Michael Westthorp is a design practitioner and lecturer at Middlesex University m. Most important of all is who these bodies are with: in what historical and actual spatial configuration they find and define themselves.
It is the only venue of this type to be continuously open 24 hours of the day, seven days a week, every day of the year. A clandestine space, inaccessible to the general public, the entry criteria is based upon age, gender and sexual orientation. Customers use the space as restaurant, bar, psuedo-hotel, cinema, club, washhouse, spa and Grindr meet-up joint, staying for up to 12 hours at a time.
It is a sexual space where encounters are nurtured and stimulated. A hidden world, always populated, within an island site under a railway, part of the city, yet removed. Figure 1 : Sketch scheme sheet 3. Home also provides a rare opportunity for concealment from the outside world. Members of the gay community however may have had to experience a fracture from their traditional family home, with all of the embedded sense of security this provides, particularly when family members have been unable to fully accept their sexuality.
This displacement from home, a space which many of us take for granted, is not of course unique to the gay community. As people leave the places of their past, by choice or through necessity, it is common to sometimes want to regain the sense of safety that has been lost.
While a new circumstance can be exciting and offer great potential, the transitional process can also be alienating. A new environment whether country, city, building or interior, can give rise to anxiety as well as opportunity. The need for a place where one can be, express and realise oneself, explore shared histories, increasingly has to be sought, at least temporarily, within the public realm. The need for spaces which provide refuge, the ability to be concealed from outside observation, while also offering connection to people who may provide some level of affinity, is an understandable human aspiration.
