Design that affirms

Design that affirms: Gendered spaces & an empathy-driven approach

Restrooms and gendered spaces at large have become hotpoints in a broader political war. As some of the few remaining gender-segregated spaces within the built environment, restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms have become weaponized in an effort to denounce gender identity without the perception of overt prejudice. People identifying as transgender, gender non-conforming, or non-binary often find themselves caught amid political crossfire as the built environment around them continues to exacerbate concurrent safety and public health crises.

Architecture serves as the built environment’s vital conduit from present to future. Therefore, between the crossfire of this so-called “War on Identity” emerges an opportunity for architectural professionals to design a more affirming future. However, a more inclusive and equitable tomorrow is only possible if we as architects advocate for it today. Leveraging the principles of universal design and armed with both a global project portfolio and the belief that good design is not political, a team of researchers at HKS set out to understand the current challenges, state of evidence, and possibilities pertaining to gendered spaces. In doing so, we are seeking to develop concrete strategies for the design of gendered spaces that reinforce the Framework for Design Excellence.

Process This research is being conducted as part of HKS’ Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (J.E.D.I.) lens across multiple sectors and offices. Working within the context of an international design firm, our primary objective for this endeavor is to better serve our clients and end-users. Our research seeks to understand how historically gendered spaces reinforce the gender binary ideal and the methods by which architectural design may better embody the complexity of sex and gender. Acknowledging that much research has been developed on this topic, our team conducted an extensive literature review and reviewed the evolution of building codes and planning guidelines to better understand the regulatory impacts on gendered spaces. Our group also assessed both past and prototypical work to analyze gendered spaces as to their degree of inclusivity. The health care practice area was selected for study due to the wide variety of gendered spaces present in health environments (staff, patient, public, private, etc.) as well as our research team’s own experience as health planners and designers. Between projects, we revealed a wide spectrum of gender inclusivity within our own health care portfolio.

Our findings revealed how seemingly minuscule design decisions like signage iconography can render significant implications for end-users. Further, our research emphasized that designing for gender inclusivity must also consider intersecting identity factors such as age, disability, and religion. Choice is powerful in this context—equity emerges when users can choose the typology with which they are most comfortable. In short, our findings underscored the complexity of inclusivity.

In seeking to triangulate our research and portfolio findings with an empathy-driven approach, our team has developed a knowledge guide for use by our 1500+ member firm. Containing contextual background information, a key term glossary, case studies, and a restroom planning toolkit, this guide provides project teams across HKS with the information they need to better serve and educate our clients while delivering projects that promote a more inclusive environment.

Progress The effort to provide more inclusive, gender-affirming spaces is not only designer-driven. Clients often request and many expect that architects design with the principles of equity and inclusion for all in mind. Over the past several years, many HKS projects have deployed a single-occupancy, gender-neutral toilet room co-located with gendered multistall facilities or locker rooms to provide a space for those who desire more privacy or would feel more comfortable in a single-occupancy room. However, our team found that, particularly in health care, while most public “front of house” restroom clusters include some degree of gender inclusivity, most staff “back of house” facilities continue to reinforce the gender binary through sex-segregated locker rooms and minimal provisions for non-binary staff. These binaryreinforcing staff spaces may lead to heightened hostility against LGBTQIA+ healthcare workers. More recently, we have sought to create a more inclusive environment—for both staff and visitors—that provides an equitable environment via choice.

This increased focus on gender equity and inclusion has already yielded dividends in our project work. In one instance, an initial design for a multi-specialty clinic for a large health care system failed to provide an inclusive environment in its restrooms and changing facilities. Tasked with improving equity without further increasing the building footprint, HKS designers collaborated with client leadership through an empathydriven approach that resulted in an equitable and efficient solution. Through a strategic reshuffling of fixtures, partitions, and casework, the team was able to yield enough space for a gender inclusive changing room—ensuring patients across the gender spectrum are supported in their healing environment. Beyond this facility, the reimagined changing room module now provides an inclusive prototype for the system for all future projects—amplifying the impacts of empathy.

Placing empathy—not politics—at the core of these challenging conversations is imperative to designing a truly inclusive built environment. Designing spaces that affirm each individual’s own identity is not an additive exercise but rather an attitude revolution. It is about acknowledging bias, recognizing opportunity for improvement, and implementing a solution that expresses to future users that they are seen, that they are heard, and that they are welcome. Special Thanks

Special thanks to my colleagues who are contributing to this research effort: Kaitlyn Badlato, Julia Chou, Renae Mantooth, Zac Rudd, and Yiselle Santos Rivera. All above graphics were produced by Julia Chou, HKS’ summer 2022 J.E.D.I. intern.

Dennis Dine, Assoc. AIA Dine is a health care designer at HKS in Chicago. A believer in the transformative power of space, he leads change through an evidence-based, people-first design approach.