Thesis submitted to the Department of Architecture in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Sachiko Kawagoe
Author
Master of Architecture Candidate, Department of Architecture
Patricia Seitz
Chair, Thesis Committee
Professor & Chair, Department of Architecture
Lawrence Cheng Advisor, Thesis Committee
Visiting Professor, Department of Architecture
Dean Lampros
Expert, Thesis Committee
Visiting Professor, Department of Humanities
All images @2025 Sachiko Kawagoe unless otherwise noted. @2025. Sachiko Kawagoe. All Rights Reserved / 川越祥子 / 鄭繼良
建築の乱用
_misusing architecture
Sachiko Kawagoe
川越祥子
I could not have undertaken this journey without my thesis committee’s guidance and continuous mental support; Patricia Seitz, Lawrence Cheng, and Dean Lampros.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the faculty at MassArt, who encouraged and challenged me; Alexandar H. Wood, Armando Plata, Keith Giamportone, Lisa Rosenbaum, Paul Haijian, Paul Patruzo, Margaret Hickey, and Mitch Ryerson.
I would like to acknowledge the professionals I have interviewed throughout my research period and who inspired me; Haruchi Osaki, John Connell, and W. Gavin Robb.
I am also lucky to have my peer cohorts, who have all grown together in the program. Thank you all for sharing your time and support.
To my partner, Livi, my family in Tokyo, and my extended family in Somerville & Boston. Thank you all for letting me be me.
概要
注意書き はじめに
ＹＭＣＡと乱用
乱用を自発性と読み解く
乱用の保存
YXCA
おわりに
展示会の記録
平面図
設計プロセス
参考文献
This thesis uses the tactic of “reclamation of language”, a common method to build resiliency by marginalized communities to cope and heal from the words that are used to hurt people. Examples of such vocabulary include “queer” and “crip”. This technique is adopted to expose the political disabilities architecture imposes on the users through culture, discourse, and physical spaces. The author focuses on two of the political disabilities in this thesis: 1. assumed bodies and 2. disabling of bodies.
In the first chapter, “background”, the author explores the history of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) buildings, which is a prime example of a space designed with the assumption of bodies. In order to specifically accommodate white male Christian users only, YMCAs became an exclusive place for social interaction between members of the male exclusively, otherwise called a homosocial space. Simultaneously, the YMCA is a place known for cruising activities, which is about actively looking for sexual interactions in public spaces. This is an example of how a misuse of the space by active users, starts to shift the paradigm of homosocial space into a homoerotic space. The author calls the users who ushered the paradigm shift “active users,” as they were no longer passive to the assumption of function imposed by the architects.
As the invention and dissemination of sexual orientation start to inconvenience the idea of homosocial/homoerotic spaces, the YMCA attempts to control queer bodies through rearrangement and renovations. By analyzing public shower and private bath spaces, the author points out the similarity between queer bodies and physically disabled bodies and how disenfranchising the bodies triggers misuse, which is a realization of spontaneity for a space of belonging. This redefinition of misuse starts to suggest the potential of misuse as a design principle to escape typical assumptions held by the architect, thereby establishing a new relationship between the building and the users.
In the second chapter, “method”, the author revisits the other political disability, “disabling of bodies”, through Yoshiharu Tsukamoto’s quote;
“Modern architecture has both the utopia that people dream of, and the obstacle that prevents the utopia from happening. Living amongst the pile of establishments in urban spaces, do we remember how to dream? ... Defining users’ behavior takes away their skills to build a utopia, and once the lack of skills becomes the norm, it restricts how you read and interact with the environment. ... People’s self-portraits become more like passive users, rather than active users who devise things for themselves.”1
The quote expands on political disability’s effect on a larger population than just mar-
ginalized communities. The author urges designers and architects to shift design goals from convenience and efficiency to reclaiming the spontaneity of the users within these spaces and to give back what architects have taken away.
“Preservation of misuse” is a proposed design method for this purpose. The author elaborates on its relationship with affordance by comparing it to the linguistic structure of verbs and a demonstration of misusing a chair. The clarification between “misuse” and “preservation of misuse” suggests a new role for the architect as a medium continuing the effort and passion in design that used to be carried by the active users fighting for belonging.
