From Architect to Systems Builder: Designing Inclusion in Difficult Contexts

This paper examines how inclusive design can be developed in difficult contexts, where formal accessibility frameworks exist but their implementation remains uneven. Drawing on more than ten years of practice-based research through AMAIS in Romania, it analyses inclusion across systems - organisational, infrastructure, and individual levels. The paper uses seven case studies related to open-access design resources, university and professional training, community-based independent living programs, and public space design projects. It argues that inclusive design should be understood not only as the production of accessible objects or spaces, but as the construction of relationships, capacities, and systems that make accessibility possible in everyday life. In this process, architects need to act not only as designers of spaces, but also as facilitators of social change, turning accessibility from a specialised requirement into a regular part of the design process.