Home for the Blind Jury Panel

Buildner is pleased to announce the jury for the upcoming Home for the Blind Competition!

Jos Boys, The DisOrdinary Architecture Project

Maya Mahgoub-Desai, OCAD University

Chris Downey, Architecture for the Blind

Rosa Lorenzo Downey, Architecture for the Blind

Rion Philbin, No So

Jos Boys is co-founder of UK-based The DisOrdinary Architecture Project, a platform bringing together disabled artists and built environment students, educators and practitioners for creative and positive actions and dialogue that can demonstrate how disability is a valuable and generative force in design, rather than a technical and legalistic ‘problem’. Jos is author of Doing Disability Differently: an alternative handbook on architecture, dis/ability, and designing for everyday life (Routledge 2014) and editor of Disability, Space, Architecture: A Reader (Routledge 2017).

Maya Mahgoub-Desai is the Chair of Environmental Design at OCAD University and a practicing Urban Designer and Planner with Moriyama Teshima Architects. Her interdisciplinary research interests focus on public health, socio-ecological models of urban development, and decolonization of design pedagogy. Her current SSHRC-funded research projects investigate environmental health, public realm design, and inclusive approaches to community collaboration.

Chris Downey of Architecture for the Blind has over 30 years of architectural experience continuing without sight since 2008. Through his lived experience with blindness, he adds unique value to projects for or relevant to the blind and low vision community by creating multi-sensory Inclusive Designs with a sense of delight whether seen or not.

Rosa Lorenzo Downey of Architecture for the Blind has honed her creative use of color theory and materiality on a broad spectrum of architectural and interior projects over the past three decades. She is actively engaged in furthering and supporting multiple design initiatives and goals inclusive of all people including universal design and multi-cultural awareness.

Alan Dunlop of Alan Dunlop Architects is an architect with a portfolio of award winning buildings; including the internationally renowned Hazelwood School for children and young people who are dual sensory impaired: blind and deaf. Alan is a fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and an alumnus of the Glasgow School of Art. He has written extensively on architecture and urban design in a number of professional journals and had peer reviewed papers on architecture published internationally.

Rion Philbin, No So Founded in 2016 on the notion that design is essential for all people. Berlin-based, No So is an anonymous and celebrated design practice. “We want to connect with people who understand the value of design through our playful creative processes: fun, iterative and at times inappropriate.” Its Casa-mac project is home in Italy for a blind woman that orients the spaces around a singular corridor spine, to minimize potential maze effect and ensure efficient movement.

The Home for the Blind competition is part of a Buildner Competition series focused on accessible architecture. It seeks designs for a semi-detached house for a single blind occupant.