Chris Downey

Architecture for the Blind

Chris Downey is a blind architect, a consultant and an occasional guest lecturer for the UC Berkeley Department of Architecture specializing in accessibility and Universal Design. While working as an architect, he lost his sight as a complication from brain surgery to remove a tumor. Since then, he has added disability related themes to his work by providing accessibility to both sighted and blind individuals using effective color contrast, tactile information and other multi-sensory design strategies. He believes that people with and without disabilities who want to study architecture should come together as one group to accomplish a common goal of a fully inclusive built environment. His personal hope is that more people with disabilities will study architecture, that their professors will embrace the importance of diversifying the profession and not perpetuate the disabled vs. able-bodied concept.

Architecture for the Blind

Blindness has not stopped Chris from continuing his gorgeous work. He uses models and tactile diagrams to build inclusive spaces, and he believes that losing his sight has only improved his abilities as a designer. His projects include the Light House for the Blind and the Salesforce Transit center in San Francisco, UMPC Vision and Rehabilitation Center in Pittsburgh, and the Sustainability Pavilion in Dubai.

The American Institute of Architects has produced a short documentary highlighting Chris as a professional and a mentor to young architects.

California Commission on Disability Access

Since 2013, Chris has been a member of the California Commission on Disability Access, which is a seven-seat committee appointed by the governor to promote disability access. The commission provides information, gives researched advisory reports to legislators, and coordinates between community stakeholders. Learn more about the commission here.

Speaking and Advocacy

In addition to his work in government, Chris is an active advocate for inclusivity. You can check out his page here as a featured FRESH Speaker.

Chris's TED talk explores the experience of walking through a city as a newly blind architect, how he learned to notice what he had always taken for granted. He calls these discoveries outsights, and he stresses the importance of cooperation between abled and disabled designers.

Vision Towards Success Podcast Episode
Transcript

Speaker 1: Forward. Forward. Left. Find the door.

Speaker 2: There are over 4 million working aged blind and visually impaired people in the United States, and over 2 million of these people are unemployed. This is a staggering statistic, but many people defy these odds and are happily and gainfully employed, and we wish to share their stories with the world.

Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to Vision Towards Success, the podcast that highlights stories of career development and lived experience. This podcast is brought to you by the Polus Center for Social and Economic Development. In our program we feature employment success stories from visually impaired individuals for people with disabilities and their allies, in hopes of showing just how smart, hardworking and capable this diverse community is.

David Gonzalez: Hello and welcome to Vision Toward Success. My name is David Gonzalez and today we are here with Chris Downey, an architect who found accessibility to play a big role in his profession. Now we will hear from our interviewer Shaheem Sutherland and our guest Chris Downey.

Shaheem Sutherl...: Good afternoon, Chris. My name is Shaheem Sutherland. I'm working with the Polus Center and MCB as an intern. It's nice to meet you.

Chris Downey: It's nice to meet you, Shaheem.

Shaheem Sutherl...: So for the first step of this interview, I'd like to start off with introductions. Let the listeners know who you are and what you do.

Chris Downey: Great. My name is Chris Downey. I'm an architect located in the San Francisco Bay area. And I work as an architect, a licensed architect, and I specialize primarily in projects for the blind and visually impaired such as schools for the blind and visually impaired, agencies serving the blind. Also do a lot of work with eye centers in the healthcare setting, a good bit of work in transportation and also in technology space, as more and more technology companies are hiring people with disabilities and get involved with a number of various projects in that space.

Shaheem Sutherl...: Nice. Now when you work on these buildings as an architect you focus on making the buildings accessible for people with a visual impairment, correct?

Chris Downey: That's my primary focus. I tend to consult on it from a broader spectrum of universal design, trying to design things, sort of be in a level beyond code to make them more universally accessible to people with all sorts of differences. But obviously I do have a specialty in the area of the blind and visually impaired.

