Interdependent living and the re-design of domestic environments

The culture of building and construction is inimical to the crafting of a heterogeneity of bodily-sensitized spaces. This is a particular issue for disabled people in which the design of domestic spaces is shaped by eugenic world-building, and the crafting of places that barely acknowledge disability as a category, or impairment as intrinsic to lived experiences. Rather, the shaping of space (re)produces designed environments antithetical to the construction of infrastructure able to support diverse ways of living that, for disabled people, may manifest as potentially life-diminishing scenarios. How might dwelling and domesticity be different to conceive of life as heterogeneous, and to construct infrastructure to support diverse ways of living? The insights of permaculture provide a useful steer, described by Hamraie as ‘designing interdependence rather than segregation, using and valuing diversity, valuing the marginal, and responding to change creatively’. This chapter develops and discusses permaculture as a response to the limitations of the design of dwellings and their environments highlighted by the pandemic, and discusses its potential to offer ethically grounded design ideas responsive to the physical and mental needs of people.