Last year, WebUrbanist‘s founder Kurt Kohlstedt suffered a debilitating injury that his right arm and dominant hand. New everyday challenges led him to research and test existing adaptive designs, and even to evolve new accessible design solutions. Over the course of a year, these experiences set the stage for Adapt or Design, a twelve-part project of 99% Invisible in three acts. The finalization of this endeavor is accompanied by an episode of the same name featuring Roman Mars.

First, the six-article mini-series Single Handed dives into assistive designs for people with one functional hand. Next, the three-article micro-series Broken Plexus explores design hacks and mods that can help with long-term recoveries. Finally, Left to Write is a three-piece set about adaptive writing technologies, including single-handed keyboards and typing systems.

The project name is a play on “adapt or die,” but it also references a recurring post-injury dilemma: whether to adapt, or to design a fix, absent an existing adaptive design solution.

The project logo design is a nod to the current condition of my (Kurt’s) arm, which awkwardly operates a bit like one of those mechanical grabbers in “claw game” arcade machines.

Act One: Single Handed

Adapting to life with one working hand, I used to joke that everything was three times harder and took three times longer in the wake of my injury; except, I wasn’t entirely kidding. But the more I identified and addressed everyday problems, the more I was able to reclaim my time, energy, and life … with the help of assistive design solutions.

Part 1 – Design Adaptations for Living with One Working Hand: After a week in the hospital, getting discharged felt great. But simply swapping a hospital gown for street clothes highlighted unexpected issues.

Part 2 – No-Tie Kits, Lace Locks, & Other Assistive Footwear: Shoelaces present a problem; the solution could be cheap, fast, good – pick two. Shoe-lutions include lace locks and assistive footwear.

Part 3 – Inclusive Left-Sided Apparel Embodies “Found” Design: Before shopping for inclusive apparel, it can pay to look closely at one’s wardrobe for clothes that may work with new tools or modifications.

Part 4 – Pack Hack Reconfigures Roomy Rucksack for Crossbody Carry: Sling and messenger bags lack everyday utility and comfort. Absent off-the-shelf options, a backpack can be hacked for crossbody-style carry.

Part 5 E-Ink Devices & Peripherals Render Reading More Accessible: Many recreational options may be out of reach, but e-readers remain accessible, and can be augmented with add-ons for one-handed use.

Part 6 – Hand Lenders Point Out Adaptive Designs & Unexpected Issues: Sometimes those around us are best situated to spot problems right in front of us. They can be great sources of novel adaptive design ideas.

Act Two: Broken Plexus

As my recovery dragged on, a series of dynamic long-term challenges emerged, involving change over time. Rehabilitation workout sheets stacked up, leading me to create a workbook; issues with orthoses wore on me, provoking interventions; and seasonal changes coupled with mending nerves shaped my shifting wardrobe.

Part 1 – Designing a Recovery Workbook to Work Out Problems: Wrangling exercise sheets can feel like a workout, but organizing in pain can yield tangible gains, even beyond a well-designed workbook.

Part 2 – Adapting Off-the-Shelf Orthoses for Long-Haul Use: Even the best off-the-shelf orthoses can wear on one over time, with emergent pain points that demand imaginative custom interventions.

Part 3 – Threading Sensational Paradoxes of Peripheral Nerve Damage: Nerve damage can feel chaotic at times, dampening some sensations, magnifying others, yet calling for a balanced approach to apparel.

Act Three: Left to Write 

As a writer, my most persistent post-injury dread concerned my ability to pursue this profession (and passion). So I started researching and testing adaptive keyboards for one-handed users, then wound up developing a single-handed typing system for two-handed keyboards — one that I could share with others, and have below!

Part 1 – Adaptive Keyboards & Writing Technologies for Single-Handed Use: Despite the wide range of available designs, one-handed keyboards have various drawbacks that can be dealbreakers for some users.

Part 2 – Designing a Single-Handed Keymap for Half of a Standard Keyboard: Ultimately, I created a new custom typing solution, programmed to enable one-handed touch-typing on a standard two-handed keyboard.

Part 3 – Setting Up a Free One-Handed Touch-Typing System in Minutes: The “KURTY” keymap adds single-handed functionality to QWERTY keyboards in minutes — and it’s free for you to download and use.

Encore! Roman & Kurt Discuss Adapt or Design

For the concluding episode, we were originally planning to talk primarily about adaptive technologies, but the conversation between me and Roman expanded to encompass a broader range of accessible designs.

Postscript: Adapting, Designing, … and Writing

I set out to write a single article about accessible design, to be paired with an episode about one-handed keyboards. As I developed my own adaptive writing solution, however, putting my experiences down on (proverbial) paper became easier … and the scope started to expand. I continue to recover slowly and incrementally from my injury, but am still limited to typing with my non-dominant left hand (and may be forever). So I continue to find my custom keyboard setup useful and hope others who download it will as well.

Meanwhile, I sincerely and deeply appreciate the support I’ve gotten not only from my colleagues, friends, family, and partner, but also from the many WU and 99pi fans who have engaged with and responded to this series. Thank you all!

