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The Afternoon Place

The design of The Afternoon Place: A Women’s Reproductive Health Clinic, Education Center, and Birthing Sanctuary, proposes an architectural typology designed explicitly to reclaim women's reproductive autonomy through deliberate spatial strategies that empower subjectivity, dignity, and holistic care.

“Medicine is part of our heritage as women, our history, our birthright.”

- Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English

Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (1971).

The design of spaces for reproductive healthcare is a critical issue in contemporary architecture, particularly in the context of women’s birthing and abortion services. Traditional healthcare facilities are often designed from a clinical and standardized perspective that fails to address the emotional, psychological, and social dimensions of reproductive healthcare. Such spaces frequently perpetuate a sense of alienation, dehumanization, and powerlessness, which can undermine the very autonomy they are meant to support. This issue demands a new approach to architecture—one that prioritizes privacy, dignity, choice, and empowerment for women navigating complex reproductive decisions. This thesis proposes a holistic, patient-centered architectural model for a women’s clinic and birthing center that integrates both birth and abortion services. It aims to foster environments that respect women’s reproductive autonomy while addressing the need for spaces that are both flexible and supportive of women’s diverse needs.

 

To further illustrate this complexity, consider the intersection of a woman’s identity with the fetus she carries. The politics of this relationship are influenced by broader societal narratives that often prioritize one subject over the other, leading to a diminished understanding of the woman’s agency and autonomy. When the fetus and mother are considered solely as social subjects, the fetus inherits a political status that infringes upon a woman’s rights, often reducing the mother’s identity to that of a mere vessel. Conversely, when viewed purely as bodily subjects, the emotional and psychological dimensions of motherhood may be overlooked, leading to a one-dimensional portrayal of women’s experiences. In addition, as bodily acts are socially stigmatized, and architecturally relegated to highly privatized spaces, to view the woman and fetus only as bodily subjects risks stigmatizing them. Thus, acknowledging the duality of subjectivity in reproductive health is essential for fostering a more inclusive dialogue that honors both the biological and social aspects of women’s lives.

 

Architecture has often reinforced this reductive subjectivity through spaces that prioritize function over the nuanced realities of reproductive healthcare. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of the apparatus and Giorgio Agamben’s exploration of how apparatuses create specific subjects, reproductive healthcare spaces have historically modeled and constrained women’s identities. Elizabeth Grosz’s assertion that “space is experienced differently by differently sexed bodies” highlights the urgency of creating spaces that embrace the complexities of female embodiment rather than reducing it to stigmatized bodily subjectivity.

 

This project advocates for a new architectural typology that reflects the intertwined biological and social aspects of women’s identities, creating environments that foster agency and dismantle the stigma of bodily subjectivity. The challenge lies in developing a typology that not only accommodates the pragmatic needs of various users—patients, caregivers, and families—but also foregrounds and validates the complexity of their experiences. By integrating an aesthetic dimension into this typological framework, we can create environments that recognize the multifaceted nature of women’s identities and their reproductive choices. This approach aligns with Jacques Rancière’s arguments, which emphasize the degree to which the aesthetic appearance of the world defines the political possibilities of that world. For Rancière, redesigning how the public realm appears to us can, in turn, afford new political potentials. The design of reproductive healthcare spaces can thus serve as a powerful medium for asserting women’s identities, empowering them in their choices, and challenging the prevailing narratives that seek to simplify their experiences.

 

In light of these considerations, The Afternoon Place, located in Las Cruces, New Mexico, adopts a design strategy of affording excess—an architectural approach that intentionally resists prescriptive, program-driven definitions of reproductive care. Rather than constraining women to predetermined spatial scripts, the design constructs environments that exceed functional necessity in order to enable multiplicity, autonomy, and self-determined experience. Excess here is not surplus for its own sake, but cultivates a range of spatial and programmatic alternatives through which the architectural subject may locate, revise, or reinvent their position across time. This surplus does not dictate use but rather invites choice, cultivating an architectural subject who can select from among a plurality of possible performances. In doing so, the project reframes reproductive healthcare as a continuum of care, agency, and possibility—an open field rather than a closed procedure. Through this strategy of excess, architecture becomes not only a site of care, but also a site of recognition, where women are validated as full subjects capable of authoring their own reproductive narratives

Lola Cinco

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“Shame around female reproductive health at any age and stage runs so deep that it is etymological.”

- Mara Altman and Luce Brett

"'We Don’t Have to Put Up With This’: A Candid Conversation about Bodies" (2020).

What Architecture Could Be

Why Design Matters

Historically, reproductive healthcare spaces have often been designed without considering women's lived experiences, autonomy, and emotional needs. Today, with reproductive rights under threat, thoughtful architecture becomes essential to safeguarding dignity, comfort, and choice.

