Archinect - News

The Architecture Lobby launches a virtual summer program tackling capitalism, labor, and practice within architecture

2021-04-27T13:23:00-04:00

Advocates of social and structural change within architecture and professional practice, the Architecture Lobby has announced the launch of a new online summer program that will address three themes: capitalism, labor, and collective practice.

The Architecture Beyond Capitalism (ABC School), invites students, faculty, practitioners, and members of various publics in all parts of the world to "interrogate the structures and systems of power." Starting on Saturday, June 19, 2021, each theme will be discussed and broken down into a 2-hr live session every Saturday for six weeks. The Architecture Lobby adds, "each theme has two components: debates stimulated by lessons from people whose work is central to the week's theme and salons for discussing the outcomes of design assignments pertinent to that theme."

Image courtesy of The Architecture Lobby

During a time of much-needed reform and the dismantling of inequitable work ethics, the Architecture Lobby has been champions of change withi...

Architecture Lobby expresses solidarity with UK’s architectural assistants

2021-03-24T19:28:00-04:00

The Architecture Lobby, an organization familiar to most of our readers, dedicated to elevating the value of architecture and architectural work, has shared with us a letter they penned in support of the Future Architects Fronts’ open letter to RIBA.

The Future Architects Front is a UK-based campaign that fights to end the exploitation of the next generation of architects. Their letter to the Royal Institute of British Architects has been signed by over 850 "architectural assistants," a UK-specific job title similar to an intern in the US, representing an architectural student or graduate with limited practical experience.

The letter describes the problematic path the licensure/qualification, an issue American architects can surely relate to, and includes the results from a survey they conducted in December 2020. The letter outlines a reasonable list of expectations, including, but not limited to, an end to unpaid overtime, more oversight on the job role, and greater transparen...

The case for a trade union for architects

2019-07-18T18:22:00-04:00

Faced with this level of acquiescence, the case for unionising the profession becomes compelling. As a regulator of working conditions and a protective body for workers, a trade union would force the industry to adapt to healthier working conditions; without these decisions being left to the leading staff and management who are themselves usually under pressure to attain expected productivity levels.

While Eleanor Hill's Failed Architecture piece looks specifically at the missed opportunity of British architects to formally unionize, the argument for organized representation could be applied to the profession on a broader global level.

"The specialisation of labour and consequent creation of more hierarchies in the workplace has also led to an increasingly fragmented and divided workforce," Hill writes.

"Architecture offices today have a myriad of individual workers in different roles: the design-team alone can have five different kinds of architectural professional working on one project, and that’s without considering the many other support staff, such as marketing, human resources, front of house and any premises workers, who contribute to the business. While interpersonal divisions are a bad reason to accept poor working conditions, this extreme fragmentation between different roles may well be one of the factors preventing architecture workers from standing united in their...

Transparent Value; A Conversation with Architecture Lobby's Peggy Deamer and Shota Vashakmadze

2018-08-17T18:30:00-04:00

On this latest issue of the Archinect Sessions podcast Ken, Paul and Donna talk with Peggy Deamer and Shota Vashakmadze, from the Architecture Lobby. For those of you unfamiliar, the Architecture Lobby is a non-profit organization run by and for architectural workers that advocate for the value of architecture to the public, and for the value of architectural work within the industry. The Lobby is rooted in a 10-point manifesto:

Enforce labor laws that prohibit unpaid internships, unpaid overtime; refuse unpaid competitions.
Reject fees based on percentage of construction or hourly fees and instead calculate value based on the money we save our clients or gain them.
Stop peddling a product–buildings–and focus on the unique value architects help realize through spatial services.
Enforce wage transparency across the discipline.
Establish a union for architects, designers, academics, and interns in architecture and design.
Demystify the architect as solo creative genius; no honors for ...

Happy with your employer's architecture labor practices? Nominate your firm in the JustDesign.Us initiative

2017-05-05T15:44:00-04:00

Working toward fairer professional architectural practice is an ongoing uphill climb in the industry, but which practices are already getting it right? The Architecture Lobby recently co-launched an initiative called JustDesign.Us, a certification process to distinguish architecture firms with exemplary labor practices, including fair pay, family-friendly policies, diversity, transparency, and agency.

Certification is a two-stage process. In Stage I, employees who want to nominate their firm will answer an online questionnaire — which The Architecture Lobby, the Yale School of Architecture’s Equity in Design, and the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Women in Design developed. Submissions will remain anonymous.

Image via justdesign.us.

In the second stage, JustDesign.Us will ask the nominated firms corresponding questions that may lead to certification (endorsed by the JustDesign.Us partners and affiliated organizations like SEED, ArchiteXX, and the American Colleges and Schools ...