Digital Stories About Human Diversity

Every design solution has the potential to include or exclude people. The Danish building regulations and the coming DGNB sustainability certification scheme require an awareness about different type of users to ensure that everybody can participate. It requires an acknowledgement of human diversity that currently lacks or is absent. Then the question is, how can we ensure that human diversity is represented in the architectural design decisions and not excluded due to blind angles resulting in spatial injustice?
Counter-storytelling is a technique for narrating the experiences of underrepresented individuals. Internationally, counter-stories have been related to space, challenging ableism, and striving for spatial justice by focusing on the people with disabilities and their interactions with space.
Inspired by the counter-stories, we have developed histories about spatial ‘situations’ in everyday life to create eye-openers for architects and others about the perspective of everybody from a human diversity angle. The situations are the different users and theirs needs when using e.g. a public swimming pool or an office building.
This essay presents some of the situations. Based on a reflection on their qualities, the essay discusses the potential of situations in relation to the design process and the aim of creating awareness. A norm critical graphic design studio illustrates the situations.
The counter-stories illustrate the need for thinking about human diversity when designing to avoid spatial injustice.