Meet Poppy Levison: Designer, researcher and disability activist on inclusive design and education

As Disability History Month spotlights the theme of employability and livelihood, we catch up with designer, researcher and disability activist Poppy Levison. 

Since graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2023 with a BA in Architecture, Poppy has been transforming perceptions and practices within the architecture world – earning recognition as a 2024 RIBA Journal Rising Star for her impactful work.

Poppy’s love for architecture and activism stems from a strong desire to make a difference. As an A-level student, she embraced her identity as a disabled person and discovered the social model of disability, which shifts the focus from individuals to the inaccessibility of the environment around them. With a love for creative subjects, geography and science, Poppy saw architecture as a perfect intersection of her passions. After enrolling in the BA Architecture course at CSM in 2019, Poppy found a community that valued co-designing for diverse communities.

Despite her successes, Poppy acknowledges the significant barriers disabled students face in architecture. Only 1% of registered architects in the UK identity as disabled, compared to 20% of the general population that identify as having a disability.

“Representation is a massive issue,” she explains. “When I started, I didn’t have any blind role models in architecture. The intensity of the course, combined with managing fatigue or health conditions, makes it incredibly challenging.”

During her time at Central Saint Martins, she discovered a love for mentoring younger students, which she continues in her current work.  As a researcher and educator, she advocated for more inclusive and compassionate teaching practices. Poppy’s activism as an educator stresses the importance of understanding students’ needs, whether related to disability, caring responsibilities or life events.

Poppy works with the DisOrdinary Architecture Project, a collective promoting the creative potential of disability in architecture. Here, she is an organiser, fundraiser and tutor for the Architecture Project’s Architecture Beyond, taught entirely by blind and visually impaired people, which she herself attended as a student back in 2019. Through the project, Poppy has also co-designed accessible spaces and installations, including as a curator for London Festival of Architecture. Poppy also became a young trustee for The Architecture Foundation in 2023.

“Disability in architecture is often reduced to ticking boxes for ramps or accessible toilets,” she explains.  “But there’s so much creative potential in embracing lived experiences. Projects like these prove that accessibility and innovation go hand in hand.”

Poppy’s advocacy extends beyond architecture to other creative fields. She has contributed to UAL”s Beyond the Visual research project, exploring non-visual ways of experiencing art, and worked on increasing accessibility in sport and film through captioning audio descriptions and British Sign Language integration.

She urges architecture education and industries to rethink rigid practices and embrace diverse methods of learning and working. For Poppy, inclusive design is not just about removing barriers but about enhancing the creative potential for everyone involved.