Archinect - News

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 ...

Craig Dykers on Snøhetta's innovation lessons

2016-12-05T17:31:00-05:00

I’ve been privileged to interview Craig Dykers, founding partner in the extraordinary global architecture firm Snøhetta, on several occasions and walked away each time incredibly inspired by the breadth and depth of their creativity and innovation approaches. [...] Analyzing their innovation process can yield important lessons for companies. Here are some highlights.

The Forbes list of Snøhetta innovation lessons and glimpses into the firm's intercontinental problem-solving process includes flat hierarchies, embrace of contrasts across a variety of sectors, an internal podcast, and celebration of good news, among many others.

Other Snøhetta stories on Archinect:

National League of Cities creates advisory network to help cities deal with sharing economy businesses

2014-09-02T15:58:00-04:00

The National League of Cities announces the formation of a network composed of business, policy leaders and city officials to identify the regulatory challenges posed by the disruptive technologies that power the sharing economy. The Sharing Economy Advisory Network will create and promote model solutions that can be adopted by communities across the nation ... The Network will also look to identify ways that cities can support and encourage the growth of new businesses in this space.

City governments aren't often so nimble when it comes to adjusting regulations related to the "sharing economy". Without formal industry precedents, it's difficult for cities to know how to integrate these new services into preexisting policies, or whether they should be outlawed entirely. So in an attempt to not simply dismiss these services out of hand, or heedlessly let them run wild, U.S. city leaders are putting together The Sharing Economy Advisory Network.

The Network aims to identify problems related to the sharing economy, and model solutions to help cities adapt as new services crop up, ideally learning to use these "disruptors" to maximize local growth opportunities. The sooner cities recognize and prepare for the inevitability of more sharing-economy services, the better. Well-known disruptors like Airbnb and Uber question not only the legal limits of civic intervention, but clash ideals of public interest vs. private economy. And those disputes are far from over. Some sh...