“We have five senses in which we glory and which we recognise and celebrate, senses that constitute the sensible world for us. But there are other senses — secret senses, sixth senses, if you will — equally vital, but unrecognised, and unlauded. These senses, unconscious, automatic, had to be discovered.

Oliver Sacks

“Everyday gratitude sweetens what appears flavourless and brightens all that appears dim.

Amy-Leigh Mercree

Since my childhood I have been      impressed with a phenomenon,   of surprising clarity.  The light I saw changed with my inner condition.  Partly it depended upon my physical condition.  For instance, fatigue, restfulness, tension, or relaxation.  such changes however, were relatively rare.  The true changes depended upon the state of my soul. When I was sad, when I was afraid, all shades became dark and all forms indistinct.  When I was joyous and attentive all pictures became light.  Anger remorse, posed everything into darkness.  A magnanimous resolution a courageous decision, radiated a beam of light.  By and by I learned to understand that love meant seeing, and that hate was ‘night’.  

I had the same experience with space.  When I became blind I found out that an inner space existed.  This space also changed it’s dimensions in accordance with the condition of my soul.  Sadness, hate or fear not only darkened my universe, but also made it smaller.  The number of objects I could encompass within myself with one glance, decreased.  In the truest sense of the word, I knocked against everything.  Objects and beings became obstacles within myself.  Outwardly I could not avoid running against doors and furniture.  I was punished very thoroughly and very quickly.  Conversely however, courage, attention, joy had the immediate of opening up and illuminating space.  Soon everything existed in me abundantly.   A great many objects, pictures, beings,  I saw a magnificent landscape before me.  I knew that this landscape could be expanded indefinitely.  In order to achieve this my joy needed merely to become even greater.  At the same time my physical adroitness increased.  I found my way and moved with assurance.  In short there were two possibilities.  To reject the world, and that meant darkness, reverses, or to accept it, and that meant light and strength.  

Jacques Lusseyran

Facilitating Unfettered Potential

Last week I was in Chile.  By invitation of the President of Chile’s Commission for Disability.  The purpose of my visit was to participate in a  conference of disability specialists to assist and advise the Commission on the development and implementation of its National Disability Strategy.

As the conference progressed, I became increasingly aware of a growing undercurrent of feeling among the disabled people participating.  Almost physical in it’s intensity, the pressure I could sense, it transpired, was  the manifestation of decades worth of frustration, anger and unfulfilled aspirations.

At the beginning of my talk, I asked the conference, “What are your ambitions and how would you like to spend your spare time”?  The disabled participants were most vocal.  Their ambitions were all around social inclusion and the ability to participate in mainstream activities.  Which they all spoke about with equal passion.  Their spare time activities ranged from wanting to enjoy the simple things in life, a great cup of coffee, a good smoke and the company of a beautiful woman, to, in the case of one visually impaired participant, climbing mountains.   Which of course demonstrates, if it needed demonstrating, that society is both diverse and similar in the range of ways it’s members desire to participate and express themselves.  And it is clear that what people find disappointing, frustrating and infuriating is for these entirely human desires and aspirations to be thwarted by the way  our identity  is perceived by wider society and it’s institutions.

Last week also saw the granting of royal Ascent for a piece of English legislation called the Deregulation Bill.  The purpose of which is,  to remove many of the regulations governing business,  to facilitate  greater freedom to operate and generate greater economic growth. 

This leads me to wonder.  What might our society look like, if a similarly facilitative legal framework were adopted to enable all of us, whatever our identities and circumstances, to pursue a fulfilling life and contribute to society.  

It seems to me that this would go beyond the necessary legal protection afforded by equality legislation.  It would embrace the principles and values of fundamental human rights conventions. It could  build on these by establishing a framework that would both remove  structural and institutional barriers and equip people as necessary, to enable their individual development, economic participation and  social progress.  By facilitating people to bring to bear our assets, as English business has been unburdened by the Deregulation Act, seems to me could achieve for society,  what the UK government believes this new law will do for the economy.    

Andy Shipley

This week i have been given the opportunity to reflect on how we see the world and in particular, the degree to which our professional and personal experience influences this.  On Tuesday and Wednesday, I was in the privileged position of facilitating a number of focus groups for Design Council CABE.  The purpose of which was to obtain feedback, insights and suggestions about an ‘Inclusive Environments’ training package. that CABE is in the process of developing.

What became crystal clear to me throughout the discussion, is that the concept of planning, designing, constructing and managing buildings and spaces to enable everyone in society to use them and not exclude anyone from participating in whatever activity they host, makes intuitive  sense. 

So my conundrum is, that if, at a human level, its intuitively the right thing to do, why is it that the professionals responsible for providing the buildings and spaces we all want and need to use, appear to find it so difficult?

Is there something about their formal professional education that effectively changes how they see the world.  Do the processes, techniques, model technical solutions, professional lexicons and culture they acquire, also bring a professionally partial perspective.  In other words, once you learn to see the world as a ‘Planner, Architect, Engineer or Facilities Manager for example,  do you lose your ability to notice how buildings and spaces enable or inhibit people in all their diversity? 

