Despite having no vision, after recovery, in just one month Chris Downey was committed to continuing his work as an architect, taking advantages of the new technologies forces. "With new technologies I can take architectural drawings and print them intact form. When I'm reading a floor plan of the building my mind is actively thinking about all the materials, the composition, all such of things that they were always there available to my mind but in reading drawings with my eyes was more passive."
Downey returned to the studio Michelle Kaufmann Designs, a company that is dedicated to making sustainable modular homes. A year later he opened his own studio in California, Architecture for the Blind (Architecture for the blind), through which advises teams design, architectural firms and organizations seeking to provide better environments for those with visual deficiencies . "My vision for architecture is pretty ambitious it's about so much more than just making a beautiful building it's about making connections extending community and bringing more people together."
Chris finds the city as an ideal place for the blind, a difficult circumstance to perceive until one loses sight. "We have to retrain the other senses, but one begins to hear sounds and feel textures used to spend long" he says. "The side from which the sun warms you, or the intensity with which the wind hits you, are tracks that are indicating how you progress in space."
Chris Downey helped design the Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco, a non-profit organization that provides services, training, and advocacy for people with disabilities. He also teaches accessibility and universal design at UC Berkeley and serves on the Board of Directors for the Lighthouse for the Blind in San Francisco.
"My idea of vision is to see with more than just your eyes." says Chris Downey.
