“This Space Is an Eclectic Polyglot”: Reviewingan Architecture of Higher Education through Diverse Eyes, Ears, and Minds

Abstract

This article pivots around a recently renovated university building in central London. Rooted in a participatory, multimodal, creative-led methodology, the research is based on a study carried out in the summer of 2025, when eight disabled artists, designers, and architects visited the building and recorded their experiences in a variety of media. Given that universities have been identified as highly exclusive environments—both spatially and socially—the paper uses empathy as a lens through which to scrutinise the many ways in which architecture shapes who accesses, who freely navigates, who shapes, and, ultimately, who belongs in the spaces of academia. Working with empathy not as feeling-for but as solidarity-with, the article aims to destabilise dominant understandings of disability and their framing through the built environment.