Contra* is a podcast about disability, design justice, and the lifeworld. Episodes will feature interviews, analyses of the built environment, reviews, and more.
Visit cirticaldesignlab.com for more information.
Conversation 5: Takeaways with Aimi Hamraie, Jos Boys, Scar Barclay and Paul DeFazio
Each conversation featured in Disability Meets Architecture draws on a different productive friction and places two activists, architects, designers, writers or artists in dialogue. This one, on ‘takeaways,’ brings together themes and tensions arising over the series. It reflects on what worked with the format, the themes which arose and what questions we did not get around to.
This episode features all of the people from The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and Critical Design Lab who coordinated this series. This includes Aimi Hamraie (they/them) who is a disabled designer, researcher and director of Critical Design Lab. Aimi works with Paul DeFazio (he/him[fluid]), a legally blind architect and artist who works for Critical Design Lab and the Institute of Human Centred Design. Next we have Jos Boys (she/her), who lives with a chronic condition, and is an architecture-trained artist, activist writer and founder of DisOrdinary. Jos works at DisOrdinary with Scar Barclay (they/them), a neuroqueer architectural designer and maker.
To read the full episode transcript and learn more, visit criticaldesignlab.com (http://criticaldesignlab.com).
Find out more about Aimi’s work here:
Websites: aimihamraie.com (http://aimihamraie.com) criticaldesignlab.com (http://criticaldesignlab.com) labsforliberation.org (http://labsforliberation.org)
Instagram: @criticaldesignlab
Find out more about Jos’s work here:
Website: josboys.co.uk (http://josboys.co.uk) disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk (http://disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk) matrixfeministarchitecturearchive.co.uk (http://matrixfeministarchitecturearchive.co.uk)
Instagram: @josontheline
Find out more about Scar’s work here:
Website: disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk (http://disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk)
Instagram: @scarbarclay
Find out more about Paul’s work here:
Website: criticaldesignlab.com (http://criticaldesignlab.com) humancentereddesign.org (http://humancentereddesign.org)
Instagram: @defazio_paul
As always DMA is brought to you by The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and Critical Design Lab. Your hosts are Aimi Hamraie and Jos Boys, with Scar Barclay Paul DeFazio supporting the series production. Ilana Nevins is our editor.
This miniseries is funded by The Graham Foundation.
You can find out more about this project and related projects at disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk (http://disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk) and criticaldesignlab.com (http://criticaldesignlab.com).
30 Mar 2026
Conversation 4: Antifascism with Beatrice Adler-Bolton, Paul DeFazio and Scar Barclay
Each conversation featured in Disability Meets Architecture draws on a different productive friction and places two activists, architects, designers, writers or artists in dialogue. This one, on ‘anti-fascism,’ attends to the rise in right-wing, populist movements and their rhetoric. It asks what it means to continue to operate against the political pendulum, how to find gaps for resistance and how to fortify our movements in the face of erasure. It swings between the need to be legible to hold on to the basics of functional access versus a desire for illegibility and more expansive notions of access.
This episode features Beatrice Adler-Bolton (she/her), a disabled and chronically ill writer and artist based in the U.S. who co-hosts the Death Panel Podcast with Artie Vierkant, Phil Rocco, Jules Gill-Peterson and Tracy Rosenthal. She also co-authored Health Communism (2022) with Artie Vierkant. This text sets out the history of the monetisation of health in the U.S. and identifies the necessity in a radical politics and approach which severs health from capital.
Beatrice will be in conversation with both Scar Barclay and Paul DeFazio. Scar (they/them) is a UK-based neuroqueer architectural designer, whose work explores Disabled, neurodivergent, trans+ and queer ways of being. They have worked with The DisOrdinary Architecture Project since 2023. Paul (he/him[fluid]) is a legally blind architect and artist who works for Critical Design Lab and the Institute of Human Centred Design.
To read the full episode transcript and learn more, visit criticaldesignlab.com (http://criticaldesignlab.com).
Find out more about Beatrice’s work here:
Websites: www.beatriceadlerbolton.com (http://www.beatriceadlerbolton.com/) / www.deathpanel.net (http://www.deathpanel.net/)
Instagram: @beatriceadlerbolton / @deathpanel_
Bluesky: @reallandsend.bsky.social / @deathpanel.bsky.social
X: @realLandsEnd / @DeathPanel_
Find out more about Scar’s work here:
Website: disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk (http://disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk)
Instagram: @scarbarclay @disordinaryarchitecture
Find out more about Paul’s work here:
Website: criticaldesignlab.com (http://criticaldesignlab.com) humancentereddesign.org (http://humancentereddesign.org)
Instagram: @defazio_paul
As always DMA is brought to you by The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and Critical Design Lab. Your hosts are Aimi Hamraie and Jos Boys, with Scar Barclay Paul DeFazio supporting the series production. Ilana Nevins is our editor.
This miniseries is funded by The Graham Foundation.
You can find out more about this project and related projects at disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk (http://disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk) and criticaldesignlab.com (http://criticaldesignlab.com).
23 Mar 2026
Conservation 3: Who Counts with Micha Frazer-Carroll and Samir Pandya
Each conversation featured in Disability Meets Architecture draws on a different productive friction and places two activists, architects, designers, writers or artists in dialogue. This one, on ‘who counts,’ explores which bodyminds are thought of as productive. We are thinking about histories of systemic ableism and racism and how to go about challenging architecture’s understanding of diverse identity and lived experience, so that Disabled lives and experience is rightfully valued.
This episode features Micha Frazer-Carroll (she/her), a writer and journalist who is a former editor of gal-dem magazine and founder of Blueprint magazine. Micha authored MAD WORLD: The Politics of Mental Health (2023), a call for radical politics and a revealing account of the ever changing construct of health under capitalism.
Micha will be in conversation with Samir Pandya (he/him), an architect, writer and educator who is Associate Head of College at the College of Design, Creative and Digital Industries at the University of Westminster in London. Samir’s edited book After Belonging: Architecture, Nation, Difference (2023) examines the relationships between architecture, spatial politics and identity.
To read the full episode transcript and learn more, visit criticaldesignlab.com (http://criticaldesignlab.com).
Find out more about Micha’s work here:
Website: michafrazercarroll.com
Instagram: @ (https://www.instagram.com/studiopacificaseattle/)micha_frazercarroll
As always DMA is brought to you by The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and Critical Design Lab. Your hosts are Aimi Hamraie and Jos Boys, with Scar Barclay Paul DeFazio supporting the series production. Ilana Nevins is our editor.
This miniseries is funded by The Graham Foundation.
You can find out more about this project and related projects at disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk (http://disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk) and criticaldesignlab.com (http://criticaldesignlab.com).
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2 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 47 / 100
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Quality
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YouTube
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Engagement
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