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In 1980, an architectural design practice was created that was to challenge the way buildings and cityscapes are constructed, and its effects are still around us today.
Until then, urban design and architecture was primarily a male dominated field, and this showed in urban design which was often surprisingly thoughtless when it came to how people who weren’t. in shape, men of average height would use them. Lots of stairs for moms with strollers to navigate, poorly designed kitchens, common areas that caused more problems than they solved.
All based on the attitude of a man who knows best and a very limited listening to end users. Many designers have worked with pre-existing models, most often based on a generic male model – and very few are generic men.
Came Matrix, a very different architectural practice that aimed to put the human at the heart of design, but listening to the people so often overlooked by architects, women. It seems crazy these days to build a community center without consulting with users to make sure the rooms are arranged well, but it used to happen. A lot.
It wasn’t that they found deliberate discrimination, just a huge blind spot in planning what women needed.
Good news from 1988 is that the Telegraph TV reviewer goes to see a documentary about the group and admits that he approached it with all the male prejudices he could muster, only to come away deeply impressed with what the group was accomplishing. to improve people’s quality of life. Lives.
It is possible, frankly, that the group’s own structure, as a collective as opposed to a classic architectural practice, also engendered some prejudice, but the group has had notable success in winning government contracts to work with community groups. and help improve these spaces. Today it would be obvious that the children’s play area should be observable by the staff working in the kitchen, but back then that required the Matrix to come and fix a bad design.
Even issues with urban design that may seem straightforward, such as walkways and passageways in municipal areas that were acceptable, but felt unsafe for women, which reinforced a sense of isolation at home. There is always some tension between the idealized design and the cost of delivering it, but over time experience at least lets designers know what to avoid.
The Matrix finally closed in 1994, a drying up of government money that had long supported their work, but their legacy lives on. Try to build a community center today without consulting with users, and you won’t get very far in the planning process. Build a house without checking to see if wheelchairs can get around bends, and you’ll be sent to rethink it.
Much remains to be done, but we may be on the cusp of a new revolution. Although working from home has increased, the lockdown not only advanced the decade-long trend of what was expected, but it revealed many issues that could have lingered on longer if so many people hadn’t. been thrown into the situation at once. Hopefully architects and city planners are already envisioning the home of the future, with more awareness of the downsides of working from home in large open spaces.
The Matrix legacy lives on.
The exhibition is primarily a collection of carvings and old documents, yet provides a vivid glimpse of how architects thought only 40 years ago about how people should live their lives.
Now, if someone can do the same for the location of overhead lights and outlets in modern apartments, which often seem to me to be scattered haphazardly in the wackiest places, then I’ll be a much happier person.
The How We Live Now: Reimagining Spaces with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative exhibit is at the Barbican until December 23, and admission is free.
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