That said, it's often not about the traditional notion of accessibility, it's sort of taking the understanding of architecture and the architectural or environmental experience beyond the visual to think more about it in a multi sensory way or from a non-visual or differently-visioned perspective.

Shaheem Sutherl...: See, I actually didn't know that. Thank you for clarifying that for me. You have a visual impairment yourself? Or are you comfortable speaking on that?

Chris Downey: Sure. I'm fully blind myself. I have no light perception and I lost my sight back in 2008. And it went from full sight, effectively from full sight to no sight in the matter of surgical procedure. But it's been irreversible and it is what it is. And so I sort of reinvented my career at that point. It was at the age of 45. And I reinvented both how I worked and the type of work that I worked on, trying to find both appropriate ways to work but also areas where my work could offer real and unique value within those types of projects.

Shaheem Sutherl...: Yeah. I can only imagine how it affected you emotionally, going from a fully sighted world to a completely different world of no sight. It must have been a lot to take on.

Chris Downey: I don't want to make little of that transition and the circumstances with that, but there's an awful lot of things about it that gave me a different perspective and somewhat of an unusual perspective. And largely that my father had passed away from complications from brain surgery, which is similar to what I had had, and he was 36 at a time and I was seven. So there I was, 45, my son was 10, I had surgery to remove a brain tumor and I didn't lose my life. To me it was like, "Oh, I just lost my sight." It was like, it could have been a heck of a lot worse and it gave me a really different perspective and a passion for still being there with my family, with my son. And I wanted to be every bit of a dad and fully functioning, quickly returning to work and to life in a robust way.

Shaheem Sutherl...: I really respect that. Instead of looking at the downside of things you looked at the ups. To you it's, "I only lost my sight. I could have lost much worse." And I completely agree.

So after going through that change, how did it affect your work life? I can only imagine the challenges you had to face working in such a difficult field where to most people it may seem like you need sight to do most things.

Chris Downey: Yeah, no, I had never met a blind architect, had never heard of one and didn't know anybody that was blind. So I had nothing but question marks all around that proposition. But I had had over 20 years of experience in the profession and knew there was an awful lot that I could do in the profession without sight. I'd had my own firm, I'd been principals in other firms. So I had a lot of confidence, a lot of experience, and I knew there was much that I could do. The question was really more about how I could be more engaged within the creative aspects, within the design realm of the practice. And that was where the real question mark was.

So I actually continued working. I was back in the office a month after the surgery. I hadn't even started my rehabilitation training yet, but I wanted to get back in to start trying to figure it out. And the great thing, the counterintuitive thing about being an architect and losing your sight, is that it is a creative field. And in the creative fields and in the education we get you learn to value different perspectives, different ways of looking at the same problem. And even needing to go to those different places and find ways to look at problems differently so you can solve the really interesting, really elusive problems.

So it was almost like this is perfect, and the people around me, the people I'd been working with, they were creative people, they were optimistic, positive people, that... They were intrigued by the prospect and they were really eager to work with me to really find a meaningful, engaging way to continue working.

Shaheem Sutherl...: Now those people that supported you, it's amazing. And how did you deal with, or what did you think about, towards the people who doubted you? Saying, "Oh, you can't do this, you're blind now."

Chris Downey: Yeah, no, those are some of the least comfortable conversations I would have with friends that I knew as architects, many that I knew through grad school. I had both a undergraduate degree and a graduate degree in architecture. And some of my friends that I had in graduate school, they were like, "Oh my god, this is the worst thing ever. I can't imagine this..." You could tell they couldn't wrap their head around it.

I had others that were more opportunistic and optimistic about it, whether it was just about life in general. Somebody I was just with yesterday who was somebody I got to know professionally on a number of projects, and we got to be good friends and riding partners, cycling partners before I lost my sight. And while I was still in the hospital he came in to visit and saying, "Hey, I talked to a friend, his wife's blind, they ride tandems. We're going to get out on the tandem together." I was like, "You're freaking crazy." Four months later we were out on a tandem, riding.

