Writing has long played an important role in the progression of architecture and the built environment. Histories of architecture are written, manifestoes that form the basis for a designer's work are written and most importantly, the built environment advances itself through the act of critical writing. Not unlike the visual arts, literature and poetry, the tradition of written criticism has been crucial to the progression of architecture and its allied professions (Franz 2003). This article contributes to architecture and the built environment through the act of a written essay that critiques the problem of bodily diversity to architecture. In particular, the article explores the implications of body-space politics and abstracted body thinking on diverse bodies and their spatial justice. Using Soja's Spatial Justice theory ( 2008), we seek to point out the underlying conceptions and power differentials assigned to different bodies spatially and how this leads to spatial injustices and contested spaces. The article also critically analyses the historical emergence of 'the standardised body' in architecture and its application in design theory and practice, and looks at how bodies often found on the outside of architecture highlight how such thinking creates injustices. Different theories are drawn on to help point to how design through the use of the upright, forward facing, male body willingly and unwillingly denies access to resources and spatialities of everyday life. We also suggest ways to re-conceptualise the body in design practice and teaching.

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The gradual per-capita decline in the size of the public service in Australia since the orthodoxy of economic rationalism became entrenched in the 1990s has impacted on the design of the built environment most obviously in the shift away from the in-house design and delivery of public works by government-employed architects. Yet with rising interest in design-led cities, a new generation of architects in state and local government are taking leadership roles in design governance, where public sector actors exert influence predominantly through informal means such as through design advisory, review and advocacy processes. These roles represent an important point at which architects can participate in the complex multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder delivery of projects and positively influence the quality of built environment design outcomes, for the public good. Yet this form of architectural work tends to be invisible and not well understood by the profession. Women at present have high visibility in such design leadership roles in Australia, with all State and Territory Government Architect positions and many City Architect positions currently held by women. This paper investigates women’s experience in public sector design leadership roles to better understand this work and how career paths involving the public sector have changed since earlier eras of government public works departments. Drawing on interviews, the paper explores aspects of women’s career experience including the specific skills and expertise utilised in design advisory roles, and the extent to which this form of work is recognised within the profession. Contemporary career narratives are analysed in relation to an historical survey of women architects in the public service and changing ideas about professional expertise. The paper focuses on exploring two themes: the ways in which public sector work is incorporated into portfolio careers in architecture, and the expertise involved in design leadership.

Harold Pinter’s work opens the walls to the relatively closed rooms of domesticity. The room of the love affair, the unpredictable liaison, the cramped cluttered rooms of poverty and the disaffected. This study uses Pinter’s rooms to analyse existing ideologies of gender, territory, power and domesticity. Pinter’s rooms are more often than not reflections of familiar domestic spaces. This research investigates Pinter’s rooms through a case study of a theatre set for one of his plays and textual analysis of selected works, developing an understanding of how Pinter’s characters reflect behaviours within the domestic environment, mimicking while subverting domestic ecologies.

Exploring the interactions between liquid surfaces and their relationship to the figure of the fille fatale in dark genres of film and television, this paper suggests that the liquid surface not only disrupts our understanding of architecture as a static structural envelope, but also acts to destabilise the image of the innocent girl in science fiction and horror films and television. The discussion focuses on three relatively recent depictions of young girls who confront (or are forced to confront) the liquid surface: Mitsuko’s submersion in the water vessels of an apartment building in Dark Water (2002), Ofelia and the muddy interior of the tree in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), and the watery floor of Eleven’s psychic state in Stranger Things (2016). Working with Jill Stoner’s understanding of minor architectures and their ability to deterritorialise both physical structures and structures of power, the paper asks to what extent the liquid surface encounters of Ofelia, Mitsuko and Eleven exist as reflections of each character’s experiences, or as currents of agency through which the fille fatale reshapes her world. In doing so the research considers the ways in which fictional liquid surfaces operate as a visual minor architecture that elicits a questioning of social and physical norms.