-= Kurt Kohlstedt

The 20th-century American dream of suburban houses and picket fences unfolded in parallel with another vision: freedom to roam, embodied in camper vans and other mobile housing designs. The increasing costs of city living and desire to escape nine-to-five life has since led to a new generation of creative solutions, ranging from converted camper vans and buses to space-saving sleeping trailers that can be towed behind cars or even two-wheeled vehicles.

DIY & Professional Van Home Conversions

Many mobile living creations of this new millennium are actually adaptations of existing vehicles, including do-it-yourself van rehabs as well as professional remodels.

Some are cheap, simple and use recycled materials while others feature more luxurious amenities and higher levels of finish — as with most things, you get what you pay for, whether in dollars or sweat equity.

The more modest exterior appearances of some such livable vans can be deceiving – many stealth campers and DIY RVs include solar-paneled roofs, custom wood trim, flip-down window covers and even flip-up computer desks designed for digital nomads. Many of these features can be all but invisible from the outside.

Livable City & School Buses Transformations

Wanderers requiring more room for extravehicular activities may require something bigger but presumably still street legal, making buses a natural option for larger-scale mobile makeovers. A city bus has its advantages, including expansive windows for those seeking extra sunlight.

Meanwhile, plain old yellow school buses offer benefits as well, including more standardized design elements to work with. These can be turned into expansive pads of all kinds, whether they are fitted with elegantly curved plywood or sliced, diced and topped with rustic timber frames.

Modular Sleeping Trailers Make More of Less

Not everyone can afford the time or money to buy or convert a van or bus. For those who need something smaller that can be hitched to a more traditional vehicle, there are still a lot of clever ways to get the most out of limited trailer space, including pop-outs and auto-expanding rooms that deploy on demand.

Flaps, wings and other folding elements can help bring more outdoor space in, extending interiors to include sheltered zones beyond the limits of whatever one has in tow.

Even a surprisingly small trailer can pack a lot of utility, including running water, power outlets, USB ports and LED lights — some even feature a full modular kitchen for a bit of light glamping. Mounted toolboxes, roof racks and cargo decks can help expand their functionality as well.

Bicycle, Motorcycle & Other Small-Space Trailers

Choosing to ride a bike instead of driving a car doesn’t have to mean foregoing the convenience of a camper trailer, though such options may require especially clever construction (not to mention physical endurance) in place of motorized assistance (or at least: an electric assist bicycle).

Bigger Rig Renovations & Off-the-Rails Creations

There may be rules to the roads, but there are practically no limits to the creativity of people who want to live their lives on them. Beyond the realm of conventional conversions are all kinds of creative cars, vans and trucks that are effectively inhabitable art.

Rolling Master Plans & Dreams of Nomadic Futures

It goes without saying that no one knows what the future of mobility will look like, but imagine for a moment a kind of city on rails made up of modules that could be moved from one place to the next, all running on existing train tracks. Consider the advantages for migratory seasonal markets, mobile concert venues and other businesses and events that benefit from moving around throughout the year, embracing a sort of perpetually nomadic urbanism. Hotels, restaurants and other commercial operations see changes in demand throughout a given year and and could conceivably pull up stakes to seek out better opportunities.

It may be an exercise in fantasy, but one has to wonder: what would the world look like if more people could take their architecture with them as they traveled? Between food trucks and container homes and other modular living solutions, not to mention the rise of autonomous vehicles, this prospect is in some ways already grounded in the real world around us. As more and more people move ever more often, working remotely and take their homes and businesses on the road, new typologies for portable spaces will no doubt continue to emerge and surprise us along the way.

In Newark, New Jersey, a large and deceptively nondescript building is redefining the Garden State, producing millions of pounds of food per year just outside of Manhattan. This 70,000 square foot facility has the equivalent yield of over 5 million square feet of traditional farmland. Inside, a year-round, closed-loop aeroponics system employs no pesticides and requires 95% less water than field farming. This branch of AeroFarms is not alone — it’s part of a food production revolution with projects ranging from at-home and in-store micro-farms to massive facilities set up in old factories and warehouses around the world.

Technically, vertical farming can be done outside, too, by stacking planters in natural sunlight, but indoor vertical farms offer a range of advantages. Inside, there are no seasons and specialized LED lights make it possible to grow plants continuously and cycle through various crops more easily. The controlled environment and standardization of these systems also makes automation easier. In Japan, approaches have gone predictably high-tech, with endeavors like the Vegetable Factory, which is operated entirely by robots.

Spatial containment makes recycling more efficient, mitigates spoilage and reduces the risk of diseases and pests spreading beyond a specific facility. Transportation costs and energy requirements are also reduced for farms that move into old factories and warehouses right in and around cities, putting them closer to consumers. Aeroponics in general also require less material input — mainly mist and air with minimal water and soil — leading to a lighter footprint.

