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17-25 October 2026

Made to Disappear

Heterotopias of Prostitution

Hosted by Rachel Refael

This project is now archived and was part of DDW21

Gyno Lazy Boy: Inspired by Marcel Breuer Wassily.
Gyno Lazy Boy: Inspired by Marcel Breuer Wassily.
Photos taken by Chiara Catalini
“Made to Disappear” explores the living room as a place of performance influenced by the forced exclusion of prostitution from the public sphere. This project is based on conversations with a Canadian sex worker, and her spatial negotiation within the home.

Sex and architecture

“Made to Disappear” explores the living room as a heterotypic place of performance affected by the forced exclusion of prostitution from the public sphere. While being either disposable or easily sterilised, all the materiality in of the project carries foreign traces into the idea of the domestic. It strips the space of the ornamental comfort through multiple spatial references: the sofa allows the user to experience various “positions” while creating inappropriate comfort, the latex carpet memorialises Calgary’s last Red Light District through the cartographic details tufted into its surface, and the furniture associates the elements of the living room as a waiting space with mixed archetypes of desire through references to gynaecological rooms, playboy architectures, and massage parlours. Moving through these spaces, the project creates archival documentation of artefacts and architectural prototypes presented in the interiors. The natural conclusion is that architectonics subject violence over women in “public”.”
Cartographic latex carpet
Cartographic latex carpet
Photos taken by Chiara Catalini
Advertising Desires: Mirror salon table.
Advertising Desires: Mirror salon table.
Photos taken by Chiara Catalini
Sofa Parlour: homage to massage parlours
Sofa Parlour: homage to massage parlours

About Rachel Refael

Rachel Refael (b. 1992) is a Canadian multidisciplinary designer and artist based in Rotterdam. Refael Graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada (2018) and a Masters of Interior Architecture from the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2021). In 2020, she established 166 BRUT as an independent design practice focused on blending analogue mediums with digital culture.