And having people like that where it was just about life or being within the profession. The woman who was the lead architect, founder of the firm I was with, she got it. She immediately was like, "I think you have an opportunity to really find a unique niche and think about architecture in a rich and different way." And she was absolutely supportive towards that.

Shaheem Sutherl...: Yeah, it's nice having supportive friends, coworkers, family around you to keep you going, especially when things are rough and you're going through one of the most difficult times of your life.

Chris Downey: Yeah. I'd throw my family in that, even my son. Some kids could be terrified or put off by it. My son and his friends, they were all keyed in on all the new technologies, all the different ways I was learning to do things. And my son, he learned braille with me, he knows it visually. And then he also learned how to deal with voiceover, with screen readers. And to the point where at one time he went to the computer lab at his school when he was still in... It was middle school. And the only computer left didn't have a mouse and he sat down and got right to work. And the the teacher came over, he was like, "Don't you need a mouse?" And he goes, "No, I'm fine." It's like, "How do you do that?" So he so said, "Well I just worked with my dad."

Shaheem Sutherl...: So that's actually a good segue to our next question here. Architecture must be a difficult job being fully blind. And you spoke about how your friends and family were interested in the new technologies you used to complete your work. What assistive technologies did you use during those times?

Chris Downey: Right. Well the key thing for me to work as an architect, there's so much that's text-based that happens in the profession. So that's within the wheelhouse of screen readers and voiceover. And so they were just things, I had to learn to do that. So the text base, database stuff, that was straightforward. The more challenging part was the graphic world, and that still remains challenging. However, in terms of accessing the drawings I was quickly set up with a large format embossing printer. So I'm able to print drawings that the teams that I'm working with, other architects I was working with, they were drawing. And then I could print them through my embossing printer, read the drawings that way and comment on it.

To some extent it's like, to this day there's no way for me to draw myself in the computer to create those drawings. But in reality I was managing the architectural office for the firm I was with, and I was managing the work of others. And so I was reviewing their work, commenting on it, making suggestions, changes. I was running other things, dealing with consultants and clients. So I didn't spend a lot of time at that point actually doing the drawings myself. I was more about reviewing it. So having access to the drawing gave me the ability to be aware of what was happening in the project, in the design work, and I could explore that with the people and make suggestions and help solve problems that way.

Eventually I developed ways to draw myself on top of those embossed drawings by working with wax sticks, which were really convenient 'cause they're just lines that you hold in your hands and you put down on the paper in there. Since they're wax when you get them warmed up in your hand they stick to the paper. So I could really just sketch right on top of the drawings they had to explore other ideas, to push things. And so I can do that to start a project, or I can do that to respond to work that others are doing.

So that became the interface, and since I work remote these days, I'm not in the office and I consult with lots of firms around the country, I'm able to then photograph those sketches and email them off to the firms that I'm consulting with. Or have Zoom calls, and then we can have more of a dynamic conversation as they're looking at the sketches. Or we might be designing together in real time, and I'm sort of doing things there that way.

And I also should say that my wife is also trained as an architect, and so we do a lot of work together. And even though I don't really have an office the two of us work together. And there's a lot of times where I end up on a Zoom call and they're showing something that everybody else can see, but because it's on a Zoom screen I can't see it and I can't print that screen to be able to access it and there wouldn't be time for it. So I've got those things, either they have to explain more precisely what's going on or I have my wife or somebody else describe what's going on.

Shaheem Sutherl...: Yeah, that must be really fun being able to work with your wife on potential projects. And I also think it's extremely impressive how you're able to assist your fellow coworkers, even on visual architects of buildings, and be able to give your input and maybe changes and redesigns that you want to improve on. It's truly impressive.

So working in this field, you said you've never heard of or even seen a visually impaired person working in your field, correct?