What started in large and independent facilities has begun to spread into mainstream grocery stores and supermarkets, too. A few years back, Target started testing direct retail micro-farms, beginning with leafy greens before moving to tomatoes, peppers and more. Since these kinds of retail spaces are climate-controlled already for the sake of both shoppers and products, less added energy is required to maintain ideal conditions.

In Berlin, a company called INFARM recently partnered with local shops to provide similar in-store services, cutting down on farm-to-table distance right in the heart of a major European metropolis. Meanwhile, in Tokyo, vertical creepers, rice paddies and broccoli fields were integrated into the design of an otherwise Modern-looking office building, brightening up the place while also providing food for the employee cafeteria.

Taking vertical integration a step further, projects like the ReGen Villages aim to incorporate stacked farms directly into residential communities. It may sound impractical or even Utopian, but at its root the idea is relatively traditional: backyard gardens and community gardening are nothing new. Coupled with walkability and density, these kinds of green-centric towns have a lot in common with New Urbanist ideas that go back decades.

Still, it is generally wise to maintain a healthy skepticism when it comes to fresh green architectural trends and technologies and eye-catching renderings. Skyscrapers covered in greenery (or treescrapers), for instance, have proven to be popular but also problematic in practice (catchy conceptual earthscrapers, groundscrapers and sidescrapers, too, for that matter). Sometimes, more practical organic solutions are hiding in plain sight. Take wood, for instance, a historically popular green building material now finding new forms and reaching new heights in tall buildings around the world. Newer is not always better.

Some extreme vertical farming ideas may indeed prove to be far-fetched and unsustainable, but market movements suggest there is a future in these kinds of facilities and approaches. Investors are putting their money where people’s mouths are, buying up disused urban real estate and developing new indoor farming technologies. Already, vertical farming is a $2,000,000,000 industry and experts project it will grow as much as 30% per year over the next decade.

Vertical farms are of course not a complete solution to ongoing threats like climate change and mounting global food crises, but they do show promise — these endeavors are slowly breaking down urban and rural barriers, reconnecting cities with the food sources that sustain them and shortening that critical distance from farm to table.

In the wake of World War I, the United Kingdom developed a powerful yet relatively low-tech architectural system for detecting incoming enemy airplanes, the remnants of which can still be found across the countryside.

Starting in the 1920s, these concrete sound mirrors were built to passively gather, reflect and concentrate acoustic waves, directing the sound to listening posts on the ground — key infrastructure in an extensive early warning alert system.

Incoming sounds were amplified by microphones and listened to by operators wearing headphones. Today, the remains of these mirrors are largely abandoned and in various states of disrepair, though some are protected with walls or fences and accompanied by historical plaques.

Based in Basel, photographer Piercarlo Quecchia discovered the existence of sound mirrors thanks to an album cover featuring one such structure. From there, he began the search out, find and photograph them — 13 in total (all that remain), most of which are located along the southern edge of England.

They may look monolithic and simple, but the curves of these structures were carefully calibrated. The designs were specifically calculated (and sound mirrors accordingly engineered) to pick up aircraft engine noises in particular.

“They represent an incredible demonstration of how sound can generate a physical form,” explains the photographer, in which “both the curvature radius and the dimensions of the dishes are studied and designed according to the sound frequency that they must reflect,”  He hopes the series will continue to raise awareness of these artifacts and bolster preservation efforts.

Like the airmail arrows that once guided planes from coast to coast across the United States, it can be easy to overlook such geometrically simple leftovers, at least until an understanding of their historical origins leads people to spot and appreciate them.

According to photographer Xiaoxiao Xu, the Chinese farmers and other rural hobbyists building flying machines from scratch are not in it for fame or fortune. Mostly working out of their own backyards, these creators are simply trying to find ways to lift themselves up into the air. Some build choppers, others build planes, and others hybrids and experimental aircraft that are tricky to classify.

Xu moved to The Netherlands as a teenager, graduated with a degree in photography, but traveled back to her home country to work on Aeronautics in the Backyards, a book of drawings, photos and stories of these self-taught hobbyists, mainly working on remarkably small budgets and scrounging for scraps and parts.

For the project, Xu traveled across China to speak with and photograph eight different farmer-aeronauts working on different projects. “Some of these aeronauts have worked for decades but never achieved to get airborne,” says Xu. “Although that might sound like a waste of time, they see it differently. For them, the game is not about how far or high they can fly, it’s about pushing their boundaries in order to achieve the impossible. They call it real-life science-fiction.”

One man she interviewed recalled how he got started: “My first aircraft cost me less than 10,000 CNY and all the materials and parts I made to build it were just one-offs, because I knew the first aircraft wouldn’t be perfect and would end up as firewood like the model airplanes I made before. I used the money I earned from the first aircraft to make my second aircraft, Wang Qiang No.2.” Others tell stories of midair stalls and watery crash-landings — the stakes are high when flying.

As for why they do it, the answers vary — one sums the mystery of motivation up well: “I cannot give a reason for why I want to fly. Maybe this is just how human beings evolve: we ride horses, ride bicycles, drive cars, and then fly an airplane. I fly as best I can. It’s my dream, my joy. It’s pretty much my life.”