Archinect - News

ACSA issues joint statement on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion censorship in education

2023-09-21T17:39:00-04:00

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) has joined its sibling organizations in landscape architecture and planning in opposing the concerted efforts of far-right lawmakers to prevent the inclusion of race and racism topics into curricula in states including Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, South Dakota, and Virginia.

"This united declaration stands as a strong objection to the legislation that silences educators from sharing the histories of the architectural profession. Practitioners, educators, and students must be granted access to the complete narrative. Being privy to only a portion of the story significantly disadvantages us all," Mo Zell, the 2023-24 ACSA President, said in a statement.

"The boards of directors of the three organizations representing university programs and educators in architecture, landscape architecture, and planning — ACSA, CELA, and ACSP, — jointly communicate our opposition to any legislation that prevents educators from teaching and shari...

New study predicts that Black communities will be disproportionately impacted by climate change-induced flooding by 2050

2022-02-02T15:11:00-05:00

Black communities will be disproportionately saddled with billions of dollars of losses because of climate change as flooding risks grow in the coming decades, according to research published Monday.

According to U.S. and U.K.-based researchers in a new study within the journal Nature Climate Change, not only will the annual cost of flooding across the U.S. reach $40 billion by 2050, but predominantly Black communities will be the most impacted. The findings were obtained by modeling flood risk through 2050 and mapping this over recent census data focused on race and poverty.

With clear linkages between levels of climate risk and race in the U.S., the study found that by 2050, the top 20 percent of proportionally Black census tracts will have twice the flood risk as the 20 percent of areas with the lowest proportion of Black residents.

Former students complain of racism and sexism at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture

2021-06-02T11:47:00-04:00

21 former students of UCL (University College London) have voiced complaints over alleged sexism and racism at the Bartlett School of Architecture. The complaints, first reported by The Guardian, stretch back over a decade. The ex-students' complaints include inappropriate comments on race and appearance, which they describe as “systemic” within the school.

The stories of the 21 ex-students were compiled into a dossier by former student Eleni Kyriacou and shared with the Guardian, who subsequently spoke to several recent graduates. Stories told by the graduates include one who said staff were “damaging primarily female students.” The graduate, of south Asian descent, claims that a staff member told a fellow student he could not tell that the graduate was “brown” as “she acted and spoke like a white person.”

Previously on Archinect: NOMA leadership echoes the need to 'fight all systems of bias, oppression, and prejudice' following the guilty verdict in the Chauvin trial

Another st...

Lee Bey reminds us of the beauty and importance of Chicago's Black Churches

2021-02-08T16:54:00-05:00

Photographer, writer, and lecturer Lee Bey has used his experience as a Chicago native to help uncover, highlight, and preserve the historical significance and importance of architecture within Black communities. In 2017 Bey showcased Southern Exposure, an exhibition at the Chicago Architecture Biennial consisting of photographs of buildings located on Chicago's South Side.

After years of documenting, Bey has created a deeper meaning behind these buildings. The images he's captured are reflections and visual narratives of his perspectives and viewpoints behind the camera lens. In tandem with his exhibition, Bey published his book Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago's South Side. Previously covered on Archinect, he shared in conversation with Iker Gil that "The exhibition and the book grew up together [...] The idea was to not make the book an exhibition book, but to use the exhibition as inspiration and to go beyond the show and showcase more buildings and pla...

Charles L. Davis II discusses an "antiracist framework for architectural history"

2020-11-03T18:14:00-05:00

2020 has stirred up architectural discourse as practitioners, academics, and students address racial and social inequality within the industry. With the turbulent Summer months sparking the nation to mobilize and bring social and racial justice to the forefront, academic institutions have used their Fall lecture series as a way to bring these discussions to light within their campus community.

Earlier this October, Harvard GSD invited Charles L. Davis II, assistant professor of architectural history and criticism at the University of Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning. As a designer, architectural historian, and cultural critic, his work focuses on racial identity and race thinking related to architectural history and contemporary culture. In his lecture, "Cannon Fodder: Debating the Racial Politics of Canonicity in Modern Architectural History," Davis presented a series of physical and textual case studies that re-examine architecture's understanding of "western canon to ...

