Including the disabled community in the design process is Alexa’s driving force towards transforming the landscape architecture profession and creating a more accessible public realm.
Alexa Vaughn (ASLA, FAAR) is a Deaf landscape designer and accessibility specialist, a PhD student in Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, Fellow of the American Academy in Rome (with the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture, 2022-2023), and was awarded the Landscape Architecture Foundation Fellowship in Innovation and Leadership (2020-2021). She has dedicated her practice and research to educating landscape architects, related professionals, and academia about the importance of including the disabled community in the design process, from the beginning all the way through finished product (and even after construction!).
Alexa’s research and passion for accessible and inclusive design began as a student at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2018, she published an article in Ground Up Journal , Issue 07: DeafScape: Applying DeafSpace to Landscape, an area in which she is an expert. Her lived experience as a late-Deafened woman and as a member of the larger disabled community - being forced to adapt herself to the built environment, rather than the other way around - has directly influenced her work and has fueled her fire to create radical and inclusive change in landscape architecture and urban design. Her ultimate goal is to perpetuate an inclusive design process that calls upon the disabled community’s lived experiences and expertise, and furthermore, to help shape the creation of a more accessible and beautiful public realm - designed beyond legal accessibility requirements, alone - where the disabled community can flourish and experience joy.
Alexa is happy you’re here and hopes that this website, as living and growing resource, will serve as a helpful tool for you to get started on your way to create a more inclusive practice and more accessible designs. The disabled community needs non-disabled allies now more than ever. With your allyship, we can create a better world.
Alexa is always open to consulting or collaboration opportunities; and providing lectures, workshops, critiques or panels to your firm, studio, or class. Please head over to the “Services” page to learn more about consulting services or the “Contact” page to reach out, or inquire.
Image description: A photo of Alexa in her studio at the American Academy in Rome. She is a predominantly white woman with long, light brown hair and visible tattoos on her left arm. She wears a black jumpsuit, bright orange heeled sandals, and gold earrings. She sits on a step stool and smiles at the camera with mouth closed. Pinned up behind her are some of her projects, including votives of ears and images of spaces in Rome sketches over in blue. (Photo by Daniele Molajoli).
Video description: a recording of Alexa’s Landscape Architecture Foundation Fellowship presentation, shared live on June 17, 2021.
Transcript with rich image descriptions available here, in Google Doc format: docs.google.com.