older people living in very different contexts. The feeling of homeliness is based on a dynamic balance between autonomy and security. Trying to balance autonomy and security is an ever ongoing process, called appropriation. This is the process by which a person makes a house into a home. For five spatial aspects we describe and document how they may contribute to enhancing the autonomy-security balance.status: publishe