Welcome to undefended / undefeated, a newsletter about ideas at the heart of material culture—the everyday stuff in all our lives—from Sara Hendren. If you’re interested in thinking more deeply about the things all around you—high-tech and low-tech artifacts, domestic and professional products, the tiny details and big systems that arrive in the form of our tangible worlds—you’re in the right place.
For the last fifteen years, I’ve been thinking a lot about design and disability in everyday life: accessible technology, flexible architecture, the design of services and experiences that welcome more human bodies. In this newsletter, I’ll take up some of the lingering ideas in the long wake of my book and my lab work—ideas that dig deeper into design and tech, from software to fashion to urban planning, and always with the big human project at the center: How do we bump up against the tools and technologies in our lives that shape our behavior? And how do we locate the freedom and choices that we still have, despite all, to use our everyday things with intention and ethics and big-hearted humor? I’d love to hear from you.
