And we're off!

Two feminist, student design firms, SAGE and More Than Margins, are preparing submissions to the competition. The design process is not yet over, but here's a sneak peak of what is awaiting revelation on Monday:

Whereas feminist design collectives like Matrix sought to counteract the plentiful phallic imagery in architecture with womb-like structures, SAGE (Sex and Gender Equality) is interested in forms that do not fall into either category. Their wide, circular building is centered on the idea of unity and symmetry, but not sameness. Central community spaces on each floor are surrounded by single and double dorm rooms divided into quadrants that access the building's many entrances. Outside, gardens contribute to the feminist sense of the space.

More Than Margins, giving a nominal shoutout to bell hooks' "Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness," takes a more equality-based approach to feminist space. Like SAGE, More Than Margins plans their space around central communal locations, where students from throughout the dorm's four areas can convene to eat, study, or socialize. Each of the four wings is coded with a gender-neutral color (they actually did color theory research about this), and features gender-neutral bathrooms that join separate hallways for male and female students. More Than Margins claims that this combination of public and private space provide room for community while maintaining diversity and difference.

Stay tuned for the final results on Monday!