Get Lectured: University of Waterloo, Fall '20

2020-10-28T15:50:00-04:00

University of Waterloo School of Architecture shares their Fall lecture series and its emphasis on solidarity. According to the school, their 2020-2021 Waterloo Architecture Arriscraft Speaker Series What is Solidarity? asks: how can architects participate in collective, long-term social movements for change and advocate within and beyond professional obligations?"

Archinect's ongoing Get Lectured series features each school's lecture series and their graphic design prowess with graphic lecture posters.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

The school's online lecture series goal is to bring three speakers for each set of conversations as they dive into topics of Land Back, Disability Justice, Abolition, Right to Remain, Anti-Extractivism, and Food Sovereignty. Unique to their series is discussions will be linked to student-led workshops to "facilitate deeper conversations about how solidarities might re...

Archinect Sessions #159: On Racial Inequality in AEC, with Karen Compton

2020-09-28T16:15:00-04:00

On today’s episode of Archinect Sessions Donna and I are joined by Karen Compton, a Los Angeles-based business consultant, business owner and podcast host.

As the Principal at A3K Consulting, Karen oversees a team of professionals to help clients in the AEC industry grow and improve their businesses applying strategy, business planning, education, training and recruitment. Her vodcast, Breaking the Silence of Design, started just 2 months ago, with co-host Gabrielle Bullock, Director of Global Diversity at Perkins & Will Architects, as a platform to address the uncomfortable conversations around race and inequality in the AEC industry.

Listen to episode 159 of Archinect Sessions, “On Racial Inequality in AEC, with Karen Compton”.

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Minneapolis, Tackling Housing Crisis and Inequity, Votes to End Single-Family Zoning

2018-12-14T00:36:00-05:00

In a bold move to address its affordable-housing crisis and confront a history of racist housing practices, Minneapolis has decided to eliminate single-family zoning, a classification that has long perpetuated segregation.

Jeanne Gang closed the pay gap at her firm and urges others to do the same

2018-07-05T15:40:00-04:00

Achieving pay equity is a foundational act of building an environment in which creativity can flourish. Taking the first step toward equality via pay empowers us to move forward, together, to address the more complex challenges that await. Comprehensive, math-based tools are available to assess the problem. Let’s put them to work. Follow the money (or lack thereof), and fix pay inequity now.

Jeanne Gang's firm Studio Gang recently scrutinized their office for any existing pay gap. She explains that despite their prioritization of equality there was in fact a small gender pay gap in their office.

Using her own practice as an example, Gang urges every architecture studio to go through the same process. Gang calls for other firms to "use the assessment tools, determine where you are, and make the needed adjustments" citing this step as the the easiest and most concrete way to correct inequality in the workplace.

Celebrating Architecture: new film promotes diversity in architecture education and the profession at large

2018-07-03T18:22:00-04:00

Nearly 94% of British architects are white, despite 14% of the UK population being of a black and minority ethnic background. [...] Warren is featured [...] in a new film due to premiere at the Royal College of Art (RCA) this month. Celebrating Architecture, which aims to encourage diversity in the profession, will be accompanied by architecture workshops for around 80 pupils from communities under-represented in the profession.

The Celebrating Architecture initiative is co-lead by Venetia Wolfenden of the education and architecture consultancy Urban Learners together with design and technology school teacher, Neil Pinder. The film is scheduled to launch this month at London's Royal College of Art, hosted by The Architecture Foundation, in conjunction with two architecture workshop days for local children and teens from communities that have traditionally not been encouraged enough to pursue a career in architecture.

NCARB releases current data on diversity in architecture

2018-06-21T15:25:00-04:00

The NCARB has recently released new data outlining the current state of diversity within the architecture field. The results show that while diversity among licensure candidates is improving, the rate at which non-white individuals are discontinuing their pursuit of licensure remains high. Findings also show that gender equity remained largely unchanged over the past year, with women still underrepresented in the field.

Racial and ethnic diversity along career stages. Image: NCARB 2018 diversity report.