I think this question is most graphically illustrated by the popularity of lifts, travelators and wide ticket barriers, with people carrying luggage, buggies and prams.  through the UK transport network.  Travellers have been wrestling  heavy luggage through the transport system in the UK for as long as their has been one.  They  have also struggled to use it with pushchairs an prams in all that time.  But it’s only when we see the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995, that the concept of step-free access to the transport network rises to prominence in the minds of those responsible for it’s planning, design and management.  So what was it about how these professionals perceived the network that apparently rendered them blind to the access needs of travellers,   until they were forced to, by disability equality legislation?  

The CABE Inclusive Environments hub and future training package  offer us a precious opportunity to reopen this debate.  Posing questions about  the ability of those responsible for our built environment at all levels, to truly see the needs and aspirations of all of us who want to participate and contribute in society. As a starting point.  Not an inconvenient after thought.

Andy Shipley

“If you currently travel abroad or plan to in the future, make sure you understand the cultural convention of the country that you are visiting. Particularly with regard to greetings. If someone gives you a weak hand-shake, don’t grimace. If anyone takes your arm, don’t wince. If you are in the Middle East and a person wants to hold your hand, hold it. If you are a man visiting Russia, don’t be surprised when your male host kisses your cheek, rather than hand. All of these greetings are as natural as way to express genuine sentiments as an American handshake. I am honored when an Arab or Asian man offers to take my hand because I know that it is a sign of high respect and trust. Accepting these cultural differences is the first step to better understanding and embracing diversity.”

Joe Navarro

Black And Blue Or White And Gold?

Clearly I couldn’t  let  the great  debate about that dress pass without comment!   Black and blue, white and gold, Whichever camp you occupy, its so difficult to appreciate how anyone could be seeing the other colour combination.  But what I found most striking about this, was the polarised nature of the debate.    This disagreement illustrates so perfectly, the paradigm that says that for my reality to be right, alternative realities must be wrong.  The aggression with which  the debate was prosecuted reveals how deeply our sense of identity appears to be rooted in our world view.   And to concede anything might threaten to collapse the whole fragile edifice.  But what this debate reveals of course is that when we take time to explore why we hold apparently conflicting perspectives, the story gets really interesting.

Andy Shipley

“Listen to the trees as they sway in the wind.

Their leaves are telling secrets. Their bark sings songs of olden days as it grows around the trunks. And their roots give names to all things.

Their language has been lost.

But not the gestures.”

Vera Nazarian

Cometh The Hour…

Last month marked the centenary of the first ever ‘air raid’ on the UK.    In January 1915, two Zeppelin navel airships flew over the east coast of England and bombed great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn.  With the first attack on London being on the 1st of May.  This of course represents a significant landmark in the development of warfare.  The true significance of which would be revealed some 2 decades later.  And which needs little further comment.  

But this week I stumbled upon a little known episode from those earliest days of air warfare.  As the scale and scope of the Zeppelin threat began to dawn.  The minds of those tasked with the defence of British skies began to turn to the challenge of detection and destruction of approaching raiders.  And ideas for a new secret weapon began to form.

At a conference attended by delegates from the Blind Institute, in early 1915, the then Chairman of St Dunstans Sir Arthur Person, made a top secret announcement. That‟ the National Air Board required 1,000 “intelligent blind men” to provide early warning  of the approach of aircraft.  Their sense of hearing being “developed to a greater degree of „sensitivity”

In his book; Dear Old Blighty, Ernest Sackville Turner describes how Commander Alfred Rawlinson, in charge of anti aircraft defence, employed blind men in 1915 to sit on the top of high buildings.  Listening for the distant throb of Zeppelin engines.  In south-east England they manned a binaural listening service which fed information of range and altitude to the defences.     

 This early form of acoustic location was based on our instinct to turn our heads towards the source of a sound., so we can hear it equally in both ears.  The system involved the visually impaired volunteers being equipped with a stethoscope to enhance their hearing.  In order to determine the direction of the raider, a pole was attached to the volunteer’s head,.  Which, when turning, would indicate the bearing on a compass dial.  

From these fledgeling efforts at acoustic location, sound detection technology evolved.  The development of more sophisticated, sensitive and accurate mobile horn receivers and fixed acoustic mirrors, often constructed from concrete, or in one notable example, a Kent cliff face, enabled acoustic location to be operated by sighted operators.  Even with their less sensitive hearing!  Acoustic  location formed the primary method of advanced warning of air attack on the UK, until the beginning of WW2.  When it was rendered obsolete by the introduction of RADAR.  But for 20 years British air defence was dependent on a system that owed it’s origination to a handful of brave Blind men perching on the rooftops of London.  During the 1915 Zeppelin raids.  Happy 100th anniversary guys!  Wherever you are!

Andy Shipley  

“Waking up to a smell is a lot more satisfying than waking up to a noise. Instead of barging in uninvited and yanking you out into reality, smells enter your dreams with a silent knock and a polite “Excuse me?

Adi Alsaid