Archinect - News

Banal Sex Mansion: talking about sex and architecture with Aaron Betsky, on Archinect Sessions #62

2016-04-28T13:56:00-04:00

This week we’re joined by special guest co-host Aaron Betsky, author of Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire and Building Sex: Men, Women, Architecture & the Construction of Sexuality. As a strong presence in the architectural discourse of gender and sexuality since the 1990s, Betsky discusses with us a few of our recent Features published under April's special editorial theme, Sex, including:

Betsky was last on the podcast in his current professional capacity as the dean at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture at Taliesin, to talk about the school's then-uncertain future. You can li...

"The difference between porn and erotica is the lighting." – One-to-One #19 with Jake Jaxson, CEO and Creative Director at CockyBoys

2016-04-18T17:32:00-04:00

If the name didn't tip you off, CockyBoys (NSFW) is a gay porn studio based in New York. Jake Jaxson has been running it, quite successfully, since 2010, starting with implementing a major shift in the aesthetic and overall quality of its videos – not only to up the production value, but to communicate what Jake refers to as a "nostalgia," and a sense of place. In an industry awash with graceless, utilitarian money-shots, readily available for free, how do you justify that extra investment in design, and getting your audience to pay for it?

Part of our special April focus on sex and sexuality in architecture, I spoke with Jake about the tandem inspiration between pornography and architecture, and how design-conscious porn can lead to a more sex-positive society. Jake also shares his dream house for a shoot – hint: it rhymes with "The Ass Mouse".

Listen to One-to-One #19 with Jake Jaxson:

iTunes: Click here to listen and subscribe to the new "Archinect Sessions One-to-One" podcast
So...

The enduring influence of "Playboy Architecture"

2016-04-14T20:25:00-04:00

Elmhurst Art Museum presents the U.S. debut of Playboy Architecture, 1953-1979, featuring an extensive collection of photographs, films, architectural models and more from Playboy magazine’s inception in 1953 through the 1970s. Curated by Professor Beatriz Colomina and Pep Aviles ... the exhibition showcases how architecture and design played a role in creating the Playboy fantasy as well as how Playboy magazine came to influence the world of architecture and design.

We no doubt have Hugh Hefner and the Playboy empire to thank, in no minor part, for today's standards of architectural photography, and the preeminent role many midcentury designers, featured in their present day in Playboy, enjoy in today's culture.

Got your own take on how sex and sexuality intermingle with architecture? Submit to our open call for our current editorial theme, Sex Aware Design. Click here to submit.

Related on Archinect:

Open Call for Submissions: Sex Aware Design

2016-04-13T15:32:00-04:00

With April comes springtime, and a proliferation of reproduction symbols laden with the sticky pollen of the universal allergen – sex. We're devoting our next editorial issue on Archinect to themes of sex and sexuality in architecture, and we want you to submit (to our open call).

Effective immediately, we're accepting written and design work under the following guidelines:

》EDITORIAL SUBMISSIONS: Architecture "Penthouse" Letters
A skyscraper is never just a skyscraper – architecture, in its lines and curves, interiors and textures, is a sensual object. Its space and substance are all around us, and we spend our lives in a passionate, long-lasting relationship with it. Now, we want to hear how that admiration, devotion, fantasy, fetish, straight-up procreation – or whatever gets you going – intertwines with architecture. However architecture and sex become one in the same, send us your tales of architecture erotica.

》PROJECT SUBMISSIONS: Sex Aware Design
We're looking for projects that w...