What would it be like to design for help — not with a medical model but a social one? A manual for young mothers with acquired disabilities, this project is meant for the folders that patients receive upon discharge from rehab. While most rehabilitation centers work around an independent living model, this manual uses architectural idioms/diagrams to sketch the placemaking and caregiving advice my mother wished she’d received after her stroke.
Author: Frani O'Toole
The manual is divided into four parts: the floor, the drawers, the background, and the street. The following excerpt includes object entries for 'the floor.'
Cast: Elizabeth O'Toole and Frani O'Toole
Editing: Liyan Zhao, Illustrations: Vaidehi Tikekar, Filming and script: Frani O'Toole
All videos and images for illustrative purposes only.
Location: Chicago, USA
Frani O’Toole works in communications for an architecture firm building social infrastructure near the US-Mexico border. Born in Chicago, she is the daughter of Elizabeth and John O’Toole. Frani studied Art History and English at Yale University before moving to Ireland on a Fulbright fellowship for her Master’s in Creative Writing. Wheelchair accessibility is the issue that first brought her into studying the built environment, and it’s the needle in architecture she’s working most to move.