In the third chapter, “application”, the “preservation of misuse” method is demonstrated through the Somerville YMCA building renovation. The method pushes its assumptions around private and public to a point that makes the YMCA into a YXCA (X indicating X gender, nonbinary), resulting in design proposals for changing rooms and public baths not bound by gender separation. As an architect, the author purposefully misuses elements such as programs, structure, envelope, circulation, history, etc., which opens a pathway for the user’s affordance in response, bringing the priority of user autonomy to the forefront. The various affordances further created in the proposed building span from fitness, communication, proximity, and visibility, proving that this queer tactic has the potential to go beyond bathrooms and changing rooms, liberate architects from the formal restraints of designing, and give back to users the ability to build utopias for themselves.
1. 塚本(Tsukamoto), オーナーシップ、オーサーシップから、メンバーシップへ(Ownership, Authorship and then Membership), 126-127.
This thesis uses the tactic of reclamation of language. Reclamation of language is a tactic often used by marginalized communities to redefine the words used against them and foster a sense of community and pride in the word. By redefinition, the language departs from the negative connotation associated with insult and hate, and the people regain the vocabulary in order to heal from the pain as a collective. (e.g. queer, crip)
“...there is a disconnect between the way we, as architects, perceive and explain ourselves and what we actually do. As a result, neither our working methods nor our teachings, nor our values permit the profession to be effective. The resulting conflict confuses everyone. ... More importantly it prevents us from serving and sustaining the field as well as we could.” 2
In the book “Palladio’s Children,” Habraken discusses how the role of contemporary architects’ behavior ties back to the Italian Renaissance definition of the profession, reproducing its old teachings in a way that prevents architecture from evolving for modern needs. One could argue that this stagnation in the role of architect is an issue spread across different countries. Matsumura Jun, an architect and a sociologist, also writes how the role of an architect in Japan is carefully sustained by a structure designed to repeat the old ways engraved into the industry, starting from the educational system, the common pathway to success as a young architect, the ways of critique is carried, and even professional licensure.3 Like any other culture, architecture is a discipline that reproduces its own discourses to reinforce its stability. As students and professionals who are required to walk through the system designed to make participants contribute to the security of the system itself, it is vital to be aware of our minds being controlled by the system, settling for established benefits. That is why this book asks these urgent questions: Is it possible to make an architecture that fights against its own political disability? How can we as architects be mindful of ourselves dwelling on the established privileges and critically evaluate ourselves?
The Modulor Man is a recurring silhouette in Le Corbusier’s buildings and art. It was devised to reconcile math, human form, architecture, and beauty into a single system. The architect's simplification and assumption of human bodies disenfranchise the type of body that falls out of the selection.
1. Gallery of On the Dislocation of the Body in Architecture: Le Corbusier’s Modulor - 4. Accessed September 5, 2024. https://www.archdaily.com/902597/on-the-dislocation-of-the-body-in-architecture-le-corbusiers-modulor/5ba95eaff197cca23c000343-on-the-dislocation-of-the-body-in-architecture-le-corbusiers-modulor-photo.
political disabilities of architecture 1: assumed
bodies
建築の文化的障害 その1：想定された身体
A social construct that influences architecture is the classification of human bodies. Architecture has been built on the assumptions of the bodies that occupy the space - majority race, male, cis-gendered, heteronormative, and abled bodies. The assumption starts with the oversimplification of human bodies that architects rely on, limiting the type of bodies considered to inhabit the spaces they design so that the complexity and diversity of the bodies do not have to be accounted for. Bodies that do not check the boxes for the above-listed categories, which most bodies cannot, are often not given access to the spaces architecture holds. If they are granted access to the space architecture holds, their bodies are not reflected in the space, resulting in disfranchising the bodies and making it difficult to find a sense of belonging in the spaces. People fought against this inequality and tried to make a place of their dreams for themselves.
2. Gompertz, Will. “My Life in Art: The Day Bourgeois Moved Me to Tears.” The Guardian, October 8, 2008, sec. Art and design. Accessed September 5, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/oct/07/louise.bourgeois.
3. Gissen, The Architecture of Disability , xi.
“Femme Maison” Louise Bourgeois, 1946-19472
This series of self-portraits represents the relationship between architecture and female bodies. The societal expectation of womanhood and motherhood often manifests itself in the form of architecture and space, suffocating female bodies to act in a certain manner.