Chris Downey: Actually within a few months in searching it's like, "Surely there's got to be a blind architect out there." And it's like, just because you're an architect that doesn't give you a Superman's cape and say you're impervious to ever going blind. Obviously it's a challenge for students, kids that might be blind growing up. At least historically there would be quite a barrier perceived of a challenge of getting into the profession. But like myself, I couldn't have been the first one to lose my sight as an architect.

But without the technological advances then there may not have been the means. Or since it's more common later in life as and it's an age related visual impairment, at some point if you're in your mid sixties and you lose your sight there's a big learning curve that might be harder to get through at that point. But there's got to be somebody else.

And eventually I did find someone, an architect in Lisbon, Portugal that was blind and actually had lost his sight when he was finishing up his thesis work to become an architect when he was in college. And so I was able to connect with him within a few months via email, and we had a good email. So he was sort of mentoring me and we were sharing a lot, and eventually we had a chance to meet in New York. He was going there for a conference that I was attending as well. So we got to have our first international conference of blind architects. The two of us had a little table.

And since then have learned of others that are visually impaired, and I'm really thrilled that I now have a group of students that are blind or have various levels of visual impairment that are all in degrees and accredited programs of architecture, ranging from Harvard to Georgia Tech to Texas... University of Texas I think is the one, and missing another student. No, those are the three that I know of that are actively in programs today.

And then I've also recalled and have been told stories of one of the more famous, iconic modern masters of architecture, one of the most renowned architects, an architect by the name of Louis Kahn, who is the dean at University of Pennsylvania. I always knew that in photographs of him he had the classic, sort of what they called the Coke bottle glasses. And then I talked with someone who knew the son of the director of the Kimbell Art Museum who was working with Louis Kahn to design their museum, and it was finished after he died. And he said his visual impairment was so severe at that time that he had to put his face right up to the drawings to be able to read the drawings, that he would just scan his head over the drawings.

And the profession never talked about that. I had never heard that before. But this guy was given this experience that he was told about from somebody who knew who was there with him at the time. And that's sort of astounding to think that one of the most renowned architects of the modern era was visually impaired to that level. And I actually have visited later that project that he was designing when he passed away, and could really recognize how he was designing things differently and largely as a function of his visual impairment.

Shaheem Sutherl...: Let me know if you agree with this or not, because as someone who's lost their sight, has it given you the ability to see things from a different perspective when it comes to maybe drawings or something else?

Chris Downey: Absolutely. And I do say that I'm a better architect now that I've lost my sight. My son was thrilled when... There was a story that ran about me that had that as part of its headline for the story, and then he was thrilled because he found on the Onion Reddit line that they picked up on it, "Architect loses sight, says he got better at his job." So I got some real street cred from my son on that one.

I'm fond of saying that as architects, everybody thinks of it as a visual profession, and that's largely the way the profession is taught and how the profession thinks of itself. But the architecture, the environments we design, it's not about the eyeballs in space, it's about the whole human body in space and what that experience is like. All the sensory experiences.

And as I found, and largely as I was going through my orientation mobility training, I was on one hand obviously learning those non-visual skills and learning how to use a cane. But I was also learning how to interpret the environment around me using different senses and different information. And how, yeah, I was being asked to interpret that, to use that to get around safely and effectively.

But then I started thinking about how you could work with all that stuff more intentionally as opposed to being accidental in its outcomes. And having that awareness of how, from the blind and visually impaired experience, gave me that unique insight on it. But also the appreciation of the broader reality of the human experience. That it isn't as most general practitioners in architecture think, or people in general, that there's the normal human experience which is no disability, no impairment, everybody's perfect. And what about that is human? Since when was that ever conceived as being the absolute human condition? Forgetting about and dismissing all the different experiences that we all have, whether it's through impairment, disabilities or whatever. And really thinking about and really becoming far more committed to that broader human condition as it exists for all of us and across the lifespan of our lives.

So yeah, it really changed my way of thinking about things, thinking about the people that use the space, use the architecture and how we can more fully embrace and include the broadest spectrum of the range of people possible.

