Archinect - News

Queer Spaces, Intersections, LGBT Historic Sites: Urban Omnibus launches new series

2018-02-22T14:32:00-05:00

As designers and urbanists engage with LGBTQ+ identity, what role do gender and sexuality play in the preservation, design, and management of urban space today? [...] Marginalization means invisibility, both in history and space. New efforts seek to reclaim and preserve queer histories inscribed in sites across the city.

Urban Omnibus, a publication of the Architectural League of New York, recently launched its new series Intersections: Surfacing (guest-edited by Jacob R. Moore), allowing a more informed look at issues of gender and sexuality in the context of design & urban history.

Queer Space, After Pulse: Archinect Sessions #69 ft. special guests James Rojas and S. Surface

2016-06-23T14:45:00-04:00

In light of the recent killing of 49 people at Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando known to many as a center for Queer and Latinx culture, our focus for this week’s podcast is the role and significance of queer spaces in creating community and culture.

We wanted to use this time to encourage constructive discussion of why recognizing, and preserving (in some way), these 'third spaces' is so important. Not just for those who identify as queer or the Latinx community, but for creating diverse, welcoming urban spaces for all.

We’re joined by two guests, S. Surface: a queer designer, curator, organizer, and the program director at Design in Public in Seattle, and James Rojas: an urban planner trained at MIT and specializing in cultural landscapes, who has written extensively about Latino urbanism.

Listen to episode 69 of Archinect Sessions, "Queer Space, After Pulse":

iTunes: Click here to listen, and click the "Subscribe" button below the logo to automatically download new episodes.
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The enduring significance of gay bars in American cities

2016-06-16T15:09:00-04:00

The moment a space like [a gay bar] disappears, a sense of identity goes with it. “When you don’t have those spaces, you lose the ability to see yourself," [...] "...we also need to continue to modify it in a way so everybody has access, so we’re not doing the same thing that the mainstream population is doing to us and isolating ourselves in certain spaces due to access.”

Related on Archinect:

As "gayborhoods" gentrify, LGBTQ people move into conservative America

2016-03-10T20:03:00-05:00

Despite skewing Democrat, LGBT people are flocking to red states. It’s a sign that cities in the center of the country are becoming more accepting, but it’s also an indication that traditional LGBT safe havens are prohibitively expensive. ConsumerAffairs.com analyzed U.S. Census data and Gallup polling information to model the movement of the LGBT community from 1990 to 2014. The overall trend is striking.

"In 1990, the LGBT population was concentrated in coastal metropolitan areas and other safe havens—cities like San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Atlanta. By 2014, LGBT hot spots cropped up in some seemingly unlikely places: Salt Lake City, Louisville, Norfolk, Indianapolis, and other red state cities."

ConsumerAffairs collected an impressive body of research on the demographic patterns of the LGBTQ community, which you can check out here. For more LGBTQ-related coverage, take a look at these links:

The future of gay neighborhoods

2014-09-18T14:24:00-04:00

Historically, gay neighborhoods are spatial expressions of a specific form of oppression. If the form of oppression changes, so will the spatial expression. So we live in a moment of unprecedented societal acceptance of homosexuality, and as a result the meaning and the composition of these districts are in flux.

Amelia Abraham interviewed Amin Ghaziani, author of a new book titled There Goes the Gayborhood? The discussion touched on; the history of these neighborhoods, their four defining characteristics and their role in gentrification or urban revitalization.

How LGBT Acceptance Is Redefining Urban America

2014-08-15T12:49:00-04:00

In cities around the country, the geographical hubs of gay culture — so-called “gayborhoods” — are changing. Amin Ghaziani, author of a new book, There Goes the Gayborhood?, says this subtle cultural shift holds enormous significance for the gay community in urban America and beyond. [...] Yet while positive social and legal shifts have led to this change (from the Castro to Chelsea), we haven’t quite evolved past the point of needing them.

Fire Island: Architecture of seduction

2013-07-25T00:51:00-04:00

I was amazed at the sort of uncanny way in which his work tracks the arc of gay liberation, like early 60s pavillions that provided refuge from a hostile world and then as you go through the 60s and into the Stonewall period the houses become literally open and voyeuristic. Full glass facades facing the ocean - Christopher Rawlins

Leigh Paterson visited Fire Island and talked with Christopher Rawlins author of a new book, Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction. The two discussed the culture of this gay community and the work of this relatively unknown modernist architect, who helped shape it.

Santa Barbara Architectural Board of Review Majority Abstains from Chick-fil-A Vote

2012-08-10T11:40:00-04:00

The project received approval from the Architectural Board of Review (ABR) last year, but this week, with the plan returning for final sign-off on some late-hour landscaping tweaks, the board majority, for what appeared to be political reasons stemming from the gay-marriage flap, opted to abstain from voting on Monday.

Helene Schneider, the mayor of SB, and a proponent of marriage rights, says Chick-fil-A’s Architectural Approval Shouldn’t Hinge on Owner’s Politics.

Hyper Content Moment: Gay Utopia

2011-02-12T16:55:00-05:00

Just another conversation piece when there is not much happening out there on the boards. "10 Architecture Firms Planning Gay Desert Utopia in Rancho Mirage, CA. A planned community slated for 100+ acres in Rancho Mirage, was originally conceived with gay people in mind, but straight people can come too."
Hmmm... Render my gig..

Artist rendering of one of the proposals by Lot-Ek
Just another conversation piece when there is not much happening out there on the boards. "10 Architecture Firms Planning Gay Desert Utopia in Rancho Mirage, CA. A planned community slated for 100+ acres in Rancho Mirage, was originally conceived with gay people in mind, but straight people can come too."
Hmmm... Render my gig.. curbed la. Ironic? Because I heard otherwise.