Archinect - News

RIBA sparks outcry from activists by tightening election voting rules for new members

2022-05-12T11:48:00-04:00

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has changed its election rules for the 2022 Presidential election, meaning those who joined the institute after April 23rd are not able to vote. The move, first reported by the Architects' Journal this week, has sparked outrage from a grassroots campaign to elect an architectural worker to the role, who describe the move as an exclusionary tactic.

In the previous RIBA Presidential election, held in 2020, the election rules stated that “the electorate shall comprise the current Members of the RIBA in all categories (save for Honorary Fellows).”

This therefore allowed RIBA chartered members (qualified architects), RIBA associate members (with a Masters qualification in the UK or EU), RIBA affiliate members (with an Undergraduate qualification in the UK), and RIBA student members (currently studying at university), to all cast a vote.

'Architectural worker' Muyiwa Oki chosen to challenge for RIBA presidency

2022-05-06T14:59:00-04:00

Oki, a qualified architect at global construction company Mace, has been chosen by an informal collective of early-career architects, students and architectural activists keen to shake-up the institute and move it beyond ‘empty slogans and self-serving initiatives’.

The campaigning collective behind Muyiwa Oki’s nomination includes grassroots organization Future Architects Front (FAF), past and current RIBA Council members, and RIBA’s Future Architects members.

As previously reported by Archinect, the group announced in March its intentions to put forth a “drama-free RIBA president who enacts positive, ethical and progressive change” as well as someone who would better address issues such as employment rights and climate change. This, the collective believes, would come from an early-career architectural worker who is likely to be more active and connected to these concerns.

Previously on Archinect: A group of UK architects is pushing for youth movement at the top of RIBA’s leadership

Oki, who obtained his Bachelor and Master of Architecture from The University of Sheffield, with previous experience at Grimshaw, will challenge for the position left by current president Simon Allford when his term ends in 2023.

However, he still needs to acqui...

A group of UK architects is pushing for youth movement at the top of RIBA’s leadership

2022-03-24T15:11:00-04:00

Petitioners in the UK are bidding to have an early-career architectural worker elected as the next RIBA president as a change of direction for the 188-year-old organization which they charge as “losing touch with architects, students, and the next generation of talent.”

In an open letter obtained by AJ, the group of signatories, led by Future Architects Network founder Simeon Shtebunaev, the architecture union UVW-SAW, and the Future Architects’ Front, which has been a vocal critic of RIBA’s inability to tackle the industry’s “culture of exploitation” since its inception last year.

“As student loans increase and the length of architecture courses stay the same, people are asking if the unethical working conditions merit the payoff,” RIBA’s VP for students and associates Maryam Al-Irhayim, who is also a co-signer of the letter, told the publication. “There is a lack of job security, too, as seen in the pandemic where most young people were first to be let go.”

Related on Archinect: A...

A UK design firm is in hot water after posting an ad for an unpaid Part II architecture graduate

2022-02-27T13:04:00-05:00

The job ad, posted by design company Zulufish, sought Part 1 and 2 architecture graduates ‘or equivalent’ to work full-time for up to four months without salary. The post was highlighted on social media by Future Architects Front (FAF), a campaign group seeking to end exploitation in architecture, which described it as showing ‘comical levels of exploitation’.

The firm later withdrew the posting after a current of social media backlash brought on by the organization in spite of its having received a “sickening”-ly high level of responses from applicants. The advertisement called for a full-time schedule in a placement that provided only £75 per week in travel expenses and other reimbursements.

Unpaid internships lasting more than four weeks are illegal but remain fairly commonplace around the country in spite of overwhelming public support for recent legislative efforts taken up by Parliament members.

FAF’s Charlie Edmonds criticized RIBA, which then shot back on the group's Twitter thread, for “doing nothing proactive” to address the “grey areas” of employment, adding that “demonstrates one of the many ways that employers can exploit architectural workers, particularly recent graduates desperate for their first professional opportunity.’

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...