It is with great sorrow that we announce the passing of Susan Francis (AADipl 1976). Here she is remembered by Lynne Walker:
Susan died peacefully on Saturday, 29th April 2017 after a long illness. A product of the AA in the 70s and a strong-minded feminist architect, she was a stalwart of AA XX 100, the current project to commemorate the centenary of women’s admission to the School, and she attended meetings and made an enormous contribution even though she often had to take time out for surgery and recovery. She planned the first AA XX 100 Lecture Series, contributed to the AAXX100/Collections lectures and was on the programme for the conference as a keynote speaker.
In her student years, the AA to her represented an education outside the confines of traditional architectural training, and she flourished in the atmosphere at the School which encouraged a questioning, open attitude to architecture and the role of the architect. After the AA, she developed her interest in the wider context of architecture and the built environment, doing an MA in Cultural History at the Royal College of Art.
Drawing together the strands of theory and practice, Susan Francis became a founding member of Matrix, the architectural co-operative which worked ‘to develop a feminist approach to design through practical projects and theoretical analysis’. With other women at Matrix, she worked on the Dalston Children’s Centre and played a key role in writing the Matrix ‘manifesto’, Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment (1984). Her radical critique of the home and the lay-out of domestic space--that ‘accommodates an introverted family lifestyle, in which household duties are confined to a small space set deep within the plan’--was further challenged by her own family house in Islington, in which she countered the reductive treatment of house design, rethinking social and communal relationships and directing the experience of living together to the ‘world immediately outside’ the isolated nuclear family.
After Matrix and a period as Course Leader of Women Into Architecture and Building at North London Polytechnic (now London Met), Susan Francis moved into healthcare with a strong commitment to high quality design, cutting edge research and good practice as Architectural Lead for the Future Health Network at the NHS Confederation (2001-06); Special Advisor for Health at CABE (2006-11) and founder member of Architects for Health, its Programme Director (2011-present).
Her mantra about work was that the social was equally important to the professional. For all who knew her and worked with her, she will be greatly missed both personally and professionally. She is survived by her three sons.