Shaheem Sutherl...: Yeah. And I think our differences is what makes us human. Even those of us who have disabilities, I myself am legally blind, if we have the right assistive technology, we can accomplish anything. I mean, look at you, this is living proof right here. We have a blind architect. It's amazing. We can really do anything we set our minds to.

Chris Downey: Yeah, absolutely. We need the opportunity, we need to be given that opportunity and allowed to do it, and we ourselves need to have the confidence and the frame of mind to be creative ourselves and tenacious in finding ways to hit yes as opposed to no. And finding ways past those little barriers, finding different ways of working, different ways of thinking about it, different ways of doing the same project. It's hard to think about things that just can't be done, and even if you arrive at those chances are it's just a matter of time.

Shaheem Sutherl...: I agree. So currently the world and everyone's lives are being rampaged by the COVID 19, and it has affected all of us indeed. And how has it affected you and your work life?

Chris Downey: You know, oddly, last year, the heart of the pandemic, was my best year ever in terms of the business. I don't know what it was, there was a lot of new work, a lot of proposals went out and I was part of a lot of teams. We were very successful in getting these new projects and it was a very robust year. And I could barely keep up. I was just running crazy with all the work and keeping up with all the different clients, the different teams I was working with and different programs. And I know it was actually remarkably successful and incredibly exciting. Certainly leveraged the technology, the Zoom environment and all the other platforms became second nature. We talked already about some of the shortcomings within that highly visual yet also acoustic experience, but could really push through that and got to a good way of working with all the different clients.

And I also used to do a lot of, before the pandemic, did a lot of travel both around the country and international travel, both for projects and also for speaking opportunities. And when nobody was traveling then I had a lot less disruption and I could better focus in on the work. So that was helpful. So it actually proved to be positive and it continues to be positive. And even through that I found a good way to continue working, and actually realized... You know the saying about staying home and not having to commute into the office? I can save a lot of time, get a lot more done. And that's actually kind of the interesting thing. I've heard it from other people with other disabilities, people that couldn't go to certain places 'cause they were in a wheelchair. All of a sudden they could go to meetings they couldn't go before because everybody was on Zoom. And so there was some leveling that came through that, but obviously some challenges.

And some of them, some of the interfaces, some of the programs that I was running into, whether it was things like Miro or electronic whiteboards and stuff that were used on the screen, those interfaces were not accessible. I get frustrated in that my engagement is strictly audible, so it's hard for me to hear the information from the computer if I'm trying to do various things while the conversation is happening on Zoom. Everything's coming through the same ear into my head, and if I could separate one ear from the other or I could better separate those different audio feeds to be able to access the data that I need, the document that I need, sort of toggle around within the Zoom environment to do something differently while still listening to the others. Or the hardest thing sometimes is to hear the screen reader interface over the chatter of all the other people. So that can be a real frustration.

Shaheem Sutherl...: Yeah. We had another interviewee come on a few days ago. His name was Timothy Vernon. He used a headset where it would play his screen reader through one side of his ear and the voices of the people on Zoom or whoever he was communicating with on the other side. Do you think that's something that would help you or maybe you need currently?

Chris Downey: Yeah, that's something I need, and I figure I could have one interface... I could call into Zoom from my phone and have that for the video and for the communication, and then use one ear for that. And then use a different headset, different earpiece to be connected straight into my computer to access things there. I just seldomly get that organized to pull it off. I'm not sure exactly how that other guy was doing that or if he was doing it basically using that same strategy.

Shaheem Sutherl...: Now that was my final question. So I will say thank you for showing up and answering all of them. You answered all of them fully. I learned so much about you and how amazing you are. And I don't want to use the same adjective too much, because I don't want it to seem disingenuous, but you truly are remarkable. I will say that.

Chris Downey: All right, thanks so much.

