PRAXIS is a socio-political collective, rooted in decolonial feminist thinking and a vertical research and teaching atelier in the BA3 and the M.Arch at the MSA. We explore and ask questions as to what feminist architecture, landscape architecture and urban design might be now and in the future. By using the lens of intersectional feminism, we challenge our students to explore inequalities and inequities in society and what that may mean for the built environment. We teach students to interrogate their own positionality and to design with humility, reciprocity, and care. We develop architects as interpreters of disparate voices, capable of design that mediates experience and expectation in complex socio, economic, and cultural locations.
For the year-long thesis project our MArch2 students use feminist modes of enquiry as a way of constructing project briefs that always respond to the personal, the political and their preferable future scenarios. Each individual project explores inclusive understandings of how our identity affects our life and our work. By defining a project from a personal position (an experience or simply a passion) and placing it within a political context, project work often results in the re-definition of systems - a key tenant of feminism. The objective is to alter the existing system for the inclusion of others and primarily create equity for others. The project subjects are vast in their range and inspire the teaching team year in and year out.
It has been important for the students to explore feminist technologies by discussing technologies which are collaborative, are gender equitable, or driven by need rather than just technological advances.
Praxis Atelier asks students:
- What kind of Feminist Architect do you want to be?
- How do you want to practice, not where and not for who?
- And what form of practice might that be?
