When I was young I used to live in the present that had been offered to me, without questioning reality too much. But then I grew up and started to observe the world around me in a different way, more inquisitive perhaps, and I started wondering if what I saw, felt and heard was fair. Most of the time it was not: because our society (and, as a tangible consequence, our cities) have been constructed according to patriarchal, binary and heteronormative logic. When I realised this, I felt a glass shattering inside of me: I was no longer able to look at reality in any other way besides constantly asking “why are things this way?”. To me, answering this question meant becoming aware that the experiences of women, the LGTBQ+ community, black people and people of color, migrants, and many other minorities have not been taken into consideration in the active construction of the places we inhabit.
How would you feel?
We are aware that we live in an extremely accelerated and constantly changing time but still, somehow, we keep making the same mistakes, because decision-making is based on obsolete structures soaked in inaccessibility and lack of inclusiveness. When dealing with change, before imagining big rainbow flags painted on the sidewalk, we should question the system itself and occupy the space that belongs to us. Often when treating the issue of minorities in urban spaces one of the first factors that is highlighted is safety. Certainly this is very important issue, but we need to go deeper and ask ourselves what we would like to see in our cities. Visibility? Community? Security? Sensibility?
The world is changing, and with it, the people who inhabit it, and so should public space.
Have a nice weekend and happy Pride.
Irene Verde,
Junior service and communication designer
"Queer space exists potentially everywhere in the public realm."
- Christopher Reed of Imminent Domain: Queer Space in the Built Environment (1996)
🌎 From the world.
Honorata Grzesikowska and Ewelina Jaskulska from Architektoniczki followed how children play and practice sports during school breaks. The differences are clear: boys are running all around, while girls stay on the peripheries. But does it have to be this way? While evidently more boys are playing football, it doesn’t mean that the majority of the space should be designed for this activity. The way we shape our public spaces defines the way they are used. By creating more diverse public spaces, we can invite different people –with different needs and preferences– to take part in the public realm. Through better understanding the different dynamics at play in public space, we begin to better understand how we can improve it and make it more inclusive.
Graphic from LinkedIn post by Honorata Grzesikowska
🚲 From the Netherlands.
Laura Adèr from Fairspace and Ariana Rose from Studio in Between had joined forces in 2021 to led one of the Netherlands’ first-ever initiatives that focus on how Black women experience street harassment and what are the possbile solution for a more inclusive decision-making. The outcomes of this initiative has been pubblished in a joint essay for Pakhuis de Zwijger’s Designing Cities For All programme: 18 Perspectives on Designing Cities for All. The focus is on one idea: everyone should feel safe and welcomed independently of their gender, sexuality, race, age, religion or ability.
🧡 From Humankind.
In 2019 we created the Pride Parklet, a project whose intention was to spur conversation and awareness about the need for safer and more comfortable spaces for all. Certainly, there is a need to rethink public space –both the existing one and that which is yet to be designed– from not only the idea of safety for all but also pride as human beings and how they should be able to, wherever, whenever, feel themselves.
📚 Dive Deeper.
The bestseller “Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men” written by Caroline Criado Perez is the kind of book that you would like to gift for Chrismas to that person who always says “but nowadays we’re all equal“. Spoiler: no, and data can help to understand why and how.
🤩 So beautiful.
What’s a public space that doesn't look that much like your regular public space? A public bathroom. How to translate the need for inclusiveness into these? Here’s an example: together with a queer student organization, architects at WorkAC designed a gender-inclusive toilet at the Rhode Island School of Design Student Center in the United States. Projects like these are important especially because of the fragility of the public bathrooms subject. For instance, public bathrooms can create extremely complex situations for transgender people: research shows how in some contexts, up to 70% of transgender people, in particular trans women, have undergone verbal harassment in gender-segregated bathrooms while almost 10% have reported physical assault.
Photo from the article “Designing around debate the gender-neutral bathroom” by ArchDaily
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