In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Mississippians are left without access to safe, legal abortions, and many also lack access to other essential reproductive and sexual health services. The Purple Houses is a reproductive healthcare facility and advocacy center in Jackson, Mississippi, that provides the full spectrum of reproductive and sexual healthcare services, including abortions in the case of the abortion ban exceptions.
Conventional clinical spaces are sterile, bland, orderly, and hyper-rational. The Purple Houses provides a new model for clinical spaces which incorporates domestic forms, soft colors and textures, and curvy quirks to invoke a sense of comfort, safety, and whimsy for patients.
Additionally, the site planning strategy seeks to counter political opposition, provide security for care seekers, and provide vibrant public spaces. For security, the main building is surrounded by a perimeter wall that is pulled back from the site’s boundaries, allowing the project to give back to the community with an outdoor amphitheater, rain garden, bioswales, and other interstitial public spaces. Meanwhile, the advocacy center, which is intended as the public face of the facility, serves as a physical intermediary between care seekers and political opposition and invites political discourse.
