10 Questions with Alexa Vaughn, pioneer in “DeafScape” design

I graduated from Berkeley with a B.A. in Landscape Architecture in May 2016 and an M.L.A. in May 2018. During my time in school, I interned for three local firms: Damir Hurdich Design and Miller Company Landscape Architects; and I consulted with Mary Muszynski of Landible. I also GSI’d as a graduate student for LA 102 and 103.

After graduating, I moved back to Southern California and started working for OLIN in their Los Angeles office last August, 2018. I’m originally from Long Beach, CA, but I lived in the East Bay for 6 years while I was in school at Berkeley and moved to L.A. for the first time last summer. I live near the office and ride my bike to work every day!

I grew up without American Sign Language (ASL), without exposure to the Deaf community, and was mainstreamed my whole life – so I am new to the Deaf community and started learning sign language just a couple years ago now.

In fall 2012, I entered CED as a freshman and architecture major. I wanted to go into architecture because I had made a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, a couple years prior in high school (which is where my maternal family is from), and I fell in love with the architecture in that city.

My first design class was with Professor Linda Jewell – ED 1. She was the first exposure I had to landscape architecture, and she really opened my eyes to what the field and profession entailed. Growing up, I think many of us are under the impression that landscape architecture is just residential design, gardening, and maintenance; but that’s just a very small facet, at one side of the spectrum. Soon after, I took Professor Chip Sullivan’s class, ED 11A, and he also branched my knowledge of what landscape could be. After advice from them both, I decided to change my major to landscape architecture that spring.

Landscape architecture falls more in line with my personal interests and passions than architecture. I am still an avid lover of architecture and architectural / design history, but I love the organic-ness of landscape architecture – the fact that it is very much alive – and its potential to affect large amounts of people. We can literally shape the earth, plants, and environments that people use every day.

There is also a social justice side to landscape architecture that I have fallen in love with since I started at Berkeley – the power it holds in shaping environments and bringing about change for whole communities. The most successful designed landscapes, in my opinion, create a tangible balance between nature and culture.

I loved my time at CED, both as an undergraduate and graduate. They were some of the most challenging six years of my life, but I grew so much into the person that I am today, and it continues to shape my path in my career. My love for CED is especially rooted in its history – in both California design movements and social / civil rights movements.

I feel that I had a very well-rounded and practical education at Berkeley, and I also enjoyed taking courses throughout CED, outside of the landscape department. One of my favorite things about the college is how interdisciplinary it is with the architecture and city planning departments, as well as the landscape architecture department’s connections to the College of Natural Resources. As an undergraduate, I minored in Conservation and Resource Studies with a focus on sustainable agriculture, so I was able to take some really interesting classes including Michael Pollan’s course on the food movement and a hands-on agroecology course where we grew broccoli for the semester.

I served as an advisor in the creation of the new ASLA Guide to Universal Design. As someone who identifies as Deaf / disabled, I feel a sense of responsibility to push Universal Design into designers’ everyday processes. The guide really does serve as an entry point for landscape architects to learn about Universal Design and precedents.

Universal Design really has the power to go hand in hand with landscape architecture and urban design (as well as planning, policy, and architecture) so my colleague, Danielle Toronyi (OLIN Philadelphia office), and I were eager for the opportunity to share our knowledge and passion for the topic. I personally contributed my expertise in designing for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HoH) community, which culminated in the work I’d completed for GroundUp Journal (Issue 07), “DeafScape: Applying DeafSpace to Landscape.” Even though the DeafSpace Design Guidelines are specifically designed for Deaf / HoH folks, they truly draw parallels amongst many different disabled and abled groups’ needs. So DeafScape was applied to several parts of the guide and the same can be said about Danielle’s writing on designing for the Autistic and Neurodivergent community.

We also really focused on the use of language in the guide – although there is much debate on the proper terminology for referring to people who identify somewhere along the disabled spectrum, she and I both feel strongly about the use of identity-first language. So we really pushed for disability / identity first language in the guide (e.g., Autistic person, Deaf woman, Blind man, mobility-disabled person) rather than person-first language or medical model language (e.g., person with a hearing impairment, woman who is visually impaired, man with Autism spectrum disorder).

Universal Design is a term coined by Ron Mace, nationally and internationally recognized architect, product designer, and educator “to describe the concept of designing all products and the built environment to be aesthetic and usable to the greatest extent possible by everyone, regardless of their age, ability, or status in life” (Center for Universal Design, North Carolina State University). There are seven main principles of Universal Design: Equitable Use, Flexibility in Use, Simple and Intuitive Use, Perceptible Information, Tolerance for Error, Low Physical Effort, and Size and Space for Approach and Use. These principles focus on creating accessible and inclusive spaces for as many people as possible – which require little to no extra effort to be used, treating each body type and dis/ability with equal attention.

Universal Design is important because I believe access to public space is a civil right, not a privilege. Designers are required by law to follow the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) but it’s often treated as an afterthought or as an undesirable and limiting piece of rules to follow – Universal Design has the power to go far beyond the ADA in allowing for as many different people to use space as possible and it doesn’t need to be functional only, there is so much potential for Universal Design to be beautiful as well as functional.

A huge part of Universal Design is including disabled people in the design process – so it’s important that designers start including and providing access to disabled people as they design, not just with the finished product.

My inspiration for DeafScape sprang directly from my first viewing of a video on DeafSpace created by Vox around 2016; in the video were two Deaf people (Derrick Behm and Sean Maiwald) who explained the DeafSpace guidelines. At the time, I did not identify as Deaf nor had I met anyone who identified as Deaf or HoH and was interested in design; Derrick and Sean are now two of my closest Deaf friends. My discovery of DeafSpace was actually the beginning of my journey in identifying as Deaf and realizing my passion for designing for different dis/abilities through landscape architecture. After this video, I started focusing a bit more on what Universal Design was and how I could apply it to my studio projects.

As an editor-in-chief of GroundUp Journal, I worked very closely with my co-editors, Kate Lenahan and David Koo (both M.L.A. ’18), to create a journal focused on the topic of “consequence.” They really inspired me to push out into the disabled spectrum for this topic; and when we didn’t receive submissions in this area, to write my own article, which they helped me to refine both textually and graphically. Courtney Ferris (M.U.D. ’18) also helped me create the DeafScape urban street graphic that we used for the article.

My all-time favorite OLIN project is the Getty museum – the design is timeless, the gardens and views are some of the best in Los Angeles. Another favorite OLIN design is Dilworth Park in Philadelphia, which is one of our prime examples of Universal Design; prior to redesign, the park was inaccessible. OLIN elevated the entire plaza to street level to create a very interactive and lively space.

Currently at OLIN, I’ve been working on a project for Eugene Town Square in Eugene, Oregon as well as the Los Angeles River Master Plan (LARMP). These two projects are currently my favorites because they fall on the public side of the spectrum and are deeply rooted in community engagement, equity, and access.

I am currently obsessed with Haben Girma’s memoir, Haben: The DeafBlind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law. I would love to meet her sometime and chat with her about Universal Design; she is an expert in disability law, access, and accessible tech.