[nfbwatlk] Article About Blind Architect

Tue May 5 20:48:52 UTC 2009

I am wondering where he is going this summer?  Could it be to the National Center?  It said Maryland and it was a mentoring program.

Alco

-----Original Message-----
From: KAYE KIPP <kkipp123 at msn.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 9:52 AM
To: NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] Article About Blind Architect

He ought to come to National and get a dose of reality.

Kaye
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mackenstadt, Gary" <Gary.Mackenstadt at ed.gov>
To: "'NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List'" <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 8:25 AM
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] Article About Blind Architect

>
> I agree with you, Alco.  Chances are pretty good that the guy believes 
> that blindness is a tragedy, and that society has an unwritten obligation 
> to modify the whole world.  If this is the case, it is too bad for him as 
> an individual and for his friends and family.  As a blind person, he has 
> carried over the negative perceptions about blindness that he had as a 
> sighted person.  Of course, it is unlikely, but he may be seeing this as a 
> financial opportunity.  I think that this is highly unlikely.  He needs to 
> learn the truth about blindness.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On 
> Behalf Of Alco Canfield
> Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 5:04 PM
> To: 'NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] Article About Blind Architect
>
> Yes, it gave me pause as well.  Blind people don't need buildings designed 
> for them.  What is the VA thinking?  Of course, if they want to "decorate"
> it with sound and smells, that would be interesting, though individual 
> preferences might make these schemes a challenge.
>
> Just wanted to stir ye ol' pot a tad.
>
> Alco
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On 
> Behalf Of Mike Sivill
> Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 1:14 PM
> To: 'NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] Article About Blind Architect
>
> He's only been blind for one year and he's mentoring blind teens?
> And designing buildings for blind people?
> Interesting.
> Mike
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On 
> Behalf Of Alco Canfield
> Sent: Monday, May 04, 2009 12:25 PM
> To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [nfbwatlk] Article About Blind Architect
>
> Sudden sight loss drives architect to aid blind Sam Whiting, Chronicle 
> Staff Writer This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco 
> Chronicle
>
> Sam Whiting, Chronicle Staff Writer
> Saturday, May 2, 2009
>
> Fifteen months ago Chris Downey was just another green architect, based in 
> Oakland. Now he has an expertise that separates him from every other 
> architect in the Bay Area and all 20,000 attendees at this week's American 
> Institute of Architects' National Convention in San Francisco.
>
> Downey, 46, is a blind architect dedicated to planning buildings for blind 
> people, a niche brought about by his sudden loss of sight after surgery.
>
> "It is actually pretty exciting," says Downey, as he sits in a drafting 
> room, like everybody else at SmithGroup Inc. in the Financial District.
> Then he rises to 6 feet 4, grabs a white cane with one hand and reaches 
> out with the other, grasping for something to shake. "For someone who 
> likes problem solving, this is quite a challenge," says Downey, who has 
> been working up floor plans in braille to submit to blind clients 
> overseeing the design of a new blind rehab center at the Veterans Affairs 
> center in Palo Alto.
>
> "It's a question of how do you design an environment for people that 
> aren't going to see it?" Right. But there is one question before that.
> As he puts it, "Blind architect. What a preposterous idea. How does that 
> work?"
>
> The answer starts with a benign tumor that had slowly encircled the 
> intersection of optic nerves. The tumor began to push the nerves out of 
> position, and that's when Downey couldn't follow the flight of a baseball 
> as he played catch with his son, Renzo, now 11, at home in Piedmont. Next 
> Downey was hitting stuff in the road, during the 100 miles he'd do weekly 
> on his bicycle. Still, he could get his work done with the aid of glasses. 
> His eyeballs looked fine, but an MRI revealed a non-malignant 
> golf-ball-size growth causing the blind spots.
>
> "If it weren't for playing baseball with my son and riding my bike, who 
> knows when I would have figured it out," he says.
>
> Because of the tumor's proximity to the optic nerve, radiation treatment 
> to shrink it was not an option. He had surgery on St. Patrick's Day 2008 
> to try to correct his vision, even though he was aware that it was risky 
> and might not work.
>
> Downey's father, a physician, had died of complications from brain surgery 
> at 36, so waking up after the procedure at all made Downey feel "pretty 
> darn lucky." Luckier still that he had blurry vision, as expected. "It was 
> amazing," he recalls. "It was a 9 1/2-8our procedure, and the next day I 
> was up walking around."
>
> When he awoke on the second day, his field of vision had been cut in half 
> horizontally, as if the water were at eye level in a swimming pool.
> By the third day he'd lost vision in the top half, too. It varied from 
> dark to light for five days, then it faded to black.
>
> "I lost my sight," says Downey, who knew going in that this was a risk.
> "But I came out pretty darn healthy, with the exception of the sight."
>
> He accepted blindness right away. What he could not accept was the advice 
> of a social worker who came in and immediately started discussing a career 
> change. Every step he had taken since junior high in Raleigh, N.C., had 
> been toward becoming an architect. He had seven years of schooling into 
> it, topped by a master's degree from UC Berkeley in 1992.
> Since then, he had designed aquariums, libraries, theaters, stores and 
> homes.
>
> He tried returning to the job he'd started a few months before he became 
> ill, but was laid off before Christmas. He searched the Internet, and 
> found one blind architect in Lisbon, Portugal, and a guy who works as a 
> forensic architect, investigating failures in buildings. That was it.
>
> On a whim he called Patrick Bell, a business adviser to architecture 
> firms, and that's when Downey finally got some decent Irish luck. As it 
> happened, Bell was working with a firm called the Design Partnership, 
> which is doing a joint venture with SmithGroup to design a 
> 170,000-square-foot Polytrauma and Blind Rehabilitation Center for the 
> Veterans Administration Palo Alto Health Care System. Bell made the 
> connection, and Downey was hired as a contract architect.
>
> "It's the first time any of us have dealt with even a sight-impaired 
> architect, let alone one who is blind," says Kerri Childress, VA 
> SPOKESWOMAN. "It's really been beneficial having an architect who is blind 
> working on a facility to serve the blind."
>
> The design phase runs through July. From there, Downey has been invited to 
> serve as a mentor to blind high school students at a weeklong event this 
> summer in Maryland. (He's also back to cycling on a tandem bike with his 
> buddy steering, and is up to 60 miles in the Oakland hills.) And he 
> wouldn't mind addressing next year's AIA convention in Miami.
>
> "I was always nervous in front of crowds," says Downey, "but now that I 
> can't see them, I think it will make it easier."
>
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