Research – Joel Sanders Architect

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Inclusive Design

Through an interdisciplinary design approach that draws ideas from gender, sexuality, and disability studies, we have generated work committed to the creation of inclusive spaces that accommodate “non-conforming bodies” – people of different ages, genders, races, and disabilities – who belong to marginalized communities that are frequently overlooked by the discipline of architecture.

Interface: Landscape & Architecture

Interface, a cross disciplinary design approach, taps into the formal and programmatic potential of ecological principles, allowing for buildings and landscapes to perform as linked interactive systems that can heal the environment. From the inception of projects, we come up with unified design strategies for weaving together people, buildings and sites.

Living and Working

Elastic gender identities, live/work environments, and alternative families – LBGT couples, seniors and roommates – impact how people live and work together today. JSA’s residential and institutional projects respond to these cultural changes through the creation of informal, flexible spaces that allow men and women to assume a variety of personal and professional roles over the course of a single day.

New Media

Digital technologies have revolutionized the way people interact with one another, as well as with the world around them. At JSA we mine the potential of new media by designing environments that seamlessly incorporate information technologies to promote meaningful encounters between people as they navigate between actual and virtual space.

Publications

Joel Sanders is the editor of “Stud: Architectures of Masculinity” (1996). In 2005, Monacelli Press released a monograph of his work, “Joel Sanders: Writings and Projects” and, in 2011, he co-edited “Groundwork: Between Landscape and Architecture” with Diana Balmori. The work of Joel Sanders actively contributes to a cultural discourse that explores how society and technology affect the design of our built environment.