A Feminist Factory of Fluidity & Allay
The Feminist Factory of Fluidity & Allay aims to encourage LGBTQ+ youth to practice their creativity and to create a sense of community in a queer space that does not revolve around nightlife. Inspired by the act of a hug, to provide care and relieve strees, the form was developed to mimic that overlapping motion. Moving from 3.1 - 3.2, both the form & programme leant on nature and in particular flowers, a consistent symbol of queer identity throughout history, to express the ideas of blossoming, adaptability and the cyclical nature of life. The idea evolved from my engagement with ceramic classes during sixth form. It became an outlet for me to explore internal thoughts and feelings regarding my queerness through the tactility of clay. Reunderstanding my own privilege throughout PRAXXIS feminist conversations, I realised that I was extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to practice ceramics. The centre provides studios for ceramics, glass blowing, weaving and knitting as they have similar equipment and use costs that may be inaccessible to some. The centre aims to encourage queer youth into these mediums to provide a similar space of self exporation through subsidising the cost of lessons. Around the wider site, flowers associated with queer symbolism are grown, cut and pressed, to produce bookmarks, coasters and dried bouquets that can be sold to visitors of the exhibition space, which will fund the queer youth programme. Schematically, the design was thoroughly thought out after studying the 'queering architecture' humanities module to create a queer space that is not only catered towards one group of the community, does not revolve around drinking and nightlife and is not ephemeral.
Creatively, my interests span further than just architecture and I try to incorporate art, graphic design, photography, fashion and more into my design process.