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Affording Excess

Designing for Choice

Architecture often focuses strictly on functionality. This project challenges that standard by Affording Excess—intentionally designing spaces with abundant options, flexibility, and comfort. Excess here means empowering women with multiple choices, enabling each person to shape her own experience. Through this abundance, architecture moves beyond mere function to genuinely celebrate autonomy and diversity in reproductive care.

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Section Show (2025)

“The politics of space are always sexual, even if space is central to the mechanisms of the erasure of sexuality.”

- Beatriz Colomina

Sexuality & Space (1992).

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Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA

The Site

Located in Las Cruces, New Mexico—a sanctuary state for reproductive rights—this project responds directly to urgent regional healthcare needs, intensified by restrictions in neighboring states like Texas. Located on what was previously a golf course, the site bridges nature and urban life, acting as both refuge and monument.

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369%

Increase of Abortion Procedures Post Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022)

#2

Maternal Mortality Rate in the US

1 in 3

Counties in New Mexico is a Maternal Health Desert

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Repeated Figuration

Aesthetic Design Strategy

Repeated Figuration employs formal and figural excess to intentionally decouple architectural form from singular meanings or predetermined functions. Intentional variations within repeated forms sustain visual interest without prescribing specific interactions or behaviors, thereby inviting diverse interpretations and embodied experiences. 

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Architecture as Advocacy

Designing for Social Justice

Architecture isn't neutral—it's political. By designing spaces explicitly for women's comfort, choice, and autonomy, this project advocates for reproductive justice, reshaping how healthcare environments are experienced and understood.

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Claiming the Site

The project, which is situated within a reclaimed 165 acre golf course, stretches to claim the excessive territory afforded by that site—extending architectural forms from its healthcare campuses outward into the larger site in order to signify the site’s inclusion within the architecture, and thereby deconstructing the assumption of a categorical spatial distinction between the project’s programmed and unprogrammed spaces.

Formal Strategy

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Licensed architects have the ethical obligation to protect the public’s health, safety, and welfare. To ensure everyone has access to high-quality, patient-centered reproductive healthcare.

- Jordan Kravitz and Lori A. Brown

“Why architects are critical in the fight for abortion rights” (2022).

Public Permeability 

Planning Strategy

Circulation at The Afternoon Place intentionally blends public permeability with clearly safeguarded private spaces, drawing visitors through compelling architectural experiences. Thoughtfully designed pathways—featuring ramps, stairs, and elevators—encourage exploration, enhancing visitors' understanding of the facility's broader social and cultural mission. This deliberate integration of openness and protection embodies Jacques Rancière’s perspective on the political and educational role of space, inviting public engagement while respecting necessary boundaries.

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1   Lifetime Model

Program Strategy

The proposed design is a Women’s Clinic and Birthing Center that offers services throughout all stages of a woman’s reproductive life. 

2   Permeability & Accessibility

Circilation Strategy

Circulation at The Afternoon Place emphasizes permeability and universal accessibility, fostering an environment of openness and inclusivity. 

3  Multi-Core Approach

Planning Strategy

Embracing a Multi-Core Approach, the project’s programmatic layout disperses healthcare services into several smaller, strategically distributed clusters across the campus.

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Multi-Core Approach

Dedicated Care Strategy

Embracing a Multi-Core Approach, the project's programmatic layout disperses healthcare services into several smaller, strategically distributed clusters across the campus. This spatial organization creates intimate, neighborhood-like environments, enhancing continuity of care and fostering community-focused interactions. Women have the opportunity to consistently engage with familiar medical and social spaces throughout their reproductive journey—from adolescence through menopause—cultivating stability and trust. Simultaneously, this decentralized arrangement heightens security and privacy through intentional spatial ambiguity, effectively safeguarding patients from external disruptions such as protests, and ensuring dignity and confidentiality during various healthcare procedures.

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3-4x

More Black Women are Victim to Pregnancy-Associated Deaths

1st

In Maternal Mortality Out Of All Industrialized Nations in the World

1-4

Pregnancies End in Miscarriage

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Burial Site

Remembering Loved Ones

Labor and Delivery

Empowering Through Choice

The labor and delivery room is designed around women's agency and physical autonomy. Sculpted, ergonomic furniture and flexible spatial arrangements allow multiple active birthing positions—squatting, kneeling, sitting, or water birth. Integrated elements such as soft lighting, privacy controls, and nature views create a calming, dignified environment. This intentional design fosters comfort, empowerment, and respect during one of life's most intimate experiences.

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Fig. 01. Active Birthing Positions

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