David Gonzalez: Welcome back to Vision Toward Success. My name is David Gonzalez and we are here with Chris Downey, an architect who is totally blind yet found his way into the architectural community. We will be discussing the relation between accessibility and how it plays a big role in his profession.

Chris's career has led him to travel, not only across the United States but to several other countries as well. He discussed the differences in accessible design that he observed in other countries and compared these to design elements in the United States. Experiencing these differences through travel has allowed Chris to expand his ideas on what makes good design for people with disabilities. Chris discusses how not much professional training is available for certain environments for people who are visually impaired and totally blind. Good design is beneficial, but having good skill and training plays a big role as well.

Chris Downey: In general I think that visual impairment, blindness, it comes with an interesting degree of responsibility to get the training you need. So that's important on yourself to have that realization. But then it's also important to have good training, and that's not always available depending on where you are. And it's also important what kind of environment you live in. So much of the United States is suburban and so much of the US retail environment is strip malls, and in my mind, those things are inherently suboptimal for the blind experience and it's hard to get around those environments. And if you are designing an environment for the blind and visually impaired, or if you're designing a community or a city and really thinking hard about the blind experience, I don't think those environments would exist and I think it would be very different. And ultimately I think it'd be a better environment for everybody.

David Gonzalez: As Chris was discussing, universal design in relation to the ADA. Universal design focuses on environments to be accessible to all people, regardless of a disability or not. When discussing architectural design and creating spaces usable for people of all abilities, it is important to understand the role of the Americans with Disabilities Act, founded in 1990.

The Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities, which involves transportation, employment, communication and accommodations. Inclusive design focuses on a design process in which a product, for example, can be used by as many people in a space as possible, with no negative adaptations. This means fairness and equality toward environmental growth.

Chris also mentions buildings that have been grandfathered in, which means historical and traditional buildings, and how they are not as accessible as they should be.

Chris Downey: Part of it is turning it around, making disability real, making disability normal. Making disability, impairments is just a part of life. And on a commercial level, in the business world sometimes it's about increasing your market. I heard a story on NPR this morning about historic theaters, cinematic theaters through COVID taking the time to make their theaters more accessible. Putting in accessible bathrooms, doing all sorts of things. They had the downtime to be able to do it and some were doing it. And the comments were, "It's increasing our market, it's increasing our audience. We need to bring more people in."

Often those historical buildings, and even there's sort of set asides in ADA with existing buildings, pre ADA, if it's not feasible, if you can demonstrate that it's not feasible then you have some more leeway to not do the accessibility. Or if you're in a historic structure, to weigh off the historical significance of the building and the environment to get some exception from the accessibility regulations. So a lot of that is sort of built on that logic of finding ways to say no, finding ways to get out of it, and the need to turn that mindset towards finding creative ways to do both. To respect the historical nature of a space yet provide the accessibility. And to, even in a non historic building, to find ways to have a positive impact and make it more accessible. To increase the public that can use your store, visit your theater to increase your market share for your business.

David Gonzalez: The more people we have receptive toward universal design, the more accessible buildings can be for everyone, as well as a mutual understanding toward people who do or don't have a disability. Having more people in the room who are disabled can bring that human element to life.

Chris has related working creatively in the mind and in your own space, thinking inclusively about architecture. Chris has also discussed how he has grown over time as an architect through vision loss. Chris discusses the perception on how people in different environments treat people who have a disability, in excluding you, which leads him to emphasizing on how historical environments should really be accessible.

Chris Downey: One thing I tried to do in that space is to turn that around on them. And it's like, "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that your creativity is so inferior. You can't work creatively within the parameters of reality, of gravity, of all these things that..." You have to incorporate them. You have to work with those things to create architecture. So it's all about, can you be creative about that? What it says is it sort of gets in the way of those predisposed notions of what this thing... you'd like it to be 'cause your mind isn't thinking in an inclusive way in the initial thought you might have for the space.

