Designing Common Spaces for Women Centred Supportive Housing: A Practical Application of Intersectional Feminist Analysis

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Designing Common Spaces for Women Centred Supportive Housing: A Practical Application of Intersectional Feminist Analysis

This report delivers insights into the development of women-centered supportive housing through an investigation into the livability of one of Atira Women’s Resource Society’s buildings in Downtown Vancouver called Sorella. Specifically, this report focuses on the ability of Sorella’s common spaces to support the women and children who live there. Drawing on one of Atira’s primary values, inclusive feminism, this report applies intersectional feminist analysis to an examination of the building’s design. Intersectionality is the recognition that race, class, and gender produce complex sites of marginalization that lead individuals to experience the world around them in distinct ways, something which can and should be applied to the world of design.