During this conversation, we will highlight the importance of moving beyond accessibility checklists and compliance to recognise the value of lived experience in building and environmental design.

Hosted by Orla McCann, our Built Environment Lead and Senior Consultant at Tilting the Lens, she will facilitate a discussion with a panel of Disabled people. They will share their personal stories of barriers and solutions, highlighting where traditional processes and compliance mindsets continue to create inaccessible spaces and what we can do to change that.

Access accommodations, including BSL (British Sign Language) and Live captioning will be available during the session, and a transcription will be shared after the session. If you have any further accessibility accommodations, please email us at accessibility@tiltingthelens.com.

Please note that by registering for this webinar you will receive reminder emails from us about the event, as well as post-event emails with the recording.

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Meet the speakers

Orla McCann (she/her)

Orla has nearly 30 years’ experience in the field of Design for All, and in managing numerous and diverse projects.

Orla specialises in accessibility in the built environment, transport and housing, and in the provision of highly technical advice, including access audits and design consultancy. Orla’s focus is on accessible design in the built environment; she is hugely knowledgeable about global accessibility standards and international law and, importantly, how to interpret technical best practices into the actual built environment.

This includes being able to address potentially conflicting access accommodations in a pragmatic way. It also includes the practical application of innovative, inclusive solutions to enable Disabled people to have equity in the workplace. Orla also helps develop policy and delivers training so that clients can take her expertise forward and apply it beyond the immediate project. Co-design is always at the heart of her process.

Scar Barclay (they/them)

Scar is a neurodivergent designer, educator, writer, and maker whose work explores neuroqueer and queercrip approaches to spatial practice.

They are part of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project, a long-running platform foregrounding Disabled lived experience and creativity in architectural design. Their projects include Disability Meets Architecture (2026) with Critical Design Lab, funded by the Graham Foundation, and Many More Parts than M! (2024), which reimagines disability, access, and inclusion beyond compliance.

Scar is an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins (UAL), co-leading a Crip Theory–led studio on the MArch Architecture course with James Zatka-Haas.

Architecturally trained, they received a commendation for their dissertation Cripping the Picturesque at the RIBA President’s Medals Student Awards 2024. They were exhibition designer for TRANSCESTRY (2025), shortlisted for the Museums + Heritage Awards 2026. Scar holds degrees from Central Saint Martins and the University of Cambridge and has worked with what if: projects and Caruso St John Architects.

Lei Crowe (they/them)

Lei a neurodivergent and chronically ill hobbyist researcher, with a focus on queer and crip theories, and sexuality. They are particularly interested in understanding why navigating life with varying degrees of visible disability and trans-ness can mean they are often seen as either an oddity, vulnerable or, increasingly, a threat.

Peter Torres Fremlin (he/him)

Peter creates Disability Debrief, a weekly newsletter putting a disability lens on world news. Before making Disability Debrief, he worked with international organisations, including United Nations agencies, to try to make the world a better place for Disabled people. Peter lives in Colchester, UK, where he grew up.

Heylove Robert Mark Sr. (he/him)

Heylove Robert Mark Sr. is a disability activist and advocate with nearly 16 years of experience in disability rights, inclusion, and community development. He currently serves as an Administrative Assistant on the National Volunteer Team at Age Action Ireland and has worked with Independent Living Movement Ireland as a community development officer. He is also studying Critical Disability Studies at Maynooth University. His experience includes work with the West African Federation of the Disabled (WAFOD) and National Union of Organisations for the Disabled (NUOD) in Liberia, electoral inclusion advocacy, and participation in the Photovoice COVID-19 research project in Bangladesh and Liberia.