Archinect - News

The designers reinventing a visit to Planned Parenthood

2016-03-15T14:26:00-04:00

Amid the controversy that perpetually surrounds Planned Parenthood, it's easy to forget that the nonprofit organization is, first and foremost, a health care provider. It is the largest provider of sex education in the United States. Every year, 2.5 million people—men and women—visit its health centers for care and information. It administers life-saving cancer-screening tests and offers contraception. In some states, it's the only abortion provider...

"In 2014, Planned Parenthood embarked on an ambitious collaboration with the global design consultancy Ideo to hatch plans that would help the nonprofit do what it does best: care for patients."

For more design responses to public health challenges, check out these links:

The Architecture Of Abortion: How Providers Build Their Own Buffer Zones

2014-07-03T13:19:00-04:00

If women can’t always rely on legislation to support their cause, could they rely on architects? [...] Brown says it’s time for the design community to take a stand on women’s reproductive rights. “Architects have to become more politically engaged in our built environment.” To that end, Brown is helping organize a design competition that will rethink a privacy fence for Mississippi’s only abortion clinic.

Previously:

Debating abortion rights and free speech on the sidewalk

2014-06-26T12:39:00-04:00

The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law that barred protests near abortion clinics. The law, enacted in 2007, created 35-foot buffer zones around entrances to abortion clinics. State officials said the law was a response to a history of harassment and violence at abortion clinics in Massachusetts, including a shooting rampage at two facilities in 1994. The law was challenged on First Amendment grounds by opponents of abortion

Massachusett's 35-foot buffer zone was initially enacted as a defensive mechanism, responding to a history of harassments and violence around clinics' entrances. The law had previously barred anyone from entering a fixed buffer zone around entrances to reproductive health care facilities (excepting those simply passing through, clinic employees, or those intentionally going in and out of the building). Plaintiffs in the recent Supreme Court case effectively argued that those exceptions were biased towards supporters of abortion rights.

More on the architecture of abortion clinics.

The Architecture of Abortion Clinics

2014-02-26T15:28:00-05:00

Though abortion and the legal disputes that often surround it are visible media topics, abortion clinics are often pushed to the fringes of communities where access is the most crucial. But what if they were integrated into the mainstream of our everyday space: clinics in malls, clinics on military bases, clinics on high school campuses, and open access to preventative care?

Lori Brown explores this topic in her book Contested Spaces: Abortion Clinics, Women’s Shelters and Hospitals and delves into politics and architecture and how they manufacture landscapes with regard to reproductive healthcare access.

Brown, an architect herself, will be giving a public lecture about researching abortion clinics tonight in New York at Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.