Editorial

Anna Ryan

"Architecture is communication from the body of the architect directly to the body of the person who encounters the work." So writes Juhani Pallasmaa in The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. In its consideration of issues of ability and disability within architecture, Issue 10 of Building Material seeks to explore how the values of this communication are currently understood and how such values can be further examined.

As architects, we learn to think in a very particular way. Our architecture becomes a product of this way of thinking about and viewing the world. Any way of thinking, however, is likely to have its limitations, thus an awareness of differing perspectives becomes crucial. Consequently, Building Material 10 has sought a deliberate juxtaposition of the voices of both architects and non-architects in the opening of this professional and political discussion. Thus in the words of Neil Leach, "a certain tension is allowed to develop between a way of thinking that belongs specifically to the world of architects and one that is generated 'outside' that world."

In working to uncover, present and explore these issues of (dis)ability and architecture, each reader is afforded the opportunity to (re)consider both individual and communal attitudes to the thinking, working, practicing and visioning that underlies the making of architecture in Ireland. As a community of professionals, we need to allow ourselves be challenged and questioned. This is a live story: how we respond to it is critical.