Reviving the previously abandoned Abney Park Chapel, a queer bathhouse provides a space of lichen and mud, algae, and fungi; a natural space is created that opposes the notion of queer bodies being unnatural. David Griffiths’ Queer Theory for Lichens suggests we have never been individuals. Lichens and other examples of biological symbioses offer ways of thinking about sexuality beyond a heteronormative framework and have the potential to generate a bio-integrated architectural space. Blurring the boundaries between building, bodies, and organisms therefore aims to challenge preconceptions about architectural categorisations.

A dynamic and central component of the building is mud, which slowly envelopes visitors as a second skin as they bathe in the pools of the bathhouse. At the end of the visitor’s journey, this mud is washed off, collected, and re-purposed directly into the architecture of the space. This blurring of the lines between the body of the building and the body of its occupants attempts to create a sense of abjection in the visitor.