The Alien Architecture of Gendered Homes PhD

Béatrice Frant [PhD year 1]

Supervisors: Alessandro Ayuso & Constance Lau

The proposed study focuses on the lived experience of home and whether speculative architecture and fabulation can alter the domestic environment of the woman despite her alienation by society. Practice-based research is used to develop haptic methods that offer a translation from body to architectural design. I utilise the two personas of Poetics (Poe) and Theory (Tée), responsible for discussing both realms of the study, one which addresses critical thought through making, and the other dealing with more traditional, written investigations.

Consequently, storytelling becomes part of the intersection between Poe and Tée under the umbrella term of ficto-criticism – appropriating external perspectives to subjective views on nationality, femininity and bodies. The semi-biographical approach touches upon the British-Romanian identity and the way design methodologies can accommodate othered bodies.

This is currently assessed through embroidery as a historical expression of gender practice that could inform new typologies of domestic architecture.

KEY WORDS: feminism; embroidery; domesticity; body