Because of a death in Joel Sanders’s family, this program, originally scheduled for Thursday, June 25, has been rescheduled for Tuesday, July 28, 2020. We extend our deep condolences to Joel. 

Joel Sanders, founder and director of JSA/MIXdesign, and Seb Choe, associate director of MIXdesign, will discuss how the inclusive design think-tank and consultancy is expanding its mission to consider the inevitable impact that the coronavirus pandemic will have on social equity and public space. Addressing the spatial implications of COVID-19 is an extension of MIXdesign’s commitment to the creation of safe and accessible designed environments that meet the needs of “non-compliant bodies”: people of different ages, races, genders, religions, and abilities that the discipline of architecture has traditionally overlooked.

Sanders is principal of his New York studio JSA/MIXdesign, as well as director of post-professional studies and professor at Yale School of Architecture. Sanders’ career has explored the complex relationship between culture and social space as a scholar pioneering the exploration of LGBTQ space, a designer of residential, museum, and academic buildings, and an activist fighting to address issues of equity and inclusion through design. Sanders’ work with MIXdesign was the subject of a recent article in The New York Times Magazine, “Bodies in Space: How Architecture Could Help Us Adapt to the Pandemic.” Sanders is the editor of STUD: Architectures of Masculinity and (with Diana Balmori) Groundwork: Between Landscape and Architecture. With transgender theorist Susan Stryker and legal scholar Terry Kogan, he created Stalled!, a project catalyzed by national debates surrounding transgender access to public restrooms and the need to create safe, sustainable, and inclusive public restrooms for everyone regardless of age, gender, race, religion, and disability.

Choe is associate director of MIXdesign, an inclusive design think tank and consultancy. Seb coordinates the efforts of in-house staff, institutional partners, research assistants, interns, and a network of consultants for MIX research, educational, legal, and fundraising initiatives. As the project manager for Stalled!, an interdisciplinary initiative for inclusive restrooms, they oversee research and design teams, organize lectures and workshops, and disseminate work through publications in print and online formats including Stalled! Online and Stalled! The Video.