Care Catwalk

At the heart of Jamie Patterson’s Tucked is a profound friendship between a younger and an older drag queen. Through the drag club, they cultivate care, benefiting from intergenerational empowerment and knowledge transfer. Backstage and domestic spaces play an essential role—elements we seek to facilitate in our design. Drag spaces offer comfort, safety, and belonging, where pleasure is found in self-expression, performance, and transformation.

Zürich has venues for drag performances—bars, clubs, theatres, workshops, and libraries—but lacks a dedicated base. Existing backstage spaces are temporary and lack essential infrastructure. Aging drag performers are rare, facing health challenges, economic hardship, and the pressures of an art form centered on youth.

Care Catwalk establishes a permanent monument to older drag performers in Wipkingen. Facing Rosengartenstrasse, it announces drag’s place in Zürich. A large northern wall shields from noise while revealing glimpses of the interior and serving as an event canvas. To the south, a curving solid wall bulges outward, intersected by a translucent catwalk that reinterprets the public footpath, winding from Rosengartenstrasse through the building and into East Wipkingen.

The northern wall houses service spaces—seating, sleeping, changing, washing, and archiving—that spill into the catwalk: steam from the shower, clothes drying on the balustrade, the scent of lunch, a mop bucket. A circular performance space expands and contracts around the ramping catwalk, with mobile storage boxes enabling transformations for lip-syncing, comedy, and workshops. The panelized façade opens, extending the space outdoors.

The institution is overseen by two older drag performers—custodians and residents—fostering intergenerational dialogue with aged care facilities, schools, and the public.

Its flexible spaces, mobile elements, and hydraulic platforms allow adaptability, ensuring freedom in performing, making, and maintaining. Care Catwalk permanently showcases all aspects of drag transformation—not just the final form.

Project by: Filippo Kleinstein, Mattia Baeggli, Vita Attrill, Rosina Maibach

Teaching team: Anna Puigjaner, Dafni Retzepi, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Lisa Maillard, Luis Úrculo, Pol Esteve Castelló, He Shen

Design Studio: Autumn 2024