What brought me into writing this article is the number of toilets/urinals required in the bathroom for males and females. Seriously, the Chinese building code doesn't make sense at all. Also I get yelled at a lot by my supervisors just because I put too many toilets inside the female washroom (and by that I mean 4 toilets in the women's and 2 toilets plus 4 urinals for the men's) when I plan out the tower core or just washrooms for a shopping mall. I mean, really? WTH?! That gives 6 toilets for men in total while there's only 4 for women! That is just stupid, plus very inefficient too. Imagining all those time when your male accompanies have to wait for you as you have to wait in line and then finally pee? The best ratio is to have 1.5x the amount of toilet in the females and then reduce space yet satisfy the code requirement by having reasonable number of urinals instead of toilets for the gentlemen's (I know I know, some men prefer toilets, but still the majority just pee standing up with urinals).
Regarding women and space, I do feel much of the time architecture and spaces are designed especially for males, and designs are based upon patriarchal culture. Literally "men-made" environment. For example, my mom would love to have a huge kitchen (don't get me wrong here, I didn't mean females should stay inside the kitchen cooking – my mom just loves to make food and she can spend an entire day in the kitchen!) so she can spread all her stuff over the counter. However, obviously many others would disagree – they would prefer a larger living room or dining room or whatever (this applies to mini apartment homes in cities especially). If you think about the number of women who are designated to be the chefs of the house according to our current "trend" or even "norm" (as in female cooking for the household), doesn't it make sense to design a comfortable and pleasant space that the women spend their time in to be somewhere they enjoy staying in? I personally doesn't like to stay in the kitchen preparing big feasts, but certainly I would love to have a decent spacious kitchen so I feel good while I'm in it.
As for professional writing and researches, I did find an article through web search that briefly touched the topic of having women pioneers as architects and interior designers (which are professions that men dominate traditionally). However it was focused on gay and lesbian architects and their designs during the modern period rather than feminism in architecture. If you still want to check it out, click here to read the article on Architecture by GLBTQ.
There are a few books on feminism and architecture too – but I don't have my hands on any of them yet, so I won't be able to comment. Nevertheless have a look on them here:
Architecture and Feminism by E. Danze
Regarding women and space, I do feel much of the time architecture and spaces are designed especially for males, and designs are based upon patriarchal culture. Literally "men-made" environment. For example, my mom would love to have a huge kitchen (don't get me wrong here, I didn't mean females should stay inside the kitchen cooking – my mom just loves to make food and she can spend an entire day in the kitchen!) so she can spread all her stuff over the counter. However, obviously many others would disagree – they would prefer a larger living room or dining room or whatever (this applies to mini apartment homes in cities especially). If you think about the number of women who are designated to be the chefs of the house according to our current "trend" or even "norm" (as in female cooking for the household), doesn't it make sense to design a comfortable and pleasant space that the women spend their time in to be somewhere they enjoy staying in? I personally doesn't like to stay in the kitchen preparing big feasts, but certainly I would love to have a decent spacious kitchen so I feel good while I'm in it.
As for professional writing and researches, I did find an article through web search that briefly touched the topic of having women pioneers as architects and interior designers (which are professions that men dominate traditionally). However it was focused on gay and lesbian architects and their designs during the modern period rather than feminism in architecture. If you still want to check it out, click here to read the article on Architecture by GLBTQ.
There are a few books on feminism and architecture too – but I don't have my hands on any of them yet, so I won't be able to comment. Nevertheless have a look on them here:
Architecture and Feminism by E. Danze
Discrimination by Design: A Feminist Critique of the Man-Made Environment by Leslie Weisman
Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction by Jane Rendell
There is also a project related to the topic that seems interesting:
Matter in Motion, The Cinema Image, Feminism and Architecture by Dorothea Olkowski
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