QUEER COMFORT: ROMANIA TRANSPLANT CENTER
SPRING 2021 | THESIS PROJECT STUDIO
With Santiago Alvarez | Advised by Kristy Balliet
The thesis uses reappropriation as a queer tactic to re-interpret concepts relating to care in architecture. To test and examine the thesis approach, the Romania transplant center was chosen as the project brief. The rigid medical program type is challenged through the lens of queer aesthetics in a different form language, one that expands concepts of comfort through the use of familiar objects in unfamiliar ways.
The initial brief calls for different transplant departments, some of which include: kidneys, lungs, heart, and liver. Based on the thesis, there is a need to redesign the project brief to include specific programs that would address some of the infrastructure challenges relating to queer care in the region. This is developed as a response to the long history of inadequate access to healthcare that queer communities have faced in Eastern Europe. (watch here)
The elements used in the project consist of stitches, plushies, and blankets. We chose these elements because of their manageable scale and soft qualities to expand the aesthetic possibilities into architecture. Everyday objects are typically connected to the domestic scale of what historically has remained available to the queer community. By making-do, they materialize creative outlets even through instances of limited resources. The thesis aims for queer aesthetics by borrowing from this long tradition of using domestic scale objects and brings them to the architectural scale. The project invites the user to pay attention to overlooked objects in a more serious manner.
Ground Floor Plan
Upper Floor Plan
Roof Plan
