Nonmonogamous Interiors

Open relationships – involving deliberate, consensual and intimate activity outside of conventional fidelity – have become increasingly commonplace as a way of forming connections outside the firmer structure of marriage or partnership. If the architectural organization of the home is bound to the institution of marriage and format of the nuclear family, what are the implications of nonmonogamy on the conception, arrangement and shaping of domestic interiors? To answer such a prompt, this essay explores the slippery nature of not only the term “open relationship” but “design” as it relates to the production of sexual encounters. Unpacking media representations of polyamory and its intersection with design initiates a reflection on the concept of a “spatial doppelgänger,” then taken up as a defining feature of an unconventional residence to unpack how operations of doubling and duplication looked to reconcile nonnormative arrangements in the monogamous space of the home. The tension and anxiety of the double are contrasted with two contemporary residences – one purpose-built by GRT Architects and the other an interior renovation by ScottWhitbyStudio – conceived for openly nonmonogamous clients. By skirting and questioning the nature of the spatial doppelgänger, expanding on the multitude of intimacies inherent in polyamory, both projects may reveal strategies of “making room” for other relations beyond monogamy, the family and other social conventions to emerge.