Archinect - News

2022 World Cup: Amnesty International urges FIFA to reserve at least $440M to remedy abuses of migrant workers in Qatar

2022-05-24T18:48:00-04:00

Human rights group Amnesty International has urged FIFA to earmark at least $440 million to compensate migrant workers who it says have suffered labor abuses in the preparations for the men's 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Amnesty International says the issues, which include unsafe working conditions and excessive hours, are "widespread" in the country.

The organization has reported on the exploitation of the (mostly South Asian) migrant workers on 2022 World Cup job sites in Qatar for some time and is now calling for a symbolic sum to be dolled out to workers and their families as reparations for the decade of deadly abuses and foul labor practices behind the slate of venues that includes designs from Zaha Hadid Architects and Foster + Partners.

Previously on Archinect: "7,000 construction workers will die in Qatar before a ball is kicked in the 2022 World Cup," new ITUC report finds

“FIFA should reserve an amount not less than the US$440 million prize money offered to teams participating in the World Cup, to be invested in funds to support remediation,” the organization’s letter suggested.

FIFA’s President, Gianni Infantino, has maintained the body played an active role in improving conditions for workers, claiming that its efforts had restored “dignity and pride” amongst the two million laborers some have labeled as “slaves.”

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Sharon Prince, visionary force behind Grace Farms, on her career-guiding ethical compass

2022-03-23T16:25:00-04:00

“Think about it. First it was food,” she says, referring to the decades-long push for local, sustainable and ethical eating, as well as reliable sourcing and labeling. “Then came clothing. I’m proposing that shelter will be next.” “Our velocity for good has been established day by day.”

Writer Ted Loos visited the SANAA-designed Connecticut retreat virtually for a profile of founder Sharon Prince, a former fashion retail executive who founded the 80-acre venue in 2009 around the five core principles of nature, the arts, justice, community, and faith.

Prince spoke about her collaboration with new American Academy member and Yale SoA Dean Deborah Berke on a project called Design for Freedom that looks to hold the industry into account for support unethical labor practices by creating a database that is exclusive of firms with a known history of dealing with sordid entities at the front end of the building materials supply chain.

Previously on Archinect: SANAA's Grace Farms “River” building wins latest MCHAP

“At Yale, Sharon provided initial support for a new joint course between the architecture school and the law school that traces the role of forced labor in the building supply chain and seeks to eradicate it from the architectural design process,” Berke explained...

Grace Farms' Design for Freedom movement seeks to eradicate forced labor from the production of building materials

2020-10-28T12:48:00-04:00

Sharon Prince, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Grace Farms Foundation, announced this week Design for Freedom, a new movement to eradicate modern slavery from the built environment by addressing the systemic use of forced labor in the building materials supply chain.

"Examining our building materials supply chain is a moral and legal imperative,” said Prince in a statement. “Almost all modern construction projects are subsidized with slavery, due to unchecked forced labor that permeates thousands of raw and composite materials sourced both locally in the United States and globally. While initial attention concentrated on developing ethical labor practices on construction and job sites, we now seek to extend these regulations to the building materials supply chain, including oversight of sub-contractors, manufacturers, and commodities-level providers in such areas as forestry, fiber, and mining."

Design for Freedom began back in 2017, when Prince and the late Bill Menking, Fo...

Slavery and liberty: A new exhibit explores the Thomas Jefferson paradox

2019-10-23T13:07:00-04:00

The Chrysler Museum of Art on the University of Virginia campus will put on an exhibit entitled "Thomas Jefferson, Architect: Palladian Models, Democratic Principles, and the Conflict of Ideals."

It looks at the Jefferson's influences and ideas around architecture, including displays of models based on his designs, reports Associated Press (AP). On the one hand, Jefferson was a man who sought to create architecture that symbolized "liberty and democracy," but on the other, he used enslaved Americans to construct the very same structures designed to embody these ideals.

"They helped build everything from Virginia's Statehouse—a precursor to the Capital Building in Washington—to the University of Virginia and Jefferson's home of Monticello," writes AP, speaking of Jefferson's use of slave labor.

The exhibit opens this Saturday. It "juxtaposes Jefferson's visions with the realities of slavery." The exhibition catalogue, Thomas Jefferson, Architect, includes contributions from Guido ...

A decade in the making, UVA’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers begins to take shape

2019-10-19T16:10:00-04:00

“The memorial is a circle, a continuous ring never ending, an opening for people to step inside and contemplate, to learn what slavery was about. For the community, I hope it enlightens young and old, and reminds everyone that slavery was a very evil part of our history.”

Members of the University of Virginia share their personal experiences and connections to the currently-under-construction Memorial to Enslaved Laborers that is taking shape on the campus.

The university’s Board of Visitors has chosen an interdisciplinary team to bring the project to life that includes Höweler+Yoon, UVA alumna Mabel O. Wilson; Frank Dukes, past director of the Institute for Environmental Negotiation in the UVA School of Architecture; Gregg Bleam, a UVA-based landscape architect; and the artist Eto Otitigbe.