The purpose of this final year project is to gain a greater social acceptance for prostitution. It seeks to improve the position of prostitutes by giving their profession a fitting visual form and an appropriate place in the city. Seen in a broader context, it is a quest in search of the influence architecture can have on processes of community welfare and how these processes can be rendered in architectural form. To give shape to this objective I set myself the specific task of designing a private house on a courtyard between Kleine Berg and Grote Berg in the entertainment district of Eindhoven.

The choice of a private house was prompted by my preliminary report, whose conclusion was that brothels have remained more or less the same for centuries and that there is no reason to suppose that the repeal of the brothel ban in 2000 has done anything to change this. A private house struck me as being the most dignified place for prostitutes to ply their trade. Its siting was guided by my call for acceptance - hence my refusal either to hide the brothel away or resort to extreme provocation. The area between Grote Berg and Kleine Berg offered a way out. Although in the heart of the city, it has an introverted, protective air. The public car park is an aid to restructuring the courtyard. Prostitution and parking have several things in common: both are necessary evils, both are permanent features of the city and both are regarded as a source of inconvenience. Here both are half-hidden below ground level to stress these aspects.

In the case of prostitution, the inconvenience largely stems from objections on moral grounds. Prostitution is taboo - which is why I decided to express it as the furtive activity it is. Acceptance is a gradual, step-by-step process. As an architect, I try to help this process along by creating buffer zones: the street elevation between city and courtyard, the car park between brothel and local residents, the facade between inside and outside.

This building is to give so-called public women back their intimacy. The brothel is their domain. It can be described as a mute, introverted monolithic block, its materials direct and honest. Prostitution no longer needs to hide behind plush and frills. A brothel is all about touching and feeling. Its cladding must be sensory and hygienic but not clinical - hence my choice of natural materials: stone and wood. A distinctive feature of the facade is its few openings. The routeing is a single continuous movement marked by the crossing of borders. By thickening these borders they are made palpable and become buffer zones. The entrance and exit are set apart to avoid encounters between clients entering and clients leaving. This is done on the one hand to respect the privacy of the clients and on the other to make visiting a brothel an irreversible process stage-managed by the madam and her prostitutes. A private portion containing the living room and the office sits atop the public part and is out of bounds to clients.

Place of education: TU Eindhoven
Specialization: architecture
Tutors: Hans Ruijssenaars, Zjak Hofman, Maarten Willems