Careers in the Arts Toolkit Artist Profile: Chris Downey

Architect and Designer

Piedmont, CA

According to Chris Downey, he’s an architect without sight, but not without vision. When he unexpectedly lost his sight in 2008 following surgery to remove a brain tumor, he had 20 years of architectural practice under his belt and elected to face his new reality head on. “Armed with the creative mind and spirit, along with significant professional experience, it seemed more appropriate and logical to reinvent my career and place in architecture than to go with the more typical notion that you can’t be an architect without sight,” he said. Today, Downey leverages his disability as a unique strength, specializing in projects rooted in universal design and the needs of people who are blind and visually impaired.

Downey feels his blindness is less about what cannot be seen but, more importantly, about the broad and rich spectrum of the sensory phenomena that can be experienced, understood, and curated toward a common shared goal. “To walk through the city as an architect without sight, your mind is really active, picking up all kinds of really incredible environmental cues around you," he said in the American Institute of Architects’ documentary short, An Architect’s Story.

Working as a collaborator and advisor, Downey infuses his prior sighted architectural experience with a wide range of work specific to and within the blind, visually impaired, and general disability experience.  He reads architectural plans by touch thanks to a large format embossing printer that prints plans in raised, tactile form. And when working with architects in remote locations, he simply takes digital photographs with his phone and emails them to be discussed and drawn within the computer by others.

Downey's body of work includes a range of architectural projects across the country, all of which benefit from his truly unique skill set. He has consulted on projects in San Francisco, California, including the Lighthouse for the Blind, the Independent Living Resource Center, and the Transbay Transit Center as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs Polytrauma and Blind Rehabilitation Center in nearby Palo Alto. He has also consulted on various planning and public transit projects.

According to Downey, pursuing a career in the arts requires tremendous talent, skill, and passion. “It’s not easy for anyone, regardless of their abilities,” he said. “For me, the key to success was to define a truly unique and seemingly counterintuitive value and approach—to find beauty and value in my disability to make it my true and authentic differentiating value.” Downey believes a key strategy is to “be real, to seek out those who embrace difference, to share creatively, and, most importantly, to say ‘yes’ when it’s so easy to say ‘no.’”