Deaf-Friendly City

As an urban development approach, Inclusive City outlines the fact that if the city hosts a variety of sectors of society, including men and women, children and elderly, mentally and physically disabled people, and rich and poor, there has to be an equal opportunity for all, to get benefit from different aspects of the city, from infrastructure and services, to facilities and so on. 

In Deaf-Friendly City studio, as the first round of Inclusive City series, it was aimed to move a step forward towards providing the opportunity for deaf people, as an underrepresented sector, to find themselves more present in the city. 

The outcome of the studio was a design proposal for a multifunctional urban furniture for deaf people; a furniture with the capability of enhancing social interactions between the deaf community, as well as between them and the others. A part of the furniture performs as an interactive game based on the sign language. The modular and voronoi-driven geometry of the furniture allows it to get extended in length and width, and enables it to fit itself in different site conditions.

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Sponser : Centre for Municipal Studies, Tehran

In collaboration with : Iranian National Centre for the Deaf

Project Manager : Raha Ashrafi

Advisors : Mahdieh Alizadeh . Mojdeh Kamali

Research and Design Team : Nima Ghanei . Nava Kholousi . Mohammad Behjou . Houman Hoursan . Farideh Yousefi Moghadam