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.”

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