Meike Schalk

Styles of Queer Feminist Practices and Objects in Architecture

In 2007, a group of practitioners and educators in the KTH School of Architecture in Stockholm banded together with a shared and urgent desire to challenge the status quo of the discipline and profession of architecture. The group called themselves FATALE (Feminist Architecture Theory: Analysis Laboratory Education) and their aim was to put forward strategies for change within and beyond architectural practice and pedagogy. Subsequently, FATALE took shape as an institutional formation, a teaching and research division called Critical Studies in Architecture, which to this day delivers lectures and courses dedicated to architecture and gender. This is the legacy and context from within which the 13th International Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) Conference “Architecture and Feminisms: Ecologies, Economies, Technologies” emerged. The conference, held on November 17–19, 2016, gathered over a hundred presentations and performances organized in panels and roundtables around the topics of ecologies, economies, technologies, histories, pedagogies, domesticities and the profession, and styles. This last topic formed a special group of contributions that mixed conventional conference papers with performances, participatory walks and even bicycle rides, installations and exhibitions. STYLES was curated by the design, art and architecture collective MYCKET, including Mariana Alves Silva, Katarina Bonnevier and Thérèse Kristiansson with Ullis Ohlgren, and many of the contributions to this special issue of Architecture and Culture are derived from the work Meike Schalk KTH School of Architecture, Stockholm, Sweden meike.schalk@arch.kth.se

Taking care of public space

The practice of agency is discussed with reference to the project Garden Service: a participatory public art garden installation in an Edinburgh courtyard.