The Denniston Hill Accessibility Vision Plan represents a collaborative effort between Leong Leong, artist Carolyn Lazard and artist-architect Jerome Haferd rooted in the principles of disability justice. Working with Denniston Hill founding artists Julie Mehretu, Paul Pfeifer, and Lawrence Chua alongside Executive Director Megan Steinman, this initiative transforms an existing 19th-century farmhouse residency in upstate New York into a node that helps set new standards of care across the artist residency field. The project’s methodology grounds accessibility as collaborative and generative world-building practice in lieu of a compliance-driven approach Developed through sustained dialogue between an interdisciplinary team and disabled artists, the project emerged from on-site workshops at Denniston Hill that explored models for accessible design frameworks. The project privileges collective access and interdependency over accessibility protocols and standardized norms. It explores access as a holistic and ongoing multivalent process that touches the social, the spatial, the temporal, and the material – recognizing that there is no singular universal design possible for the built environment. Inspired by the creative and experimental interventions disabled people make to create access in the built environment daily, the design converges the aesthetics of rural vernaculars with the aesthetics of accessibility.

The design prioritizes four areas of intervention within the existing residence: barrier-free accessible entries from the driveway, a barrier-free accessible live/work studio, barrier-free accessible indoor gathering spaces, and barrier-free accessible outdoor gathering spaces. Critical design features include circulation loops and clear axes to offer autonomy and agency in movement through and around the house. Flexibility and adaptability are central to both the kitchen and artist studio. The kitchen features custom millwork for accessible storage and appliances and an adjustable-height island on hydraulic legs. The new artist studio includes a continuous work surface with an integrated slop sink and modular storage elements on wheels that allow artists to reconfigure the space according to their practice needs – creating clear divisions between living and working areas or opening the space entirely. A new wraparound porch connects the house to the landscape and makes the entire perimeter accessible. The bathroom features custom powder-coated grab bars that wrap continuously from toilet to sink as sculptural elements. High contrast changes in wall and floor materials help low-vision and deaf users navigate different spaces through texture and finish.

This phase represents the first intervention in a long-term project to make the entire 10-acre property more accessible, advancing Denniston Hill’s liberatory, collective mission to serve all artists as a sanctuary committed to care ethics and community building.

Thank you to artists Park MacArthur, Annie Leist, and architect Jeff Mansfield for their generous design insights.