Disability Meets Design: Hack Your Home with Laura Mauldin 

Held in celebration of NYCxDesign, this program presents tactics and strategies for making our homes more accessible for ourselves and our loved ones. Led by Laura Mauldin, professor, author, and founder of the site DisabilityAtHome.Org, the program includes a presentation followed by a hands-on workshop inviting participants to identify and take action toward making a more accessible world, one home at a time. This program is offered in conjunction with Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial, currently on view at Cooper Hewitt. 

Speaker 

 

Laura Mauldin is a writer and an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Critical Inquiry at the University of Connecticut. Her book In Sickness and In Health: Love Stories from the Frontlines of America’s Care Crisis will be published by Ecco in February 2026. In 2024, she was named a New America National Fellow, and her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Baffler, and The American Prospect, among other outlets. Laura is also a nationally certified sign language interpreter and maintains the website Disability at Home, which highlights the ingenuity of disabled people and caregivers sharing advice on how to make homes accessible.

Accessibility & What to Expect:   

  • Format: The program will begin with a brief welcome, then the speaker will give a short presentation followed by a hands-on workshop, including time to ask questions and interact with other participants.
  • About the space: This program will take place in Cooper Hewitt’s Lecture Room on the ground floor of the museum. It is fully wheelchair accessible. There will be seating. There is an accessible restroom on the ground floor. Read more about accessibility at Cooper Hewitt. 
  • Accommodations: If we can provide any accessibility services to support your participation, email us at CHEducation@si.edu or let us know when you register. Please make your request as far in advance as possible—preferably at least ten days before the program date. 
  • Recording: This workshop will not be recorded.  

Support

Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial is presented in collaboration with Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. This project received federal support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum; the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the National Museum of the American Latino; the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center; and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

Generous support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. 

Support is also provided by the Lily Auchincloss Foundation; Edward and Helen Hintz; re:arc institute; the Keith Haring Foundation; the Lemberg Foundation; Maharam; and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts

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