Monica Perez Ku

My thesis project involves the design of a woman-centered co-housing facility in Merida, Mexico. An average of 10 women a day are killed in Mexico, yet the nation neglects to address its principal cause: domestic violence. Poor and indigenous Mexican women are more vulnerable due to their race, color, and economic class. These forms of discrimination, along with gentrification surging in Merida's downtown area, are banishing women and their families to the urban sprawl. These conditions are causing severe economic and social strain among women who are confined to the home. How can the domestic interior of the traditional Mexican home be restructured to fundamentally empower women and contest the oppressive and gendered forms of living created by patriarchy? Through practice-based design research, I redefine the Mexican domestic interior to instigate women's “empowerment.” I expand the connotations of domestic interiors by creating a communal living for families in Merida, Yucatan. I reveal dynamics of power/oppression happening in the home and demonstrate their potential to empower women and give them agency within their household and community. These practices are addressed both at the micro and macro scale of the co-housing to provide an alternative form of cohabitating built upon a new set of values that address women's needs and rights.