Outdoor Dojo/ Ashram
Jess Miller & Claire Sutton

Filling the gender ‘play gap’ to create calm and safe spaces for women and girls to breathe.

The prevailing attitude (and legacy of 200 years of urban design by blokes) is that there are fewer public places designed by women (and gender non-binary people) for women (and gender non-binary people).

And while active sport and recreation facilities go partway toward addressing the play gap. There are even fewer public facilities where women, and especially teenage girls can go to just calm.the. hell. down.

With Biophilic design at the fore, the idea of an outdoor dojo or public ashram provides a different kind of amenity and public space – especially for busy women living in high-density apartments.

Put them on water to maximise passive ventilation, take some design queues from Japanese and Thai architecture,

Because all we really want is a place where I can do my ‘thing’ in an indoor/outdoor, non-creepy, calm & secluded, but safe place that feels kind of like an ashram but located very conveniently at an inner-city park, like Centennial Parklands, Moore Park or Sydney park.

Because there’s nothing a few deep breathes can’t fix.

Easy.