“NCARB has spent the past several years updating and aligning our programs to remove unnecessary burdens while maintaining the rigor needed to protect the public,” said NCARB CEO Michael Armstrong. “A key area for us to address is identifying how pinch points along the path to licensure may vary for candidates from different backgrounds.”

Take a look at the NCARB's full report here.

Prop and Property: The House in American Film

2017-12-19T18:50:00-05:00

Cinema heightens the ambivalent but powerful pleasure we take in looking at property. The private property of the house is already a spectacle, of course, as the house is a medium for making visible the wealth of its owners and inhabitants. In a movie theater, this spectacular function is multiplied.

A history of the house in American cinema might well begin with Gone with the Wind, a film that is fascinated with the loss, acquisition, and consolidation of private property; and To Kill a Mockingbird, a putatively antiracist film whose production history is actually an archive of racist urban development. The houses in these pictures tell stories about property that the films do not mention, but cannot cease from showing.

Spatializing Blackness: Milton Curry on black aesthetics and urbanism

2017-12-11T15:05:00-05:00

Architecture, like contemporary art in the 1990s and legal theory a decade before, faces a critical moment in theory and practice. What do black citizens of major U.S. cities and global cities have to look forward to in the coming century in terms of urban conditions and their agency in determining how these conditions change and transform? What does an approach to cities that takes into account black agency, social codes and aesthetics have to offer to city-making as such?

CNN Style highlights USC architecture dean and CriticalProductive editor, Milton S. F. Curry, and his recent role as lead organizer behind Spatializing Blackness, a three-part panel discussion on "contemporary thinking and creative work related to black aesthetics, urbanism and the lived experiences of black bodies" at Design Miami 2017.

Listen to the Rethinking the City Through Blackness/ discussion from December 6, featuring David Adjaye, Amanda Williams, and Germane Barnes, below (click here for the full list of the 2017 Design Talks program).

Archinect also recently interviewed Curry — one month into his new deanship — as part of our ongoing Deans List series.

How one architect is fighting for diversity in the field

2017-08-22T14:47:00-04:00

The project, called Paper Monuments, will entail a series of posters plastered all over the city that detail the people, places, events, and movements of the city’s 300-year history. “When we make decisions that do embody hatred, whether we mean to or not, it allows for society to grow along those frameworks. Our job should be to acknowledge them and counteract them and produce things that elevate the welfare of the constituents that we serve.”

“It’s not simply about the ways individuals hold onto ideology, but it is more so about the way individuals embed their ideology into the spaces and places we all frequent. For us the Paper Monuments project is still rooted in the fact that these symbols of oppression need to be countered by symbols of those people who’ve fought against that oppression.”

Bryan C. Lee Jr., a New Orleans-based architect, has been working on increasing representation in the field and fighting the inequalities that architecture perpetuates because of that lack of diversity. Formerly the director of place and civic design at the Art Council of New Orleans, Lee formed his own design-firm-cum-nonprofit Colloqate Design to coalesce his efforts to fight the racism embedded in the built environment. In addition to that, Lee started a local chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects in NO and another one at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he received his masters degree in archite...

UT Austin's architecture school begins new initiative focused on "race, gender, and the American built environment"

2016-09-09T18:06:00-04:00

The effort aims to facilitate diversity among design and planning professionals and students, and foster innovation in teaching and research on race, gender and inequality in American cities. Partially funded by the university’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, the initiative will ensure that the School of Architecture is on the leading edge of scholarship and practice regarding these important issues.

More on race and gender in architecture:

5 myths about gentrification, according to a GSAPP urban planning professor

2016-06-06T12:57:00-04:00

my research shows that longtime residents aren’t more likely to move when their neighborhood gentrifies; sometimes they’re actually less likely to leave [...] In a 2009 study, I found that gentrifying neighborhoods are more racially diverse than non-gentrifying ones. [...] To be sure, market forces help change commerce in gentrifying neighborhoods. But often lurking behind the “invisible hand” are activists and policymakers who wish to nudge the market to produce certain outcomes.

Lance Freeman's research at GSAPP focuses on issues related to gentrification, affordable housing, and race. Watch the Washington Post's video below, summing up the myths:

Related on Archinect:

Editor's Picks #447

2016-06-05T16:03:00-04:00

Julia Ingalls wrote about architectural solutions, four major U.S. cities have used, to address homelessness. no_form quipped "Giving homeless people housing solves homelessness. Wow, fucking brilliant. Took long enough to recognize the obvious."

