Bathhouse Project
Presented by Monash University, Department of Design
DETAILS
Free, booking required
Victorian Pride Centre
79 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda VIC, Australia
This talk presents a design project responding to the quiet erosion of queer sexual spaces in contemporary cities. As bars assimilate and hookup apps privatise encounter, the gay bathhouse remains one of the last unapologetically carnal queer typologies — yet also one of the most vulnerable.
Through a speculative redesign of Perth Steamworks, the project explores how spatial design can support the bathhouse’s survival without diluting its erotic core. Drawing on hybridity, dramaturgy and prospect–refuge theory, it translates contemporary queer fantasies into spatial strategies that destigmatise use, diversify revenue and reframe the bathhouse as vital queer infrastructure — resilient, future-facing and irreducibly embodied.
Participants
Jack Tooley
Jack Tooley is a Senior Lecturer of Spatial Design at Monash University and an interdisciplinary design academic, practitioner and researcher.Jack has over fourteen years' experience teaching and practising across architecture, interior design, and project management. With a PhD in Spatial Sociology and an MPhil in Architectural Psychology, Jack’s expertise lies in understanding how environments shape and are shaped by human behaviour, social judgement and cultural context.