‘We are woefully behind’: A queer designer’s visual plea for more diversity in architecture

There’s a park in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka that serves two very different functions, depending on the time of day: leisure by day, cruising by night. This is a common refrain in cities around the world: when parks and buildings and cities aren’t designed for queer people, queer people will do whatever it takes to make them their own. But what if they didn’t have to?

A新书描绘了全球同性恋友好空间的万花筒肖像。标题为酷儿空间：LGBTQIA+位置和故事的地图集, the book is a collection of bars, clubs, public parks, community centers, theaters, and private houses that have nothing in common but the queerness of their occupants. Some, like the Bangladeshi park, have been subverted by the queer community; others, like the Victorian Pride Center in Melbourne, were created to give LGBTQIA+ a space to come together. But for all the diversity highlighted in the book,Queer Spacesmakes one thing very clear: You cannot design queer spaces if you’re not queer. But if you want everyone to feel included, youcan—and should—hire queer designers.

Queer Spaceswas edited by Adam Nathaniel Furman, a London-based architect-turned-artist-and-designer known for their brightly colored, unapologetic-ally bold public sculptures; and Joshua Mardell, a British architectural historian. Together, they corralled more than 50 contributors ranging from researchers to urban planners to filmmakers, each of whom chose one or several queer spaces that mean something to them.

Examples hail from all four corners of the world: a book club in Bangkok; a public square in Amsterdam; a beach kiosk in Perth, Australia; a club in Puerto Rico. Many of the spaces featured in the book lead double lives. In Dakha, for example, a city that’s described as “homophobic, transphobic, and misogynist,” the above-mentioned park is a testament to the universal desire for gay, bisexual, or even closeted men to have their own space. “The idea of cruising in a city like Dhaka may seem absurd, considering the risk of violence, but it has been happening in XXX, one of the most beautiful parks,” writes Ruhul Abdin. (The actual name and location of the park were left out of the book to protect the contributor.)

For a book on architecture (one that’s published by the Royal Institute of British Architects, no less),Queer Spaces比实际建筑物更多的人。也许是因为使建筑“酷儿”的建筑不是美学，布局，甚至不是意图。是人。Furman说：“您可以拥有一个非常无聊的建筑，并由一个酷儿社区占有，或者使酷儿构成了酷儿，或者您可以有一个通过某人作为设计师的酷儿身份的矢量设计的建筑。”

Furman说，问题是CIS建筑师经常将建筑物设计为“抽象容器”，使Furman感到暴露。这些“高效，非常机械的”空间是由独立的男人和女人设计的，这些男人和女人看到自己在任何地方都反映了自己。但是它们通常很大，缺乏围墙和亲密的空间，并且没有艺术。弗曼说：“正如一个存在于较小的隐藏空间中的人一样，您进入了巨大的极简主义空间，但您不舒服。”全新的地铁线as an example. “There’s not a single piece of art anywhere, and maybe a couple of the escalators have something that is supposedly art, but it looks like the lobby from a horrible corporate tower,” they say.

Judging from the examples in the book, it can be hard to define the queer aesthetic, but for Furman, it starts with adding art, craft, decoration, and ornament to public space. “That’s an easy way of introducing different cultures, so people feel surrounded and see themselves around them,” they say. A diverse number of spaces is also important: Smaller nooks for people who want to be alone, and larger spaces for those who want to congregate. “This goes beyond queer people,” they say. “Anybody who doesn’t fit in can benefit from these places.”

In many ways, then, designing queer spaces means designing diverse spaces—just let queer designers take the lead. “Rather than creating generic containers for queerness, it’s about empowering the queer community to produce work themselves,” says Furman. “Queerness in the profession is the most important question, and that’s something we are woefully behind.”