Queering Public Space, the 2021 report co-authored by Professor Pippa Catterall and Dr Ammar Azzouz of multi-national built-environment firm Arup, has started a new conversation around urban design and inclusivity.
How do we ‘Queer Public Space’? How do we re-insert LGBTQ+ communities’ hidden history back into it and make these spaces safe and welcoming for everyone?
Catterall and Arup are now bringing that conversation to town planners and architects in the UK and internationally.
“Public spaces are not neutral,” says Catterall, adding: “They are shaped by the male gaze, and they are designed for use by particular groups.”
Reclaiming the space
Together, Professor Catterall and Arup came up with a list of design features which could make a space more or less inclusive.
For instance, is a space enclosed, is it surrounded by buildings? More rectilinear, enclosed, masculine-feeling spaces are easily dominated by homophobic all-male groups.
On the other hand, as queer couples risk verbal abuse, and even violence, just for holding hands, visibility does not always equal safety.
So-called “cosy corners” offer some degree of privacy and can make public spaces more welcoming and inclusive as a result.
Lighting is crucial – marginalised groups are particularly vulnerable at night, and poorly lit, confined, spaces create a sense and reality of danger.
Curvilinear aspects, water features and greenery make areas feel safer and more welcoming, by forming softer soundscapes and visual environments, encouraging greater footfall.
Meanwhile, street art like murals can give places a warmer, more personal feel, and are also one way to reintroduce queer culture back into a space.
These design recommendations and insights are detailed in the Queering Public Space report which can be viewed on the Arup website.
Catterall also explores such elements in her presentation below.
Making change happen
Designers should consult with marginalised communities throughout the planning and design of public spaces, to better understand their challenges and needs, Professor Catterall and Arup say.
This does not just mean LGBTQ+ communities but also women, ethnic minorities, and disabled people who – as Professor Catterall points out – are one of the groups most likely to experience hate crimes.
“We have to start thinking about public space in a different way,” she continues.
We have to move beyond the idea of designing public space in a way in which they don’t think about the diversity of the users, or how people are going to be possibly targeted in those public spaces.
Pippa Catterall
As Catterall’s collaborator at Arup, Dr Ammar Azzouz, attests, the knowledge exchange involved in the report has had huge benefits for the architects.
The “themes and questions” Catterall presented “are of vital importance to architects, urban planners and designers in their quest for more diverse, equal and just spaces,” he explains.
Azzouz adds that Catterall’s engagement has drawn interest from other Arup professionals, who are keen to make connections between architectural practice and academics.
By the end of 2020, Catterall had circulated the project’s preliminary findings to four workshops of Arup professionals across Britain, Europe, and North America.
Those who attended say the experience opened their eyes to issues like exclusion they had never considered before.
In the words of one workshop participant, it was “very telling the privilege that so many of us have that we have been able to not think about this in the past”.
Recognising LGBT+ historians
‘Queering Public Space’ overlaps with issues previously raised during Catterall’s collaboration with the Royal Historical Society (RHS) working group on LGBT+ Histories and Historians.
Catterall helped to design the group’s survey of the British historical community, including students, on the experiences of LGBT+ members and attitudes to teaching and research.
She also became a major contributor to the final report, published in September 2020.
“Before you joined our team, there was a real chance of failure,” said Margot Finn, the then-President of the RHS. “Either by producing an inadequate report or failing to produce one at all.
“Your contributions, calm commitment, knowledge and savvy have been instrumental to what we've done”.
The report, LGBT+ Histories and Historians, reflects Catterall’s mission to recapture marginalised histories and to represent them appropriately.
Importantly, the report found evidence of discrimination, marginalisation, and prejudice towards LGBT+ historians – from undergraduate students to senior professionals.
View the LGBT+ Histories and Historians report on the RHS website.
This report has given me the ability to name the barriers I have faced and explain them to others who would usually be unreceptive, for the first time. We cannot underestimate the power of reports like these.
- A review of the RHS report by a former History graduate for the Higher Education Policy Institute
Catterall has since presented at workshops across various universities on how the report’s recommendations can be put into action and used to reshape teaching and research practice.
Find out more
Connect with Pippa Catterall
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