David Gonzalez: It is not realized how people with disability have as much say as someone without a disability, but it is not agreed upon as it should be as well. Having someone with a disability present changes the way certain people think, which it shouldn't. They matter just as much as any person in the room. Having more people with disabilities who will join this type of work may change people's perception on this view.

Chris Downey: That gets me back to the original thread of having more people with disabilities in those professions. For me, now, when I go into a meeting with a client and I need to talk about accessibility, it's a different conversation when you're having that conversation with someone with a disability. I hear it all the time. In California we have Certified Access Specialists that you have to get trained, you have to pass a rigorous exam, you have to do certain levels of continued training, education in the area of disability. And even they will say that having someone there with them, if they don't have a disability, having someone with a disability takes it from the abstract, takes it from the code to that person right there with you at that moment and you're going to tell them they don't matter.

It's like, come on. Few are that cold hearted to just dismiss it when disability is in the room. So a big part of it is getting to a critical mass of the environment where you can realize that it's not the disability that's the problem, it's the barriers that are historically codified or built into the environment. So it's not the disability that keeps people from being included or getting them into the store or into the theater. It's bad decisions, someone else's decisions, whether it's 'cause it's pre ADA or just 'cause it was built wrong. That somebody made a decision that excluded you, it's a human decision.

David Gonzalez: Chris dives into ocular centrism, which means how vision is the strongest sense in this profession, but addresses seeing beyond the eyes and appreciating awareness. Chris has a steady mindset in his creation, and while he is seeing beyond the eyes that always has motivated him to keep going with his profession.

While discussing mindset and seeing beyond the eyes, Chris discusses The Eyes of the Skin by Juhani Pallasmaa. This book describes architectural theory focused on one sense, sight, and how that plays a big role in his creation.

Chris Downey: A book written by a Finnish architect called Eyes of the Skin, by Juhani Pallasmaa. And in it he makes an argument that the architectural profession has become inappropriately ocular centric, that it's all about the eyes. And as he alludes to in the title of the book, Eyes of the Skin, it's about seeing with more than your eyes. It's about really having a different kind of awareness of the environment. So that to me is an important thing for architects to read, and it's a fairly well embraced book in philosophy for architecture. I think just identifying that ocular centrism is an important thing for anyone to think about, how often we just assume the availability of sight. And if that's way you approach everything then you're going to be leaving a lot of people out. So it's a good critique on that ocular centrism.

David Gonzalez: We'd like to take the time to thank Chris for being here with us today. Thank you for tuning into Vision Toward Success with your host David Gonzalez and our guest Chris Downey. You can reach Chris Downey at chris.downey [at] arch4blind.com, which is spelled C H R I S dot D O W N E Y at A R C H four, as in number four, B L I N D dot com.

And now a blindness tip from Chris Downey.

Chris Downey: Maybe it's thinking about our struggles culturally today and the idea of empathy. To be able to imagine being somebody else. I often talk about this transition from being sighted to being not sighted. Especially as an architect I think of my unsighted persona as an avatar, as someone that... It's part of this sort of empathetic experience. I can't not think as a visual architect, I'm trained that way, but I have this vehicle of walking behind eyes that don't see.

And it's sort of this extraordinary, empathetic experience, and it's really reinforced that thing about really thinking deeply. You can't put yourself in somebody else, but you can really try to do that. And the experience of doing that, that experience of having that empathetic experience, of really struggling hard to understand it for what it is as opposed to what you think it is, or just imagining it through your own experience. I think we could all benefit from spending a little bit more time in that seriously thoughtful place of empathy, of thinking about the other experience.

Speaker 3: Thank you for tuning in to Vision Towards Success. This program has been recorded and produced by Elana Regan and David Gonzalez from the Trades Win Audio podcast team, in association with the Polus Center for Social and Economic Development. Funding for this program has been provided by the Libby Douvan Award from the Fielding Institute, the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, and the Barre Savings Foundation. Additional episodes of this podcast can be found at www.poluscenter.org/tradeswin, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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