“Mechanical Application of Bone Joints” Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, 18793 This drawing by the architect represents their functionalist and mechanistic biological design thinking, which abstracts and simplifies human bodies into a structural form. 「骨関節の機械的応用」ユ ジェーヌ・エマニュエル・ヴィ オレ・ル・デュック、18793 この建築家によるドローイン グは、機能主義的かつ機械論 的な生物学的デザイン思考を 表しており、人体を構造的な 形に抽象化し単純化する。
origin of the YMCA
YMCAのはじまり
The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) started as a Christian prayer group and a bible study group to uplift the morale of young men as a spiritual refuge in the post-industrialized city. To differentiate itself from the Church and attract enough members to sustain the organization, the YMCA started to dabble in its “physical work,” including the establishment of exercise facilities and physical education, which it is now known for. Attempting to protect young males from the influence of urbanization and industrialization, which was considered harmful then, the YMCA became a place to nurture the ideal masculinity as part of their service. 4 The buildings of the YMCA reflect this mission on its facade and spatial organization and carry a branded “look” amongst the network of branches all over the country and beyond.
“Collection of YMCA building postcards” Shattuck and Hussey, 1904-19165
The postcards capture the ubiquitous facade of YMCA buildings shared in different locations, establishing a brand identity that lands between the church and commercial institution. It has now become a vernacular civic building typology within the urban scape in the US.
“Collection of YMCA building postcards”, Shattuck and Hussey, 1904-1916. The postcards capture the ubiquitous facade of YMCA buildings shared in different locations, establishing a brand identity that lands between the church and commercial institution. It has now become a vernacular building look to the urban scape in the US.
6. https://www.ymca.org/who-we-are/our-reach, accessed 16th August 2024.
7. https://www.ymca.org/who-we-are/our-reach/locations, accessed 16th August 2024.
8. Putney, Muscular Christianity , 1-10.
9. Winn, Tom Brown’s Schooldays and the Development of ‘Muscular Christianity’ , 67.
10. Winn, Tom Brown’s Schooldays and the Development of ‘Muscular Christianity’ , 70.
11. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 202-203.
muscular christianity
筋肉的キリスト教
In the background of the establishment of the YMCA is the religious movement of muscular Christianity that seeks a more manly Protestant Christianity, leading to preaching physical fitness and sports. Common criticism by the supporters of Victorian Anglican Christianity was that it was too effeminate and physically weak. These supporters included scholars, educators, preachers, and even the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. The most successful organization promoting the movement was indeed the YMCA, which blended sports with corporate/business culture, as well as the Boy Scouts and Social Gospel, and so on8 . To depart from the asceticism and pietism of the Christianity of the past, the movement interpreted male sexuality as a positive force for the world9 , as well as encouraged physical exercise as a way to take care of the God-given gift, the male body10 . One could say that Muscular Christianity had a profound impact on promoting male physical beauty and the admiration of it.
“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power, he make them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.” 11
"Plans,
Young Men's Christian Association Builiding, Somerville, Massachusetts"12 「マサチューセッツ州サマーヴィル、キリスト教青年会の建築平面図」12
spatial organization & surveillance
空間構成と監視
Examining the floor plan of the Massachusetts Somerville YMCA in 1904 reveals how the architecture of the YMCAs had the intention to control the users. All entrances require the users to pass through the reception room, which is designed for efficient supervision. This follows the concept of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, an influential design principle especially known for prisons13 . In addition to that, each access point, including the staircases, was always located adjacent to the rooms of the leadership, whether the Secretary, Director’s, or Physical Director’s room. While the YMCA attempts to control user behaviors through its mission to better society, most leaders were given a dedicated room for surveillance and another room privately accessible only to themselves.
boys are especially under his eye, yet apart from the other association rooms.”14 「YMCAの他の部屋に分かれていたとしても、 少年たちは彼の目の届くところにいる。」14
13. https://www.archdaily.com/937611/the-architecture-of-surveillance-the-panopticon-prison, accessed in 12th September 2024.
14. Somerville Journal, New Association Building, Friday May 3 1901.
gendered spaces and users
ジェンダー化された空間とユーザー
Two particular functions are common in the YMCAs: the Parlor, usually associated with femininity, and the Reading Room, usually associated with masculinity. Even though the YMCA’s majority of users were male, the former was included in the YMCA’s model design to reinforce the male authority behavior in private households and act as a buffer between private and public spaces. It was a place to enact the general role of fatherhood and motherhood, to help nurture ideal musculinity15 . Despite such assumptions, a series of paintings on the right, depicting family behaviors in Parlor rooms, leave hints on how the gender role did not have the power to rigidly control people’s behaviors. The reality of everyday living had moments of misusing gender boundaries.
“...privacy is predicated on exclusion: exclusion in a spatial sense, through visual barriers, as well as social exclusion founded on gender segregation...”16
The definitions of private and public are strongly connected to privilege and control and are thus designed to exclude certain users and behaviors. プライベートとパブリック の定義は権力と制御に強く 結びついているため、特定 のユーザーや行動を排除す るように設計されている。
15. Lupkin, Manhood Factories, 632-63.
16. Rouleau, Private Spaces in Public Places, 2.
17. https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.56720.html, accessed in 26th October 2024.
18. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/11258 accessed in 26th October 2024.
16
↑“The Brown Family”, Eastman Johnson, 186917
↓“Christmas-Time, The Blodgett Family”, Eastman Johnson, 186418
These two paintings, commissioned by the YMCA leadership, depict the informal scenes of families engaged in everyday activities at a Renaissance Revival–style parlor in their NY mansions. Both paintings capture the moment of the male figure engaged in child raising, while the bottom painting shows the female figure holding a book in her hand.
The painting depicts a bustling locker room scene at the YMCA, where a group of men are in various stages of undressing and dressing. Cadmus intentionally represents cruising amid the crowd, capturing the tension and proximity between the homosocial and homoerotic interactions.
The YMCA as a place of resistance & dreams レジスタンスと夢の場所、YMCA
Only comprised of male bodies, the YMCA was a homosocial place where members improved their physiques through the use of exercise facilities. This naturally created an unintentional space for male samesex intimacy, which was taboo at the time. The YMCA was, and still is, a place that accommodates “cruising”, the active looking for sexual interactions in public spaces.
This is the third studio album by the American disco group Village People. The album title is a double entendre, referring to gay cruising. The album includes the worldwide hit song “Y.M.C.A.”, which became an unofficial anthem for the queer community.
19. https://dcmoore-viewingroom.exhibit-e.art/viewing-room/paul-cadmus-the-male-nude2#tab:thumbnails, accessed in 19th September 2024.
20. https://www.discogs.com/release/1267811-Village-People-Cruisin?srsltid=AfmBOoqOzGx6KTw_ifEnrwQWUzeFwqZeKeWvbdLdB8LeDJhnB9zNRek6, accessed in 27th September 2024.
_misuse as spontaneity
乱用を自発性と読み解く
decoding cruising ハッテンを紐解く
YMCA’s cruising culture was an unexpected outcome for the organization and its architects; in other words, it was a misuse of space from the institution’s perspective. The users took the given arrangements and reimagined a transgressive haven for gay men. Such users refused to stay passive about how the
space should be used and decided and became active about how to interact with the space. One way to understand the relationship between the space and the program in the YMCA is through the affordance of the function understood by the active users. Affordance is the quality or property of an object that defines its possible uses or makes clear how it can or should be used. 21 The active users afforded cruising in YMCAs because the homosocial property suggested so. The misuse came from a need-based motivation and thus was fueled by the spontaneity of the active users rather than the intention of the leaders and architects.
21. “Definition of AFFORDANCE,” Accessed December 14, 2024. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/affordance.
_queer bodies in gang shower
architect's assumption
active user's spontaneity
function: shower
function: cruising private public
invention of sexual orientation
性的指向の発明
In 1869, as the YMCA movement was spreading to further define masculinity, the term “homosexuality” appeared for the first time. Of course, same-sex intimacy had existed for millennia, unrelated to the invention of sexual orientation. The term was used in limited medical/scientific discourse at the time; however, it eventually spread amongst the larger population over a period of time. The dissemination of the discourse of sexuality heavily influenced the spaces of the YMCA in the coming years because it already functioned as a haven. Gradually, the YMCA’s homosocial culture became an inconvenience for the institution.
The leadership was not ignorant of these activities; the YMCA responded to cruising culture with a mixture of denial and tolerance until the buildings required renovations and rearrangements. Communal shower rooms, or gang showers, used to be a typical typology in the late 1900s to accommodate larger populations efficiently. However, they are now hardly seen in the US; instead, they have been replaced with individual shower stalls divided by curtains and walls. One could say that the YMCA spaces have been modified in response to the spread of academic discourse on human sexuality, thus imposing more and more rigidity to restrict the act of misuse and the affordance of function. This resulted in the isolation of bodies with compartmentalized spaces.
Similar gestures of affordance of arrangements, such as cruising in the YMCAs, can also be found in the needs of physically disabled users. Asa Ito describes how a private bath and a public square often exchange their roles for physically disabled users. When the user requires physical support from another person to execute a daily chore, for instance, bathing themselves, as shown in the diagram, the space intended to be private becomes public because of the other person’s participation. The definition of public/private that the space designer assumed is shifted by the active user’s spontaneity to find their own belonging in the space. Instead of the space or an architect assuming the rule that the bath is always private, the bodies in need become a signifier of publicness.23 The embodied publicness in physical disabilities and the embodied privateness in queer activities share a similarity because, overall, the spaces designed in society have failed to echo the needs of the users, therefore pushing them to enter the territory of misuse and transgression.
