About

Who were Matrix?

In the 1980s, the London-based feminist architects’ practice Matrix was one of the first worldwide to bring issues of gender centre-stage to the design of the built environment…..

Why a Matrix Open Archive?

The Matrix Open feminist architecture archive (MOfaa) brings together archival resources, not as an end in itself, but as a jumping off point for exploring some of the complex relationships between different kinds of bodies, space and architecture.

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Explore: Engage with questions and issues about feminist architectural and spatial practices then and now.

Collaborate: Investigate and develop opportunities to work with others, to learn about, and discuss, ideas and future possibilities.

Texts: Download readings and resources that connect to the Matrix Open archive in a variety of ways.

Buildings do not control our lives. They reflect the dominant values in our society, political and architectural views, people’s demands and the constraints of finance, but we can live in them in different ways from those originally intended. Buildings only affect us insomuch as they contain ideas about women, about our ‘proper place’, about what is private and what is public activity, about which things should be kept separate and which put together.

From the introduction to Making Space: Women and the Man-made Environment. Pluto Press 1984