This article may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments, a violation of Wikipedia's terms of use. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. (July 2023) |
Matrix Feminist Design Co-Operative was formed in London in 1981. [1] It was one of the first architectural organisations worldwide to bring a feminist approach to architecture and the design of the built environment and to challenge patriarchal spatial systems. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Matrix pursued these objectives through built projects, theoretical analysis, commissioned research and publications, including the book Making Space:Women and the Man-made Environment. [8] The book explores relationships between gender and architecture, building on the then emerging work from feminist geographers and historians in the UK and USA, including Doreen Massey, Linda McDowell, Susana Torre and Dolores Hayden.
Matrix originated as a feminist offshoot of the New Architecture Movement (NAM) in London. [1] [9] In the late 70s a group of women involved in NAM began meeting separately to discuss feminist perspectives and specific issues facing women in the built environment. This led to the formation of the Feminist Design Collective (1978–80) which then split into Matrix and Mitra. [10] [11] The latter focusing on enabling more women into the architectural profession; whilst Matrix focused on changing existing practices.
Related groups include the Women in Manual Trades (WAMT) a pioneering charity supporting women in construction, and the Women's Design Service, founded in 1985. [12] [13]
Matrix had many contributing members involved across a range of projects and affiliated groups between 1978 and 1994. These included the Women and Space conference (1979), the Home Truths exhibition (1980), the Matrix book group (1980–84), the Matrix support group (1980–84), and the architectural practice (1980–1994). [14] Key initial members include Frances Bradshaw, Susan Francis, Barbara McFarlane, Anne Thorne, Julia Dwyer, and Jos Boys. Benedicte Foo was likely to also be an early member. Some of the founding members lived in squats or short-life housing while the collective was starting up, which meant living costs were minimal and energy could be directed to the work of the collective. [15]
The Matrix Feminist Design Cooperative design cooperative was a women-led and multi-racial architectural practice. Set up as a workers’ cooperative, it was run using a non-hierarchical management approach, with everyone paid at the same rate. [16] [17]
The practice specialised in collaborative ways of working with people, groups and organisations that were traditionally excluded from architectural design processes. [1] [5] [18] The type of projects undertaken by the practice also extended beyond the range of standard architectural services, to include design guidance and training support. Along with other architectural organisations at the time across the UK, Matrix provided 'technical aid' to community and women's groups. The aim of Community Technical Aid Centres (CTAC) was to provide free or funded support services in a locality such as in construction, how to obtain funding, create neighbourhood organisations and building projects, and how to campaign for change. [19]
Methods for working with clients stemmed from Matrix's founding commitments to involving women in the design and production of buildings. [1] Women from the practice used models and building visits to empower their clients to share in making design decisions. [20] [21]
The Cooperative also provided courses on technical drawing for trainee tradeswomen, on the building process for workers and client groups, and on building law, casting general structures and construction for practising tradeswomen. [3]
A course on technical drawing that started as a consultative tool for Dalston Children's Centre (now the Bathhouse Children’s Community Centre) was developed further for use on women builders' training schemes, particularly at Women's Education in Building (WEB), a group delivering projects on behalf of Learning and Skills Councils in West and Central London. Some of this work helped the development of a Women into Architecture and Building (WIAB) access course at the Polytechnic of North London (later University of North London, then London Metropolitan University) founded by Yvonne Dean with many women from Matrix involved as tutors, and with Matrix co-founder Susan Francis as course leader for a number of years. [10]
Built projects include:
Matrix is probably best known for the Jagonari Educational Resource Centre, a project for women from the largely Bangladeshi community of Whitechapel, London. [23] [24] [2] An unsuccessful application was made to list the Centre in 2018.
Matrix were a member of the Association of Community Technical Aid Centres (ACTAC) and gained funding from the Greater London Council to provide technical advice. The GLC enabled over 40 voluntary organisations which benefitted women to develop their premises. Client organisations for feasibility studies and/or for projects that did not go ahead included Brixton Black Women’s Centre, The Calthorpe Project, Bermondsey Women’s Centre, Hackney Asian Women’s Centre, Maxilla and Defoe Nurseries, Lambeth African Women’s Centre, Haringey Women’s Training/Education Centre and Charterhouse Women’s Project, [25] [26]
Matrix produced a range of publications, including the book Making Space: Women and the Man Made Environment (London: Pluto Press, 1984) and two pamphlets funded by the GLC Women's Committee A Job Designing Buildings: For Women Interested in Architecture and Buildings (London: Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, 1986) and Building for Childcare: Making Better Buildings for the Under-5s (London: Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, 1986).
In 1993, they collaborated with Penoyre & Prasad architects, Elsie Owusu Architects and Audley English Associates to produce Accommodating Diversity, a booklet on housing design for minority ethnic, cultural and religious groups.
