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? — thedailybeast.com
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.
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Very interesting (and Brown admits, intentionally provocative) to think of a clinic that provides abortions locating in a shopping mall. It's private space, so the protestors would be thwarted far more effectively, and it would lead to normalizing and de-stigmatizing a medical procedure that 1/3 of American women access at some point in their life - in other words, a procedure that's already normal, just for some reason seen as shameful.
I'm very interested to know more about the Design Action competition to design a privacy screen for a clinic - keep us informed, Archinect!
I feel like we need to come up with a new term to describe this kind of study. I think 'design' is a better term. Or 'planning.' When I hear the holy A-word being used so loosely to describe everything from strip malls to abortion clinics, it looses its meaning. I'd still like to think Architecture is about craft and detail, but I guess we live in a Building Blog world were EVERYTHING is architecture.
sounds like link-bait or whatever similar term might apply. take a controversial topic people tend to feel an almost primordial need to comment on, then tie it to architecture which has nothing to do with the part that is controversial.
anyway, i would make a bus-shelter type area, or something like a smoker's area (they sometimes still exist), for the protesters to gather. give them their own space, and consider it part of the architecture. as zaha teaches us, it's not our place to judge the morality; not that of the doctors or the protestors. plus, by giving them a place, you can create a safe entry experience for staff and patients.
I totally agree with Donna, abortion clinics need to be de-stigmatized, and what better way than to tastefully place them closer to home. I don't see why this hasn't been done before, protesters and sketchy locations give abortion clinics a bad wrap.
Peyton, I tend to agree that capital-A architecture has everything to do with craft, but architecture as a field of both study and practice is also about public space and the social power structures that built spaces either support or challenge.
Of course social structures, meaning and these things have to do with the use and success of architecture, but they are not architecture themselves. This is where there is confusion. What's the conclusion here, that you can put an abortion clinic anywhere? You can also put a McDonalds, apartment, school, library, hotel, spa, etc. etc. etc. etc. Who cares.
Unfortunately the profession is, or already has, turned into some kind of pseudo-science when it has to be focused on the physical craft and experiential qualities of space.
Spike Lee is in the news for critiquing gentrification in Fort Green Brooklyn, but the real story is how the craft of architecture has gone to hell since about 1960, everyone realizes that an is now moving back to the areas that are built well. There isn't enough quality buildings to live in, built humanistically, old or new, to house people.
And nobody is writing architecture of dentist offices studies because that isn't as juicy and controversial. And imagine if dentists were writing social theory, they would be laughed out of their profession.
"I'd still like to think Architecture is about craft and details"
I can't really tell if you are for real or not. That is such a stupid reductive comment. You're talking taking about the making of Architecture. If that's where you want to stop thinking about Architecture than go right ahead but don't push reductive thinking on every one else. Your argument is useless. Architecture is complicated and pricks many areas. Always has - Even pre-1960's. You think Corbu only cared about 'craft and details' when designing?
Though I'm sure it would fun hearing you tell everyone the appropriate way to practice and think about Architecture I'm not going to read another post after this because it's actually really absurd.
By the way - This lecture sounds fascinating.
"Architecture is complicated and pricks many areas."
Genius alert... duh, yes, it is all very entertaining to turn the profession into one big TED talk. The great thing about modernism was that is was social ideas manifested in built form, perfectly designed for its time, connected to industry and technological innovation for maximum impact. Corbu connected social issues, mainly the need to escape dickensesque substandard housing of the time, and provide everyone with air, light, shelter. So, yes, social issues effect architecture, but i don't see any serious discussion of built form anywhere in this article.
Architecture needs to distance itself of these obnoxious people. These are the same ones who are turning the profession into a freak show, but if you ask them who their favorite building or idea about building is will just look at you blankly and say, "feminism!"
Even if you take this article's bait, it assumes a flippant attitude toward abortion that many don't agree with. Even if you are pro-choice, i don't think most would want a clinic next to the food court. You are ending a life here.
Abortion is commonplace: look at all the women around you, 1/3 of them have had or will have an abortion in their lifetime. It's a medical procedure, and a human right to bodily autonomy. Access to it should be similar to access to other medical procedures and drugs. Drugstores are everywhere, and access to some pharmaceuticals (including alcohol) are more/less restricted depending on their potential for harm. Abortions, definitely in the first trimester, are similar, and are easily prescribed with oral medication, not surgery.
You may not like or agree with feminist theory, Peyton, but it *is* part of the cultural discourse that includes architecture. There's still room for traditional practice, but it won't be critical practice if you're not interested in engaging with contemporary theories of public space.
"Sadly what I found out was that architecture—in the sense of what we think about in terms of building—doesn’t seem to factor in. What does seem to factor in is the way clinics create and provide security and even privacy."
If you actually read the interview, she kind of veers off when asked about architecture ideas. It's just not a very interesting architecture discussion, talking about metal detectors, etc. The building type is not any different from any other kind of clinic. Whether you agree or disagree with feminist theory or not (and anyone who thinks that conservative america would allow abortion clinics to integrate with everyday life lives in a liberal fantasy land).
I can see another article below about "queer space' and i'm like, here we go again. These are discussions that brand the same architecture types by the people that use them.
Again, Peyton: architecture is not just an inert object. It's a system of uses and users (aka humans) existing within a built framework. Architecture is part of society and how we - humans - move in society.
A metal detector isn't architecture, but you can't disagree that if you enter a building by first being required to go through a metal detector it doesn't in some way impact your mental state as you then engage with the building. Abortion clinics are besieged public spaces. It's not about whether the clinic building is stucco or clapboard, it's about how public and private space usage has an impact on society.
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