submitted by ESTA
Public-facing buildings should welcome the public. In any solution that we create for these spaces, we need to ask ourselves, “Are all welcome here?” Have we created obstacles that will bar patrons or workers from fully utilizing these buildings? Sometimes these obstacles are physical, like a single step that doesn’t even register for some but is a sign to others that they weren’t intended to be there. Sometimes the impediment is emotional, like when the 98-year-old cabaret in your historic Black neighborhood is renovated into a space that is otherwise unrecognizable except the historic façade, weirdly taken out of place without moving at all. Perhaps the obstacles are economic, like when the chosen site has no safe public transportation nearby.
In our endeavor to create spaces to incite public discourse, celebrate our cultures, tell the greatest human stories, feel music, experience bodies moving in space, and bring people together … we can tear people apart. At NATEAC, our challenge this year is to use our creative voices to help each other understand what it means to belong in these facilities so that we stop looking at accessibility as a code obligation and rather look at access to art as the point of the endeavor.
To that end, we are opening our request for proposals one more time for sessions that speak to one or more of the following topics:
- Disabling People – Understanding how the built environment creates physical obstacles and how to remove them from the design at every stage.
- Building Advocacy – What does it mean to be an advocate for belonging in an Architecture, Engineering, and Construction context?
- Supporting Communities – Breaking the pattern that the proscenium is the “main” stage, and the black box can support “everything else.” Every culture deserves an appropriate venue to tell their stories in their own unique way.
- Communication – Involving everyone in the conversations in the theatre, in the environment, and in the planning meetings.
Thank you to everyone who has submitted proposals so far. We have a great selection of topics and presenters and will be assembling the programming this month. Additional proposals will be considered as they are submitted, so the sooner, the better. Submit your proposal at esta.org/rfp.
The submission portal for NATEAC 2024 will close again for the last time on January 31st.
