YAA Projects designs architecture in dialogue and response to place, identity, climate, material and history.
The Bachelor Girl’s Room is an interior installation as part of the Althea McNish: Colour is Mine exhibition at the William Morris Gallery. The installation is inspired by McNish’s original 1966 design for the Ideal Home Exhibition. McNish imagined the Bachelor Girl as a “26-year-old… not too flush with money, but with a mind of her own.” Her room, costing £325 (£5,440 today), was designed with flexibility and adaptability in mind.
YAA Projects’ contemporary interpretation of The Bachelor Girl’s Room is for a person of multiple origins and locations. Her home reflects her lived experience, encompassing intertwined histories and cultures. Installed within an existing Grade II* listed interior, the room uses specially designed furniture as mini architectures to create distinct living spaces—like rooms within a room.
The installation invites visitors to consider what dwelling means today and how our rituals and habits are manifested spatially. It reflects on what home means to London’s diasporic communities, considering how their identities can be expressed in contemporary housing and domestic spaces.
Photography: © Luca Bosco & Nicola Tree
Drawings: © YAA Projects
Archival Images: Courtesy of William Morris Gallery & Althea McNish Archives
in collobration with Bushra Mohamed