Particularly in the later years Matrix members published and gave presentations on race and gender discrimination in the profession; including Women Architects, a UK research booklet funded by the UK Arts Council (1996); Building = Equality, a Working Paper promoting equality of opportunity for black professionals within construction industry (1996); Black Women in Architecture from a UK Perspective (Paper presented to International Conference on Gender and Urbanisation, sponsored but United Nations in Kenya (1994); and Where Are They? Black Women: Architecture and the Built Environment, published in ISSUE (1993). [27]
Matrix were part of a much bigger second wave international feminist movement in the 1980s and 90s that campaigned to increase the number of women going into the architectural profession, to challenge conventional design practices and to enable women influence the design of built space. They were contributors to the seminal Paradise Circus: Women and the City film shown on Channel 4 in 1988, directed by Heather Powell for the Birmingham Film and Video Workshop, [28] as well as to Ordinary People: Why Women Become Feminists [29] in 1990 (also on Channel 4, with an associated publication). Matrix led and took part in many events of the period, including Women and Space at the Architectural Association in 1979, ‘Women’s Realm’ (Feminist Architects’ Network, North London Polytechnic 1987) and Alterities, a major international conference in Paris on feminism and architecture in 1999. [10]
Exhibitions of their work include:
Matrix has had ongoing impact on feminist approaches to design and participatory design methodologies, and is an important precursor to later feminist groups and organisations. [5] [38] [6] [39] Recognition is increasing, the editors of Women and the Making of Built Space in England, 1870-1950 describe Making Space as “highly important but underrated.” [40]
Some ex-Matrix members have developed feminist spatial practices such as through Taking Place [41] [42] [43] [44] formed by Jos Boys, Julia Dwyer, (who were Matrix members) together with Sue Ridge, Jane Rendell, Doina Petrescu, Katie Lloyd Thomas, Brigid McLeer, Helen Stratford, Miche Fabre Lewin, Angie Pascoe and Teresa Hoskyns. Spatial practice was also developed by the Julia Dwyer and the Sue Ridge partnership. [45]
The impact of the collective was reinforced in 2019 and 2020 when Matrix was nominated for the RIBA Gold Medal Award by Harriet Harriss following a campaign by the group Part W. [46] [47] In 2020, the Matrix Open Feminist Architecture Archive (MOfaa) project received seed funding from the University College London Bartlett Innovation Fund to develop an online resource. [48] [49]
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three supplemental charters and a new charter granted in 1971.
Feminist geography is a sub-discipline of human geography that applies the theories, methods, and critiques of feminism to the study of the human environment, society, and geographical space. Feminist geography emerged in the 1970s, when members of the women's movement called on academia to include women as both producers and subjects of academic work. Feminist geographers aim to incorporate positions of race, class, ability, and sexuality into the study of geography. The discipline was a target for the hoaxes of the grievance studies affair.
The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, also known as The Bartlett, is the academic centre for the study of the built environment at University College London (UCL), United Kingdom. It is home to thirteen departments that have expertise in individual subfields, including the Bartlett School of Architecture, Bartlett School of Planning, Bartlett Development Planning Unit, and the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. The Bartlett is consistently ranked the highest in Europe and the UK and among the highest in the world for the "Architecture and the Built Environment" category in major rankings. It is currently ranked the first in the world for the year 2023.
Feminist theory as it relates to architecture has forged the way for the rediscovery of such female architects as Eileen Gray. These women imagined an architecture that challenged the way the traditional family would live. They practiced architecture with what they considered feminist theories or approaches. The rediscovery of architecture through feminist theory is not limited to female architects. Architects like Le Corbusier and Adolf Loos have also had their architecture reexamined through feminist theory.
muf is a collaborative of artists, architects and urban designers based in London, England, specialising in the design of the urban public realm to facilitate appropriation by users.
The architecture of Copenhagen in Denmark is characterised by a wide variety of styles, progressing through Christian IV's early 17th century landmarks and the elegant 17th century mansions and palaces of Frederiksstaden, to the late 19th century residential boroughs and cultural institutions to the modernistic contribution of the 20th century such as Arne Jacobsen's National Bank and SAS Royal Hotel.
Noel Phyllis Birkby was an American architect, feminist, filmmaker, teacher, and founder of the Women's School of Planning and Architecture.
Susana Torre is an Argentine-born American architect, critic and educator, based in New York City (1968–2008) and in Carboneras, Almeria, Spain. Torre has developed a career that combined “theoretical concerns with the actual practice of building” and architectural and urban design with teaching and writing. Torre was the first woman invited to design a building in Columbus, IN, “a town internationally known for its collection of buildings designed by prominent architects.”
Sarah Wigglesworth MBE RDI is a British award-winning architect and was a Professor of Architecture at the University of Sheffield until 2016.
Women in architecture have been documented for many centuries, as professional practitioners, educators and clients. Since architecture became organized as a profession in 1857, the number of women in architecture has been low. At the end of the 19th century, starting in Finland, certain schools of architecture in Europe began to admit women to their programmes of study. In 1980 M. Rosaria Piomelli, born in Italy, became the first woman to hold a deanship of any school of architecture in the United States, as Dean of the City College of New York School of Architecture. In recent years, women have begun to achieve wider recognition within the profession, however, the percentage receiving awards for their work remains low. As of 2023, 11.5% of Pritzker Prize Laureates have been female.