23. 伊藤(Ito), 身体の違いがひらく空間(Spaces Occur From Differences in Bodies) , 278-280.
_physically disabled bodies in private bath/public square
private bath public square
architect's assumption
active user's spontaneity
architect's assumption
private public
_where is the exchange in misuse?
architect's assumption
active user's spontaneity = misuse
misuse as design principle
デザイン原理としての乱用
When the architect’s assumption governs the design process, the idea of function becomes fixed. The exchange between space and the associated function thereby creates an assumed imaginary user. By contrast, when the active user’s spontaneity (in other words, misuse) governs the design process, the exchange between the active user and the space creates a collage of functions. Function, in this case, is not a given; instead, the active users have the opportunity to define what the function is to the given space, because the shell of the idea of function has been broken by a misuse.
“Modern architecture has both the utopia that people dream of, and the obstacle that prevents utopia from happening. Living amongst the pile of establishments in urban spaces, do we remember how to dream? …
Defining users’ behavior takes away their skills to build a utopia, and once the lack of skills becomes the norm, it restricts how you read and interact with the environment. ...
People’s self-portraits become more like passive users, rather than active users who devise things for themselves.”1
1. 塚本(Tsukamoto), オーナーシップ、オーサーシップから、メンバーシップへ “Ownership, Authorship and then Membership”, 126-127.
political disabilities of architecture 2: disabling of bodies
建築の文化的障害 その２：身体の不自由化
What do architects take away from users by designing with a goal to achieve convenience and efficiency? Cruising is an example of controlling queer bodies, but Tsukamoto invites us to think of the disabling of bodies as a larger conversation that affects us all. The more convenience is prioritized, the more users lose the opportunity to learn how to make spaces work for themselves. At this point, are we doing the things we want to do, or are we doing what the space tells us to do? How can we avoid taking away the skills to build a utopia, not changing active users to passive users?
Young Men’s Christian Association Building, Somerville, Massachusetts 1904-2024
>1906 built
>1921 burnt down
>1925 reopening >1974 renovation
>1984 renovation
>2025 demolition?
“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power, he make them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.” (Foucault)
method: preservation of misuse メソッド：乱用の保存
Preservation of misuse is a design tactic for architects to resist political disabilities, not take away people’s abilities, and set reclamation of autonomy as a goal of design.
Conceptual collage by author, full-size print attached in appendix.
付録に著者の実寸のコンセプトコラージュを添付。
_linguistic structure of verbs
能動態 active voice
X is persuading someone. Xは誰かを説得している。
X is an active user. Xはアクティブユーザーである。
_design methods
Shin Aiba “Vacancy
中動態 middle voice passive
X is letting themselves be persuaded. Xは説得されるがままにしている。
How do we make this X happen? どうやったらこのXを実現できるだろう？
X is being Xは説得されている。
X is a Xはパッシブユーザーである。
伸 「空き家・空き地と中動態の設計」 “Vacancy And Middle Voice Design” being persuaded. は説得されている。
受動態 passive voice a passive user. はパッシブユーザーである。 disabling 不自由化
how to preserve spontaneity?
どうすれば自発性を保てるのか？
Community designer Shin Aiba describes the difference between active users and passive users in architecture through a linguistic structure of verbs as shown in the left diagram.2 Active users follow the behavior of the subject with active voice verbs. For instance, in this sentence, “X is persuading someone.”, the subject is performing the action. On the other hand, passive users behave the way subjects do with passive voice verbs and become the receiver of the action, as the example “X is being persuaded.” shows. Aiba claims that the key to spontaneity is in the pursuit of middle voice design. The example sentence of the middle voice in the diagram, “X is letting themselves be persuaded.” shows how X is somewhere in between performing and receiving an action. As the example implies, the user has a choice to be persuaded if they wish to. It aims to neither control the users nor entirely have them rely on their spontaneity. How do we make this X happen?
function: sit one direction, one height, one angle multi direction, one height, one angle Allusersneedtodoasmallthingtositcomfortably.
The left diagram represents how the misuse of the chair starts to take away the assumption of the user established in the passive voice chair. Breaking the back support and armrest does not take away the function of sitting but instead opens up the possibility of different ways of sitting. Is this misused chair comfortable? Not yet. Users may add pieces to make their own back supports that fit their needs. They may take it to a different place because of its new possibilities. The architect’s redesign of the chair allows a collage of uses by the users. Those small actions that transform the chair to enable misuse provide affordance to the users and build the opportunity for spontaneity into the object.
