Single Parenting

Single parenting has traditionally been marginalised in design, with architecture not addressing the caring needs of an increasingly common childbreading situation. From a feminist perspective, the traditional typology of the nuclear family flat is hacked to introduce collective care and mutual kindship.

The three-hour-long feminist film, Jeanne Dielman, documents three days in her life as a widow and mother of a 16-year-old son, living in a “blockrand” in Brussels. Between her precisely scheduled daily routines of reproductive labour, she is also a part-time sex-worker, receiving one client a day, to complement her scarce income.

The precarious situation described is by no means an exception. There are more than a hundred million parents worldwide, 25,000 in Zurich and 2,000 in Altstetten, who raise their children alone. In addition to that, they need to work and take care of their children.

To create new spatial possibilities for single parents, the project introduces new elements to meet their needs: wellbeing of the children, security, childcare, working from home, community, and affordable rent. A catalogue of precise architectural interventions is presented to transform an existing housing block. The interventions do not have to be done all at once, instead, they offer strategies to transform the home and introduce mutual care and collective kinship.

• Strategy 1: Additional room with a movable wardrobe to separate work from private life.
• Strategy 2: Replacement of a partition wall by an alcove, as a place of retreat for children.
• Strategy 3: Extension of the living room into the balcony by a window bench.
• Strategy 4: Community building with the possibility of exchange by a double part door and a working desk facing the staircase.
• Strategy 5: All partition walls get a new opening that connects the different flats to make one shared flat out of three.
• Strategy 6 + 7: For the last strategy, the basement and the garden are transformed into an open community space that links reproductive labour with leisure. The newly built space, together with the additional access balcony, connects not only the inside with the outside but also all floor levels vertically.