Jury feedback summary
Cause Every Step Counts is designed with a centripetal plan to lead an occupant through the home using the walls, which begin and end at the same location. The jury commented: “The design of this home is tremendously successful as a simple home to move through, orient within and hold in mind as a mental map or model. Additionally, the organization of the house is built around 3 distinct natural-living places that are sensory rich. With each end of the home opening to the wooded landscape and the centrally located sensory winter garden, each room has the potential to come to life with a dynamic rich experience that would evolve throughout the day and year. It is unclear, however, if the winter-garden has the potential to be opened to natural air, breezes and sounds when the weather permits but assuming that it is operable, it would have the potential to keep the house dynamic, fresh and sensorily rich throughout the year. Additionally, the entry approach and connection to the wooded landscape would make for a nice transition out from and a recognizable approach to the home without sight. Where the design excels, however, the text fails to live up to its promise. The text as a narrative explanation is an uncomfortable over-reach of excessive and ill-founded help and assistance - no matter how well intentioned it may be. Counting steps, especially within one’s own home, is not necessary or representative of contemporary blind orientation and mobility training and is not necessary within the knowable and intimate confines of a private domestic environment. The intentions behind these overt tactics would be better achieved through further development of the inherent spatial and experiential clarity through greater development of its multi-sensory design pallet. That said, the success of the plan and the overall sensory richness of the home truly excels as a rich, dynamic and respectful home for the blind when released from the overreach of the text.”
Jury feedback summary
The Guiding Wall was evaluated as the strongest project received for this competition. The project presents a considered and thoughtful approach to designing a space that provides security and a way-finding approach as well as an environment enhanced by sound, temperature, and contrast. The jury writes, “The project offers a nuanced design approach that does not solely rely on the guiding wall for differentiation of the spaces but caters to multiple senses at once in order to signal the transition of one space to the other and uniquely characterize each space. The proposal aptly addresses space planning and circulation with respect to a logical sequence of daily activities and brings attention to bright and high-contrast color-coding, materiality, lighting conditions and wet vs dry areas in the bathroom. Considerations would be needed for flexibility and diversity in the way an individual’s daily activities are sequences, minimizing the use of moveable furniture yet allowing customization, and for the possible integration of support technology into the environment. This scheme is a well-balanced, comprehensive design for a resident that is blind or with low vision, while being a delightful home for those with sight. It succeeds in providing a simple organizational structure with a logical flow that is built upon good common sense and a mature level of good “blind” common sense. It demonstrates a convincing development of multi-sensory place-making in each room with a great strategy of multi-sensory transitions between them.”