For an overview of Johnna Keller’s architecture work, visit hir LinkedIn page.
Presentations
Johnna has presented at numerous venues, including AIA Conference on Architecture; Living Future; the “Disability, Arts, Health” conference in Bergen, Norway; and invited talks at universities including the University of Minnesota, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Middlebury College. Below are the materials from several of these presentations.
- Slides: “Sustainable Design Strategies and the Future of Accessibility.” (Format: PDF)
- Slides: “Sustaining Access: Supporting Mental Health through Biophilic Design.” (Format: PDF)
- Prezi: “Unintentionally Awesome Design Strategies and the Future of Accessibility.”
Publications
In Spring 2016, AIA’s journal Design Equilibrium 2016 published Johnna’s article “The Politics of Stairs.” The article can be accessed using the two links below.
- Click here for a PDF (not screen-readable) of “The Politics of Stairs”
- Click here for a screen-readable Word document, including described images, of “The Politics of Stairs”
“The Politics of Stairs” has just been licensed to appear in the textbook The Norton Field Guide to Writing, 5th ed.
Society for Disability Studies 2014 Presentation
Below appears the text of Johnna’s original 2014 presentation at SDS, with described images.

© Bullitt Foundation
The Bullitt Center
http://www.bullittcenter.org/building/photo-gallery/
The image above is an exterior photograph of The Bullitt Center in Seattle, and shows an angled view of a white building with large windows and a large roof extending over the building’s edges, all within a dense urban context of buildings, sidewalks, and streets. A vertical glass and steel tower juts forward from the building’s front façade to display a series of stairs.

© Farsid Assassi, courtesy of BNIM Architects
The Omega Center for Sustainable Living
http://living-future.org/case-study/omegacenter
The image above is an interior photograph of The Omega Center for Sustainable Living in upstate New York, and shows an expanse of windows looking out onto a dense forest of trees, blue skies, and puffy white clouds. A lower band of windows opens to the outside air while three people stretch on mats lined below.
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Using two recent examples of sustainable architecture, Johnna Keller will contrast how the green building industry appears to be privileging able-bodied occupants to decrease the environmental footprint of buildings while also implementing design strategies to improve the quality of the indoor environment, creating spaces that improve the health and well-being of all occupants.
How can green building be sustainable if it’s not accessible? How can we help influence the future of sustainable design so that it’s both accessible and sustainable?
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Click here for a Google Doc of Johnna’s 2014 SDS presentation.