Plus, Nicholas Korody previewed Anupama Kundoo's "Building Knowledge" and examined "Sarajevo Now" as part of Archinect’s 2016 Venice Biennale coverage.

News
The Guardian provided a First look: inside the Switch House. The new "arresting brick ziggurat" for Tate Modern's. jla-x, commented "Those stairs are beautiful."

The news that Swiss architect Simon Kretz is the lucky protégé who will get to work with David Chipperfield in a year-long architecture mentorship (from the 2016-17 Rolex Arts Initiative), kickstarted a discussion about diversity, "white male shit...." and mentoring vs patronage. Marc Miller paused to put things in perspective, via an amazing podcast with Mabel Wilson from Columbia. "The were some crazy points brought up, like the...

U.S. Transportation Secretary Foxx on the troubled relationship between infrastructure and race: "We ought to do it better than we did it the last time"

2016-04-28T13:53:00-04:00

As a child, Anthony Foxx knew he couldn’t ride his bike far from home without being blocked by a freeway. By the time he became U.S. transportation secretary he understood why. “We now know — overwhelmingly — that our urban freeways were almost always routed through low-income and minority neighborhoods, creating disconnections from opportunity that exist to this day,” [...] “I really believe that this is an issue that has been on the shelf collecting dust for a long time,” Foxx said.

Why Zaha Hadid's gender and ethnicity mattered so much

2016-04-05T13:29:00-04:00

"It's a triple whammy," [Hadid] told the BBC Radio 4 in February. "I'm a woman, which is a problem to many people. I'm a foreigner — another problem. And I do work which is not normative, which is not what they expect. Together, it becomes difficult." Like any high-profile architect, Hadid was expected to produce strong, functional designs. But as a woman, she also faced the added pressure of having her work interpreted as some sort of gender statement.

Housing mobility vs. America's growing slum problem

2015-08-14T15:15:00-04:00

If America decides to take on its growing slum problem, people will need to think hard about how to do so. Mobility programs are proven to work for the families who move, but what happens to the neighborhoods that people leave? Can affordable-housing projects in low-income areas also help poor families succeed, or are they doomed to fail their residents, no matter how nice they are, because of where they are located?

Related on Archinect:

Surprise! Architecture is still among the whitest professions in America

2015-06-30T15:12:00-04:00

Eight out of every 10 lawyers are white. Social scientists and architects are probably in need of some diversity too.

The Atlantic has put together an informative interactive chart detailing the racial compositions of some of America's least diverse professions. As expected, architecture still ranks high up with 77.7% Whites — a much discussed phenomenon here on Archinect.

We want to hear from you: Have you been seeing an increase in diversity in architectural practice and education?

With gentrification, the end of racial segregation moves into LA's Highland Park neighborhood

2015-03-23T14:16:00-04:00

For years, our family journeys have taken us from our hillside home, in the multiethnic Mount Washington district of northeast Los Angeles, into the flatlands of the Latino barrios that surround it. My wife, Virginia Espino, who is Mexican-American, knows these neighborhoods well, especially the community called Highland Park. [...] “I saw them all move out,” my wife said one day, referring to the neighborhood’s white residents. “And now I’m watching them move back in.”

U of M architecture dean encourages minority high school students to storm barriers in a field dominated by white males

2014-11-17T13:29:00-05:00

Monica Ponce de Leon, a leading American architect proud of being a Hispanic woman in a field long dominated by white men, wants to change the face of her profession. [...] agreed to conduct a class earlier that day for juniors from John Hay High School - the vast majority of whom were black. Ponce de Leon, dean of the Taubman College of Architecture and Planning [...], wanted to inspire the students to enter a field in which the vast majority of practitioners don't look like them.

