Eco-ableism and access circularity in natural building

Abstract

The climate crisis disproportionately impacts disabled people. Yet climate-related advocacy, planning, and policymaking often neglect to thoughtfully include disabled people. Responding to this gap, disabled and neurodivergent environmental activists coined the term eco-ableism to describe discrimination and silencing toward disabled and neurodivergent people (i.e., ableism) arising in environmental spaces (i.e., eco-ableism). Relatedly, building operations and construction practices contribute a significant percentage of global, energy-related CO₂ emissions annually, which calls into question the relationships between the impending climate crisis, disability justice, and architecture. Climate-specific, natural building materials and methods present a potential pathway toward a more sustainable built future: low-carbon, locally sourced, minimally processed, and nontoxic materials. Despite a critical overlap, there is little published research on material access in the production phase and human access in the occupation phase of natural buildings. Applying eco-ableism and material circularity in an architectural framework, this research aims to investigate the gaps and possibilities of access, natural material applications, and resulting US natural buildings informed by scholarship in critical disability studies and semi-structured interviews with natural building professionals.