What does a feminist city look like? – Academy of Urbanism event summary
Please note that this article was published prior to the new brand name of PREACH Inclusion® on 25 April 2024, so you will notice references to BAME in Property.
This month, we’re delighted to have Kirsty Watt, an architectural assistant at the progressive design studio GRAS, and recent graduate from the University of Dundee’s Architecture with Urban Planning course. Kirsty also researches and consults on gendered design and feminist urbanism on a freelance basis and as a result chaired this Academy of Urbanism event, ‘What does a feminist city look like?’ to not only facilitate a hugely important and topical discussion, but to enhance her own learnings in the subject. Kirsty brought together a range of speakers to share their views, and here she shares her own thoughts on the event.
I tried as much as possible to get a variation of different speakers across disciplines - including architects, urban planners, academics and activists - as well as varying cultural and ethnic backgrounds, ages and level of experiences. The event acted as an instigator for the Academy to discuss topics of community empowerment, feminism, and gendered design, and will hopefully be the first of many like it. Chairing the conversation also provided me the opportunity to explore some of the ideals I had been researching, and the ways in which they could be differently actioned within the UK’s built environment.
"A feminist city is a feeling. It cannot easily be prescribed within design and policy" - Deborah Broomfield
Perhaps the title of 'what does a feminist city look like' was incorrect, because - as one of our speakers Deborah Broomfield reminded us - a feminist city is a feeling. It cannot easily be prescribed within design and policy, although of course any momentum that architecture and urban design can create in this area is very much welcome.
A feminist city is a better way of treating people - and notably all people - and our environment. Where does planning and architecture currently fail to create a feminist city? A lot of what we discovered and learnt from each other was that feminist and just cities rely on genuine community engagement. We need to meet people where they are at - be that by ensuring that community consultations are fully accessible, at convenient times, and safe places, or by catering participatory methods to the needs and level of understanding of the local community, who perhaps don’t have any experience of the commercial side of property, or indeed have never seen a scaled drawing before. Aoibhin McGinley of Manalo & White Architects spoke of her experiences of community engagement within her latest project, the East End Women’s Museum, and the benefit that the charity’s perspective has had on the design process. This sparked a memory of the work of Matrix, a feminist architecture collective that arose in England in the 1980s, and their project Jumoke Nursery in particular, where the women of Matrix strived to support the client and charity staff in gaining a spatial understanding of what was drawn.
“We put a ribbon marked as a metric tape on the wall of the room they usually met in’ ... ‘We did an overlay of the meeting-room at the same size as any of the drawings, to provide a point of comparison. We held a session on the building process and put up some A3 explanatory sheets. And we also used a model. [Julia Dwyer of Matrix]” (Griffiths, 1989)
One of our other speakers, In The Making, also cited community participation during the discussion. In The Making was formed by a group of architecture students during the pandemic, and their latest project Make Big Noise incorporated and included the end user - children - throughout the whole process, be that through imaginative drawing exercises, or by teaching them how to help with the building. Make Big Noise is a constantly evolving series of structures. It became apparent throughout the event - and in my previous research - that mixed use and adaptable space is vital to the creation of this feeling of a feminist city that we spoke so much about. Adaptable space has the capability of being inclusive to everyone, whilst also being efficient with time and space. It could even be argued that mixed use provides constant “eyes on the street,” as Jane Jacobs highlighted within The Life and Death of American Cities as fundamental to the perception of safety within cityspaces.
The event provided some confirmation that the things I had been researching did in fact work in practice, and were being thought about in the right places, grounded by the priorities outline by Alys Mumford - a representative from the Scottish feminist organisation Engender.
"Vulnerable and marginalised people and communities must be prioritised, and deserve the space to voice their opinions and requirements with knowledge that what they’re asking for will be at the forefront of the developing design."
It was really encouraging to see the audience and the speakers interact from a place of equality and passion for a common goal. What is key now is that architects and planners begin, albeit slowly, implementing these ideas at the outset of their designs and try where possible to either research and understand the needs of everyone in those spaces, or alternatively just ask the community. Charles Montgomery argues that in order to create a “happy city,” (Montgomery, 2013) every person within the society must feel that they have a place. As such, vulnerable and marginalised people and communities must be prioritised, and deserve the space to voice their opinions and requirements with knowledge that what they’re asking for will be at the forefront of the developing design.
Ignorance is no longer an excuse for societal, political or spatial exclusion, and appropriate visibility of these people and their problems needs to be at the forefront of our next steps towards a feminist city.
Read more about Kirsty Watt here.