There is a difference between misuse and the preservation of misuse. The diagram on p.42 shows misuse is executed by active users. As demonstrated in the history of the YMCA, misuse heavily relied on the active user’s resiliency. Being an active user requires a lot, whether it is energy, resources, or time, and not everyone has room to become an active user. Preservation of misuse, on the other hand, aims to create the X in middle voice design. That is why the preservation of misuse is a method for architects whereby the efforts and passions carried by the active users are passed along to the architects through the activation of autonomy in the design process.
The design objective of preserving misuse is autonomy. By shifting the exchange in the design process and breaking the confinement of narrowed functions, users are allowed to reclaim the ability to build their own utopia rather than being given the utopia that architects assume they want.
In this chapter, the YMCA in Somerville, MA, is used as the prototypical typology and basis for demonstrating the principle of preservation of misuse and reimagining the YMCA as a YXCA.
The X replacing the M stands for X gender, non-binary.
Mの代わりにあるXは、Xジェンダー、 ノンバイナリーなどの非二元論的な意味を持つ。
existing condition of the Somerville YMCA
The Somerville YMCA was built in 1904 in the heart of Somerville, MA. It is planned to be demolished soon to make way for a new YMCA. In preparation for this, the Somerville YMCA purchased the adjacent housing complex facing School Street to expand its footprint.
The building is situated across School Street and along the main thoroughfare of Highland Avenue from Somerville City Hall, the main library, and the newly opened Green Line station. The existing building accommodates several exercise spaces, adjacent facilities (including changing rooms and showers), childcare on the 2nd floor, a daycare annex to the southeast, and two floors of transitional housing, which includes 43 single-room occupancies.
training room women's health centre weight lifting room
entrance running track
top left: facade close up in 20241
top right: historical postcard of Somerville YMCA2
bottom left: training room3
bottom middle: running track in the gymnasium4
bottom right: pool in the basement5
左上：2024年のファサードの状態 1
右上：歴史的なポストカードに描かれたサマーヴィルYMCA2
左下：トレーニングルーム 3
中段下：体育館のランニングトラック 4
右下：地下のプール 5
1. Photo by author.
2. https://www.hippostcard.com/listing/massachusetts-somerville-y-m-c-a-building-1906/28249786, accessed in 15th August 2024.
3-4. https://www.yelp.com/biz/somerville-ymca-somerville, accessed in 15th August 2024.
5. https://www.facebook.com/SomervilleYMCA, accessed in 15th August 2024.
program relationship
Programs in gyms and sports centers are usually made up of six categories, as shown in the disabling diagram. The conventional design strategy tends to consolidate each category into separate areas to ensure physical walls between public/private, member/ non-member, etc.6 In the YXCA, the boundary between private/public is misused to trigger the affordance of collaged programs. As shown in the preservation of misuse diagram to the right, some programs overlap, indicating interchangeability. It is up to each user to define how and which program they will use each space for at any time.
Here, the program diagram is laid out in the building. Some programs, such as public baths, community spaces/changing rooms, and saunas, repeat themselves in multiple locations and sizes. The difference in room size accommodates various types of gatherings, further expanding the number of options available to users in each variation.
The public bath and changing room in the YXCA are mixed-gender, and each exists in multiple locations of different sizes. Instead of assuming the comfort of individuals based on gender, users locate themselves in relation to the nooks and crannies made available and designed into the walls of the public bath to build their own requirements of privacy and visibility. YXCAの公衆浴場と更衣室は男女共用 で、異なる規模で複数の場所に繰り返 し設置されている。性別によって個人 の快適性を想定するのではなく、利用 者は公衆浴場の壁に設けられたくぼみ や隙間との位置関係によって、プライ バシーと視認性の要件を自身で定義す る。
The changing room applies the same design thinking but uses movable curtains that afford privacy. Different tables accommodate different sizes of gatherings, as the changing room is interchangeable with a community space. This way, a parent with a different-gender child can change in the same space and continue to stay in the same space afterward. Both examples accommodate fewer people compared to conventional designs because the design objective is no longer efficiency but instead autonomy.
The massing was developed using the preservation of misuse as a design principle. Similar to the misuse of the chair, the building is pulled apart, and the pieces are redistributed to multiple locations. The front facade alone remains in its existing location.
