Feminising Architecture

There is a significant problem regarding a woman’s relationship with the built environment, with many spaces not considering a woman’s needs and safety. This greatly influences how women navigate space, as our movements and daily lives are largely affected by this, with our preference for operating within spaces in which we feel that we belong. Considering women’s spatial needs provides an opportunity for architecture to design safer and more inclusive spaces. It also creates questions around our chosen methods as designers, looking at ways to re-think the design process to create space that considers a woman’s perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis will be to investigate how feminist spatial practices might help to develop a sense of belonging and safety. This thesis will implement a research-through design approach, creating three different designs at increasing scales to test methods of feminist spatial practices. The first design scale will explore the notion of safety through the design of an installation. The following design looks at a co-housing space exploring belonging within a domestic context. The final design scale looks at a community centre, implementing inclusive design techniques to explore belonging within the public realm. These designs, alongside the iterative testing methods throughout this thesis, show the importance of feminist spatial practices in designing more inclusive spaces for everyone.