A screening of the short film 'Space for Inclusion: Co-designing Inclusive and Resilient Futures', exploring how lived experience can reveal aspects of the built environment that drawings, audits and technical guidance alone cannot capture.

Developed through collaboration between Foster + Partners, The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and 21 disabled creatives, the research revisits five completed buildings by Foster + Partners spanning several decades to understand how people perceive, navigate and experience space in different ways.

Through multiple visits to each building, focusing on entrances, toilets and urban rooms, the research brings together diverse, dynamic, cross-disability and intersectional perspectives. It explores not only physical access, but sensory and cognitive experiences of space – revealing where experiences align, where they differ, and where different access needs may create tensions.

Rather than seeking a single solution, the research demonstrates the value of understanding these differences and complexities. It considers how lived experience can provide a richer body of design knowledge, complementing technical guidance and helping architects make more informed decisions about the environments they create.

The film also follows how this learning is being brought into live projects at Foster + Partners through co-design and collaboration, embedding lived experience from the early stages of the design process and considering inclusion as an integral part of design.

The session will conclude with a discussion about the next stages of the project, and the development of a new white paper emerging from the research and subsequent industry conversations.

Sponsored by Foster + Partners