This massing strategy emphasizes what is being preserved in thi kept. However, they are losing functional elements tied to spatial organization and other building systems’ layouts. That is because the goal is not to preserve the building but to pres lies in how misuse requires showing the preexisting condition
After identifying the building parts’ functions as structures, the structure is then misused by extending beams, columns, and frameworks along the building’s own grid lines. The further the structure is extended, the more structural integrity is lost, and the elements of the envelope start to overlap on another part’s extension, cutting into another envelope. These shifted elements overlap and split the facade, transforming into a new combined form. The building opens up new ways of seeing in, new means of access, and develops new boundaries between inside and outside.
The misuse of the envelope creates a need for the new structure, and this is structurally picked up by intersecting access ramps with a 10’ wide 1/20 slope. This shallow ramp represents the promise to provide access for all bodies and the “inefficient” footprint that connects the broken building parts back together. Then, the ramp extends itself out to break the boundary between procession/cessation. The main ramps connect fitness spaces, adjacent facilities (changing rooms, showers, and public baths), and community spaces. As a result, circulation is again misused to allow other programs and uses to occur, blurring defined boundaries.
Polycarbonate semi-transparent material covers most of the surface of the building. Usually, in building preservation, historical materials are treated as precious or at least as something to be celebrated. Because this project is not about preserving the building but preserving the misuse, the added skin misuses the building’s history. In certain daylight conditions, openings are closed, and closings appear to be opened, which is a strategy to misuse opacity. This skin is also repeated in the interior spaces, which blurs the boundary between interior/exterior.
This section shows how the places expected to be inside are outside, and vice versa. By purposefully misusing the edge, it creates the affordance of boundaries, blurring the boundary between inside and outside.
Additional interchangeable programs in the YXCA include fitness facilities and outdoor facilities. These two programs are connected by a minimum of 10’ wide 1/20 ramps, which are comfortable enough to function as a fitness space. This misuse of the boundary of procession/cessation and inside/outside accommodates the kind of fitness activities that usually do not belong in gyms. Whether it is taking a long walk, doing Taichi in the park, or interacting with nature, misuse leads to the affordance of fitness.
Here is a series of paired drawings that provide a closer look into how preservation of misuse leads to affordance by the users. These drawings particularly capture the misuse-affordance relationship at a human scale. The edges of the horizontal elements, such as ramps and floors, are pushed and pulled beyond the vertical elements, which usually confine ramps. These moments create affordances of horizontal usable surfaces, ranging from sitting heights, counter heights, and lower ceilings, creating intimate spaces underneath. _ preservation of misuse = affordance
Vertical elements also push the blurring gesture by detaching from the horizontal elements. Some new walls do not touch the floor; instead, they switch to glass, shifting what is visibly separated from 5 to 6’ high viewpoints but connected at lower heights. Sometimes, what separates different programs is simply a glass wall or a semi-transparent polycarbonate screen to keep a sense of connection. In other cases, these screens are offset from the floor edges into the atriums, spanning across multi-levels, setting a new boundary of privacy that is isolated from the floor edges.
The top drawing represents the architect’s view of preserving misuse. Architects commonly draw in color with CAD software to differentiate elements. Not changing it to monochrome is inherently misusing architectural representation. This gesture thereby leads to the affordance of communication, allowing the intent and effect to be clearly expressed by sets of drawings.
New floors are added to the existing floors with a half-floor height difference. This not only accommodates the shallow ramps but also blurs the vertical separation usually caused by stacking. It also builds in the opportunity for the walkways to alternately express public use in addition to access. The misuse creates a unique proximity between different spaces, including the ramps, by purposefully making inefficient stacking.
In contrast to creating proximity, the inefficient stacking also provides views across atrium spaces and builds a relationship from one space to another. As you enter the building through the main entrance, the atrium maintains a visual relationship with the pool on the basement floor and with all the upper floors, blurring the line between private and public.
In conclusion, by exploring the history of the buildings of YMCAs, this thesis suggests “preservation of misuse” as an alternative design method to restore users’ autonomy and to resist the political disability we, as architects, are taught to echo. This queer tactic of reclamation of misuse critiques the industry standard to pursue efficiency and convenience and aims to expand the architect’s relationship with the users. Misuse and architecture are not a newfound relationship. Whether it is graffiti on the outside walls or posters and signages that are put up in unexpected places, buildings, architecture, and spaces have the potential to always be misused by the users. The question is, are designers and owners allowing that to happen? When we acknowledge this relationship we always had, architecture becomes alive as a tool, a prosthetic that communicates between the architects and the users, and not a one-sided conversation.
