Associate Professor Institute of Architecture and Space

Masashi Kajita

Masa is an architect, researcher, and educator whose work explores how disability, architecture and art intersect to shape inclusive and enjoyable everyday experiences. He is Associate Professor at the Institute of Architecture and Space, where he founded and leads the Centre for Spatial Inclusion (CSI), and co-leads the Master's Programme in Spatial Design.
Portrait of Masashi Kajita

Masashi Kajita

Small Pleasures

A sudden whiff carried on the air may draw out an ‘Ah’, a quiet response to one of life’s small pleasures.
Masashi Kajita

We explore and celebrate the small pleasures disabled people experience in everyday life. By understanding spatial experience as a bodily process in relation to the materiality and spatiality of situations, we investigate how joy, satisfaction, and fulfilled needs emerge. In doing so, we challenge conventional understandings of person-environment relations and provide new insights into more inclusive spatial experiences.

Places and Small Pleasures

Discussions of architecture and disability often focus on barriers, limitations, and what disabled people cannot do. Disability is frequently framed as a problem. This study takes a different perspective. By highlighting disabled people's delight and unique relationships with places, it explores how architectural environments can foster pleasure while opening up alternative ways of thinking about disability.

The film, Places and Small Pleasures, follows four individuals as they share their favorite places in Copenhagen. Through their stories, the film reveals positive spatial experiences, small pleasures, and uncovers the extraordinary within everyday environments.

Featuring (in order of appearance): William Korte, Belinda Sophie Ingeman Møller, Christian Bundgaard, and Vibeke Baden Laursen.

Directed by Masashi Kajita and Jacob Nossell
Produced by Nossell & Co. and the Centre for Spatial Inclusion in collaboration with 3.TV Film
Funded by Bevica Fonden, Elsass Fonden, and the Royal Danish Academy