Lori Brown is American architect and the co-founder of ArchiteXX, a group dedicated to transforming the architecture profession for women. She is a registered architect, author and Distinguished professor at Syracuse University. Her research focuses on architecture and social justice issues with particular emphasis on gender and its impact upon spatial relationships. She is an elected fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a member of the American Association of University Women.
Deborah Saunt is an Australian-born British architect, urban designer and academic. She co-founded the London-based architecture, urban design and spatial research studio DSDHA with David Hills.
Feministische Organisation von Planerinnen und Architektinnen is an organisation working to address gender issues in the built environment generally and among professionals active in this field.
Naomi Stead is an architectural academic, scholar and critic, based in Melbourne, Australia. She is currently the Director of the Design and Creative Practice Enabling Capability Platform at RMIT University, Australia.
Sadie Anna Morgan is an English designer. In 1995 she founded dRMM, the RIBA Stirling Prize winning architecture practice, with Alex de Rijke and Philip Marsh.
Jane Rendell is an architectural historian, cultural critic and art writer. She has taught at Chelsea College of Art and Design, Winchester School of Art, and the University of Nottingham. She has been based at the Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL since 2000, where she has been Professor of Architecture and Art since 2008, teaching primarily across the Situated Practice, Architectural History and PhD programmes. She was Director of Architectural Research (2004–10) and Vice Dean Research (2010-3). She is currently Director of Architectural History and Theory and leads the Bartlett’s Ethics Commission.
Jos Boys is an architecture-trained, activist, educator, artist and writer. She was a founder member of Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative and co-author of their 1984 book Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment. Since 2008 she has been co-director of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project with disabled artist Zoe Partington, a disability-led platform that works with disabled artists to explore new ways to think about disability in architectural and design discourse and practice.
Dr. Harriet Harriss, is a UK-licensed architect, writer, and historian, and served as the Dean of the Pratt School of Architecture in Brooklyn, New York from 2019-2022. Prior to this, she led the Architecture Research Program at the Royal College of Art in London until 2015 and the Masters in Architecture Program at Oxford Brookes from 2009-2015. Her scholarship principally concerns pioneering pedagogies in architectural education and confronts themes such as feminism; equity, decolonization, diversity and inclusion; civic engagement; the climate crisis, and queer ecologies. After graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2003, Dr. Harriss established Design Heroine Architects - a participatory design practice that secured NESTA start-up funding in recognition of its social innovation objectives in 2004. Throughout her academic career, Harriet won various awards for teaching and research, including, a Diawa Foundation Fellowship, two Santander Awards, a Brookes Teaching Fellowship, a Winston Churchill Fellowship, and a HEA Internationalisation fellowship. In 2016, Dr. Harriss was awarded a Clore Fellowship for cultural leadership, elected to the European Association of Architectural Education Council (EAAE) in summer 2017, and in 2018, awarded a Principal Fellowship of the UK's Higher Education Academy. Harriet's consultancy roles include the UK Department for Education construction industry T-Level panel, international program validations, external examining, and pedagogy design and development. From 2018-2020, Dr. Harriet Harriss chaired the RIBA's prestigious Dissertation Medal judging panel and in 2016, secured a 500k Euro research grant from Erasmus to lead an international consortium investigating the trans-sector applications of an architecture degree. Dr. Harriss has spoken across a wide range of media channels on the wider issues facing the built environment. Dr. Harriss is also recognized as an advocate for diversity and inclusion within design education and was nominated by Dezeen as a champion for women in architecture and design in 2019. Her books include Architecture Live Projects: pedagogy into practice (2015), Radical Pedagogies: Architectural Education & the British Tradition (2015), A Gendered Profession (2016), Interior Futures (2019), Architects After Architecture (2020), Greta Magnusson Grossman: Modern Design From Sweden To CaliforniaArchived 28 October 2020 at the Wayback Machine (2020). Her forthcoming books include Architectural Pedagogies of the Global SouthArchived 1 December 2020 at the Wayback Machine (2021), The Architecture of the Post-Anthropocene (2022).
Katherine Clarke is a British artist and designer. Originally from Jersey but practicing in London since the early 1980's, she is one of the founding members of muf architecture/art, a London-based practice of architects, artists and urban designers. Katherine unusually is both practitioner, artist and theorist who brings her research based critical practice to both art commissions and the authoring of public space projects and urban strategies.
Part W are a British collective of women working in architecture, design, infrastructure and construction working to challenge the systems that disadvantage women and calling for gender mainstreaming in the built environment. The collective was founded by Zoë Berman in 2018 and is co-chaired by Alice Brownfield. The group are multidisciplinary team including architects, journalists, academics, clients. There are around 12 core members and all projects feature an element of crowd sourcing.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: others (link)