Criticism of a concept always has its danger of becoming another mainstream concept that reproduces itself. That is why dissecting the static capital “A” architecture into a tool and a prosthetic helps us as architects to keep ourselves in check. The prefix “mis” will always criticize and redefine itself against what is mainstream, and that is why I have hope that preservation of misuse will never become a static strategy, but evolve as a fluid tactic.
この展示会の標準的ではないレイアウトは、展示を追っていくうちに閲覧者の身 体が自然に動かされるよう設計されている。展示台は、ドアや椅子、ショッピン グカートなど、筆者が道端で見つけた物で作り乱用を試みている。観客は二重の 意味を持つクィアなフレーズ「follow the yellow brick road（黄色いレンガの道を
The exhibition’s nonlinear layout was intentionally designed to move viewers’ bodies. Display stands were made of found objects such as doors, chairs, and shopping carts to demonstrate misuse. Viewers follow the captions written on yellow post-its, inspired by the queer double entendre “follow the yellow brick road.”
Nov 25 - Dec 13, 2024
@Doran Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art & Design
Daytime Model
Nighttime Model
This exhibition showcased thesis projects from the Master of Architecture program that focus on redefining conventional approaches to architecture. Through the processes of reflecting, reforesting, relearning, removing, and repairing, these works reimagine the status quo in the world today.
The street is incorporated within a building to link the interior space with the
outdoor public street. By making it freely accessible to the public at all times, Chim↑Pom established a public space within a private setting. この通りは、屋内の空間と屋外の公道を繋ぐため、建 物内に組み込まれる形で建設された。Chim↑Pomは、 この通りをいつでも誰でも自由に出入りできるように することで、プライベートな環境の中にパブリックな 空間を作り出した。
1. http://chimpom.jp/project/street.html, accessed in 20th March 2024.
Splitting 2
スプリッティング 2
By Gordon Matta-Clark, 1974, New Jersey, USA
The artist made two parallel cuts down the center of the house, bisecting the home and creating an ephemeral display of light inside the once-compartmentalized interior. Jack Halberstam highlights Matta-Clark’s work of collapsing in the context of anarchitecture practice, connecting to the vision of unbuilding societal constructs, including binary and real estate and market economies.
2. https://placesjournal.org/article/unbuilding-gender/, accessed in 20th March 2024.
Barrier House Project 3
《障害の家》プロジェクト 3
By Haruchi Osaki, 2015-, Tokyo, Japan
The Barrier House Project explores the value of differences, particularly disabilities, by intentionally incorporating obstacles and barriers into homes. This approach challenges the conventional idea of universally accessible spaces, encouraging a rethinking of how disabilities and construction limitations affect people’s lives. By remodeling existing houses, the project proposes innovative ways of living and constructing spaces that acknowledge and adapt to diverse needs. バリアハウスプロジェクトは、障害や障壁を意図的 に住宅に取り入れることで、特に障害という違いに 価値を見出すことを目的としている。このアプロー チは、ユニバーサルデザインという従来の考え方に 疑問を投げかけ、障害や建築上の制限が人々の生活 にどのような影響を与えるかについて再考を促す。 このプロジェクトは、既存の住宅を改装することで、 多様なニーズを認識し、それに対応する革新的な生 活様式と空間づくりを提案している。
3. https://www.artscouncil-tokyo.jp/en/what-we-do/support/program/24511/, accessed in 28th August 2024.
Reverse Destiny Loft Mitaka 4
4
By Arakawa and Madeline Gins, 2005, Tokyo, Japan
The project was achieved by applying the philosophy of ‘procedural architecture,’ which aims to challenge and stimulate the senses. The architecture highlights how different our bodies are from each other and how our bodies change constantly, helping individuals realize they can do things that they at times thought were impossible. このプロジェクトは、五感に刺激を与えて呼 び起こすことを目的とした「プロシージャル・ アーキテクチャ」の哲学を採用している。身 体が個々人でそれぞれ異なること、そして身 体が絶えず変化していることを強調し、自分 で達成することは無理だと思っていたことも、 不可能ではないと気づく手助けをするように 設計されている。
4. https://www.reversibledestiny.org/reversible-destiny-lofts-mitaka-in-memory-of-helen-keller/, accessed in 12th October 2024.
massing collages
Series of collages using the historical postacard of Somerville YMCA for massing study. サマーヴィルYMCA歴史的なポストカードを使ったボリュームスタディ用のコラージュ一覧。
_cutout
_slot machine
_cyborg
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