Archinect - Features

A Guide to Salary Transparency Laws Across the United States

2024-03-26T08:54:00-04:00

At present, there is no federal pay transparency law in the United States. However, as Archinect frequently reports on, several states and cities across the United States have enacted their own requirements for employers seeking to hire or promote within their organization.

Below, we have listed the details of salary transparency laws across American cities and states as they exist in March 2024. As is noted towards the end of this resource, several more states with no existing requirements are currently in the process of debating or passing legislation to strengthen salary disclosure requirements.

You can help us make architecture salaries more transparent through Archinect’s ongoing salary poll. The poll, currently approaching 20,000 submissions, allows workers from practices across the U.S. and globally to anonymously offer their salary levels.

Creativity Won’t Protect Architects from Automation — But Labor Unions Might

2024-02-27T07:31:00-05:00

The proliferation of generative AI tools such as Midjourney and ChatGPT has undermined long-held assumptions that artificial intelligence would not threaten creative disciplines. In an effort to balance the opportunities and limits of artificial intelligence in the architecture studio, we ask what lessons architects can take from recent successful labor actions by screenwriters and actors in Hollywood's entertainment industry.

This article is part of the Archinect In-Depth: Artificial Intelligence series.

Unionization in Architecture: Reviving a Dormant Movement to Fix a Broken Industry

2022-05-27T12:50:00-04:00

After decades of inactivity, 2022 saw the resurgence of the union movement in architecture with an effort by workers at New York-based SHoP to collectively organize. Where does this effort, which was ultimately withdrawn, sit within the broader discourse of architectural labor conditions? How might unionization impact employer-employee dynamics, architectural fees, and the design process itself?

In search of answers, we speak with IAMAW union organizer, and former SHoP employee, Andrew Daley, who assisted in the unionization effort while at the firm. We also speak with Peggy Deamer, founding member of The Architecture Lobby, for whom the SHoP effort was the culmination of years of activism and campaigning for reform of what an increasing number of architects see as a broken business model.

A Deep Dive Into the Salaries of NYC Architects

2019-11-18T12:52:00-05:00

Defining what constitutes fair compensation represents perhaps one of the most contentious and divisive workplace issues roiling the architectural profession in the contemporary era. Whether it’s the spirited conversations surrounding unpaid and underpaid internship culture, the fight for equal pay regardless of gender, increasing pushes for unionization in architecture and aligned professions, or the popularization of the four-day workweek, the news is heavy with compensation discourse.

Not only that, but views on proper, fair, and equitable compensation vary widely by practice, firm type, and even among managers themselves, fueling uncertainty and secrecy that ultimately does little to help the average employee.

To help lend an element of transparency to these conversations, Archinect initiated the Architecture Salary Poll in 2013 to provide an anonymous forum for architectural workers to list their compensation figures. Over the years, we have collected thousands of submissions...

The Gender Pay Gap in Architecture

2019-10-10T08:00:00-04:00

On both sides of the Atlantic there is a significant pay gap between men and women in architecture. In April 2019, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) issued new guidelines as it emerged that the pay gap in architecture is 15-percent in the UK. According to statistics from 2017, the pay gap is similar in the US, where it is 14-percent, with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) releasing similar guidelines in 2018.

What are the reasons for this, and why is it such a controversial subject?

Is Twitter the architectural intern's unofficial labor union? Exposing the reality behind unpaid internships across borders and industries

2015-06-11T12:15:00-04:00

Social media has been accused of being many things: a time-waster, an intelligence-leveler, a privacy-invader. However, in the field of architectural employment, social media has oddly become a kind of virtual worker’s union, helping to expose unethical hiring practices. A recent leaked email from Japanese firm SANAA advertised an unpaid internship for three months consisting of 12-hour days, 6-7 days a week, with the intern providing his or her own computer and software. Juan Herrera tweeted the email on March 23rd and it quickly garnered extensive press coverage.