Dis/abling cities: Students bring accessibility into focus with creative projects

5. Juni 2025

How do we experience cities when accessibility is limited? And how can we imagine more inclusive futures? These were the guiding questions for students from Universität Hamburg (UHH) and University College Groningen (UCG) in the international project seminar Groningen – Hamburg: Dis/abling Cities.

Over the course of the summer semester 2025, students worked in cross-border teams and developed three inspiring projects that highlight and question urban (in-)accessibility in creative ways:

1. Soundmapping – Hearing the City
This group created an acoustic map of Hamburg and Groningen, based on conversations with blind people and associations for the blind. The recordings reveal how sound shapes everyday orientation in the city – making urban life accessible through listening, rather than sight.

2. Dis/abling Uni – A Magazine on Campus (In-)Accessibility
Where do barriers exist on campus, and how can they be overcome? This team tackled these questions by producing a magazine that documents the accessibility (and inaccessibility) of the university campuses in Hamburg and Groningen. With lots of information and visual features, the magazine invites readers to rethink what an inclusive university should look like.

3. Utopia in Progress – Documenting (In-)Accessibility
The third project team explored accessibility from two complementary perspectives. On the Hamburg side, students highlighted existing best-practice examples through interviews and short documentary films, featuring initiatives such as blind football, an inclusive sports hall, and the performative book fair at Kampnagel. Their work illustrates that accessibility is not just an aspiration but already being realized in inspiring ways. Meanwhile, the Groningen students shifted the focus: using GoPro recordings, they documented the many barriers that wheelchair users continue to encounter in the city’s public spaces, making visible how much work remains to be done.

The seminar was led by Prof. Dr. Sophie Witt, Prof. Dr. Bettina van Hoven, and Dr. Franziska Kutzick. It began with a four-day workshop in Groningen in March 2025 and continued throughout the semester in international teams. Students presented their projects at the UCG Project Presentation Day on 17 June and at the Institute for Liberal Arts & Sciences in Hamburg on 20 June.