OXYTOCIN

A CONTINUUM OF MATERNAL HEALTH + CARE

YEAR : 2022

LOCATION : SAN FRANCISCO, CA

PROJECT : THESIS

TYPOLOGY : HEALTHCARE

INSTRUCTOR : IRENE CHENG,

This thesis explores how the design of spaces of maternal reproduction in the city might change the power dynamics between mother and medicine; one in which childbirth is not a disease but rather a continuity of prenatal through child rearing experience, requiring a continuity of access and support.

Like most of our institutions, medical environments, as well as medicine itself, have been mostly designed by men and through the male perspective. Not only are maternal healthcare spaces scattered throughout the city, hard to access by certain communities, the medicalization of childbirth has resulted in the increase of maternal mortality. Current maternal healthcare spaces such as general hospital maternal units, women’s specialty hospitals, and birthing centers are still designed with the premise that childbirth is a condition to be cured.

At the scale of the city, a new matrix of maternal care is elevated above a current medical establishment, with the aim to highlight previously suppressed perspectives and visibly dismantle the history of the neglect of maternal healthcare within the old institutions.

At the scale of the building, the work develops a system of expandable and flexible skins to study architectural boundaries, threshold, and privacy, allowing mothers to define their own healthcare, birthing spaces and nurturing spaces. The work argues that spatial adaptability, flexibility and continuity are defining characteristics of agency — maternal agency.