Denver's Union Station is lacking diversity and local critic places the blame on the architecture

2014-10-23T12:54:00-04:00

Let's start with the building itself, the actual architecture. Union Station is a neo-classical mix of styles — European styles. The symmetry, arched windows, ornate cornice and stacked, stone walls have their roots in the glory days of France, England, Greece and Rome, in empires that were nearly absent of ethnic minorities and who felt fully at ease invading, exploiting and actually enslaving the people of Africa, subcontinent Asia and South America.

Gentrification and the Persistence of Poor Minority Neighborhoods

2014-08-07T13:26:00-04:00

When we talk about why some places gentrify and others don't, there's often a pressing, underlying question at stake: To what degree is gentrification bound up with and shaped by race? This is the subject of a path-breaking new study by Harvard doctoral student Jackelyn Hwang and urban sociologist Robert Sampson published in the August issue of the American Sociological Review.

The Forgotten History of L.A.'s Failed Freeway Revolt

2014-07-23T14:34:00-04:00

The story of Boyle Heights reminds us that urban highway teardowns don't always end in victory. [...] "What we don't know, however, is the story of the losers, the urban men and women who fought the freeway, unsuccessfully, on the conventional terms of political struggle, who weren't able to pack up and move on, and who channeled expressive cultural traditions to register their grievances against the presence of unwanted infrastructure."

Apartheid ended 20 years ago, so why is Cape Town still 'a paradise for the few'?

2014-04-30T14:16:00-04:00

The South African city is World Design Capital 2014, yet residents of Khayelitsha township live in cramped, unhygienic conditions. The need for long-promised urban reform is urgent. [...] “Cape Town is a paradise for the minority, but I could hope for a city where everyone has access to the same opportunities that I have,” says Wolff. “Mandela may have postponed revolution – but for how much longer is the question.”

Lost in the Gallery-Industrial Complex

2014-01-19T16:45:00-05:00

Not long ago, these questions — of policy but also political and ethical questions — seemed to be out there on institutional tables, demanding discussion. Technically, they may be there still, but museums seem to be most interested in talking about real estate, assiduously courting oligarchs for collections, and anxiously scouting for the next “Rain Room.” Political questions, about which cultures get represented in museums and who gets to make the decisions, and how, are buried.

And on the subject of integration, why, in one of the most ethnically diverse cities, does the art world continue to be a bastion of whiteness? Why are African-American curators and administrators, and especially directors, all but absent from our big museums? Why are there still so few black — and Latino, and Asian-American — critics and editors?

Political art brings me back to where I started, with artists, and one final, baffled complaint, this one about art schools, which seem, in their present fo...

Bridge Over Troubled Waters - Open Letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio

2014-01-07T12:11:00-05:00

Mayor de Blasio, your idea of a mandate for inclusionary zoning begins to address this crisis yet continues to depend on the tender mercies of private developers to actually produce the units. If you are going to tax them, why not collect the money, municipalize the program, and make gorgeous, genuinely affordable housing your greatest legacy, building it where it's most needed? We can do it! -Michael Sorkin

Dear Mayor Bill de Blasio:

Along with many other architects and urbanists, I'm looking forward to your taking office this month as mayor of New York City, and working to implement the theme of your campaign, the elimination of the increasingly radical disparities that underlie that “tale of two cities” you so frequently spoke about—a tale, increasingly, about two nations. While this program of social equity must operate in many spheres—from the creation of jobs to the provision of services, to the fight for environmental and social justice—planning the physical city in its growth and transformation is one of the most important powers of municipal government, one that the Bloomberg administration has deployed with stark effectiveness...

A profession almost as white as the walls.

2013-11-07T09:46:00-05:00

"The differences in unemployment rates, participation rates, and average earnings between whites, blacks, and Hispanics aren't just stark. They're also sturdy, rarely yielding over the last 40 years. Whites account for about 81 percent of the workforce. But there are 33 occupations counted by the BLS (particularly those on farms, around heavy machines, in doctor's offices, and in C-suites) where whites officially account for nine in ten of all workers, or more. Here they are."

while my own experience doesn't fully bear this out, it's sadly not surprising to see us end up on a list like this (if the numbers are true). in short, yes, it seems fully plausible that our profession is really as white as the walls we paint.

i'm not teaching on a full time basis any more - can people please give me some hope that the generations coming through reflect a little more color variation? pretty please?