Archinect - News

A blueprint for women architects to overcome doubt, discrimination

2013-05-02T14:29:00-04:00

Women make up almost half the graduating architecture classes, but only 17 percent of architecture-firm leadership. Even as women have made great strides in the field over the last several decades, that disconnect hasn’t gone away.

Call for Denise Scott Brown to be given Pritzker recognition

2013-03-25T17:18:00-04:00

In a speech prepared for the AJ Women in Architecture lunch, Scott Brown called on her role in Robert Venturi’s 1991 win to be acknowledged retrospectively. Describing it as a ‘very sad’ situation, she said: ‘They owe me not a Pritzker Prize but a Pritzker inclusion ceremony. Let’s salute the notion of joint creativity.’

Olga Felip crowned Emerging Woman Architect of the Year

2013-03-22T13:04:00-04:00

Olga Felip, co-founder of Catalonia-based practice Arquitecturia, has won the prestigious AJ Emerging Woman Architect of the Year award The 32-year-old, who set up the studio with Josep Camps eight years ago, topped the award category open to architects and architectural designers under the age of 40.

Zaha Hadid: Britain must do more to help encourage its women architects

2013-02-17T10:31:00-05:00

In a damning indictment of the prevailing culture of her own profession, Dame Zaha Hadid, the world's leading female architect, says she has faced "more misogynist behaviour" in London than anywhere else in Europe and that things are not improving at all for women in architecture.

Zaha Hadid Honored for Creative Leadership with Aenne Burda Award

2013-01-24T14:21:00-05:00

Earlier this week, Zaha Hadid was presented the Aenne Burda Award for Creative Leadership at the Digital Life Design (DLD) Conference in Munich, Germany. The Award for Creative Leadership honors women for outstanding entrepreneurial and creative achievement.

Yale's "Women in Architecture" reunion examines gender diversity

2012-11-30T11:59:00-05:00

From Friday evening to Saturday afternoon, 180 alumnae and current female students alike will gather at the school to discuss issues such as evolving design practices and the intersection of architecture and activism, School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern said. But the symposium’s larger goal is to allow graduates to share their experiences as women architects, he explained.

Zaha Hadid: 'Being an Arab and a woman is a double-edged sword'

2012-11-15T12:06:00-05:00

Zaha Hadid on growing up in Iraq, getting the architecture bug, and the legacy of her Olympics Aquatics Centre

Glamour Magazine names Zaha Hadid "Woman of the Year 2012"

2012-11-02T12:26:00-04:00

Zaha Hadid is a Woman of the Year because… “She’s an extraordinary force of nature that came out of the blue and whacked us all on the back of the head and said, ‘Wake up, kids, there’s more stuff to do.’ ” —architect Frank Gehry

Architecture + motherhood

2012-10-10T11:38:00-04:00

Parenting is not the only factor affecting women’s engagement in architecture, but for many it is a big challenge. Samara Greenwood tells her story of negotiating architecture and motherhood so far – interspersed with thoughts from friends and colleagues.

Latin America: A New Generation of Women Architects

2012-09-20T16:11:00-04:00

Yet women architects in Latin America — as in North America — continue to confront gender-based inequities. Partly this seems due to entrenched cultural attitudes, and partly to the traditional connections between architecture, engineering and capital, which can make it difficult to progress to a less patriarchal culture of building and design.

Places presents highlights from the exhibition Spaces Through Gender, now on view in San Francisco, with exemplary work by Latin American designers Tatiana Bilbao, Fernanda Canales, Frida Escobedo Lopez, Rozana Montiel, Nora Enriquez, Rocio Romero, Galia Solomonoff, Catalina Patiño and Viviana Peña (of the collective Ctrl G), Ana Elvira Velez, Carla Juacaba, and Sandra Vivanco.

Why Architects Need Feminism

2012-09-12T12:42:00-04:00

For those of us who have long fought for greater diversity in architecture, the slow pace of change is less alarming than the emergence of cynical voices that dismiss the viability of architecture as a profession. At the final Van Alen roundtable, Dagmar Richter relayed the opinion, expressed by some in the field, that the declining status of the discipline is reflected in the growing presence of women in architecture schools — in other words, women are making headway because men are bailing.

Are we really ready to be post-feminist? Inspired by a series of Van Alen Institute roundtables held this spring — and by the alarming attrition rate of women practitioners — Despina Stratigakos advocates for an expanded role for next-wave feminism in architecture and design. Understanding feminism "as a matrix of politically conscious social, spatial and environmental strategies," she argues, could spur us to experiment with new models for a "more sustainable and inclusive architecture culture."

New York Architect Deborah Berke Selected for Berkeley-Rupp Prize

2012-09-11T17:36:00-04:00

Architect Deborah Berke, founder of New York City-based firm Deborah Berke Partners, has been selected as the first recipient of UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design (CED) inaugural 2012 Berkeley-Rupp Architecture Professorship and Prize.

The Berkeley-Rupp Prize will be awarded biannually to a distinguished practitioner or academic who has made a significant contribution to promoting the advancement of women in the field of architecture, and whose work emphasizes a commitment to sustainability and the community.

The Incredible True Adventures of the Architectress in America

2012-09-10T13:47:00-04:00

Let’s mentor a new generation of architects who are as proud to be women as they are proud to be designers. And let’s start by taking back the “architectress,” by infusing that cringe-inducing, condescending, mid-century term of opprobrium with some born-this-way, kick-ass, grrrl-power, retro cool. Imagine Architectress t-shirts and Architectress tattoos, Architectress blogs and Architectress fansites, Architectress flash mobs and Architectress meetups. Imagine Architectress going viral.

Back in the '70s, second-wave feminists were organizing and agitating, forming alternative communities, creating new spatial practices and attempting to pry open what a contemporary reporter called the "exclusively male preserve" of the American architecture profession. Gabrielle Esperdy revisits their "amazing adventures fighting for gender equality" and measures the distance we've traveled since. It's pretty far, she concludes — but not far enough.

women architects: f’ing cool

2012-03-08T13:11:00-05:00

yes, it’s satisfying to denounce nasty old men’s misogynistic ways, but perhaps we need more information about the cool women that were able to work things out. because we are cool, too. f’ing cool.

Our friend Ana María León has things to say in this women's day about women architects. People can say there are no women architects but only architects, then, they are not telling the f'ing truth...