URBAN DATING CLUB

SPRING 2018

A rising prevalence of online dating has redefined the concept of courtship. Sited in the Back Bay area of Boston, this club proposes an analog counterpart to this digital process to offset its impersonal nature, as well as the lack of intimacy in the otherwise dense city.

The club serves as a platform for a condensed version of the typical development of a romantic relationship, which involves a long string of ordinary experiences. It becomes a gross romanticization of the mundane, as every room potentially serves as a place for chance encounters, and in which a relationship sparks or grows.

Club occupants are taken through a series of rooms which may help them evaluate their compatibility with a chosen partner. Users navigate first through public spaces alone, then into more private, intimate spaces in couples. The circulation connecting the club’s private spaces overlook large, open common spaces. Rooms are assigned degrees of privacy and intimacy through varying threshold types, enclosures, porosity, visual accessibility, and exposure to light.