Mapping Vanderbilt Accessibility

A Vanderbilt Library Dean's Fellow Project

Implemented by Professor Aimi Hamraie, sponsored by the Vanderilt University Library and the Curb Center

What is the architecture of inclusion?

How do buildings, pathways, and design elements create inclusive spaces?

What can mapping reveal about the overlaps and intersections of inclusive campus spaces?

Project Overview

Mapping Access is a participatory mapping and data visualization project documenting the features of the campus built environment that facilitate inclusion. Through digital maps, Map-a-thon events, community conversations, photography, and film, the project explores mapping as a process of social transformation.

Mapping Access engages users as experts in the design process to generate surveys, collect data, create new mapping methods, and build a commitment toward broad accessibility. Typical approaches to accessibility focus on issues of code compliance and checklists of standards. Instead, this project draws upon the analytic frameworks of intersectionality and disability justice, as well as Universal Design methodology, to craft alternative standards for meaningful access.

The map is continually under construction. To submit ideas for additional layers, create your own version of this map, host a Map-a-Thon, or learn more about using Mapping Access as a teaching tool, please get in touch via the Contact page.

Funded through the generous support of the Library Dean’s Fellowship and the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, & Public Policy