Archinect - News

Strike at Taubman College and the University of Michigan continues as student workers and staff assistants demand fair wages

2023-04-26T17:52:00-04:00

A group of 40 striking graduate student instructors and staff assistants at the University of Michigan Taubman College have reportedly had their April wages taken from them in response to their participation in a campus-wide movement that has sought improved working conditions and better pay for workers.

The school’s retaliatory move was met with ire, with the strike now going on for nearly a month. Protestors have already been met with police violence and say the University’s latest tactic constitutes an escalation in the midst of bargaining efforts that are, for now, ostensibly stalled.

Solidarity! Here are striking international grads picketing at Taubman College right this moment. Their chants are streaming into the architecture studios. pic.twitter.com/DoPQoretgk
— Grad Employees' Org UMich #OnStrike (@geo3550) April 26, 2023

In an open letter to Taubman's Dean Jonathan Massey, supporters of the strike wrote, “Such retaliation is wrong. Taubman College’s leadership should come ...

The Architecture Lobby's free ABC School is accepting registrations

2022-05-26T19:14:00-04:00

The Architecture Lobby's Academia Working Group has announced this summer's Architecture Beyond Capitalism (ABC) School, building upon last year's focus on Capitalism, Labor, and Collectives. This year's workshop, taking place virtually July 18-23, is structured around the academic "studio" environment.

As the pedagogical setting in which most of an architecture student’s and teacher’s time and resources are focused, studio will be explored as a key site in which to test how organizing and action for change can become foundational in architectural practice and posit other roles for the architect beyond the ‘designer.’ As a beginning prompt, the ABC asks: how do we understand studio to support and encourage activist organization? How might design be taught in ways that do not perpetuate and reproduce capitalist exploitation?

The virtual workshop will ask participants to develop strategies for replacing traditional studios with new models that can contribute to positive change in t...

The Architecture Lobby launches a virtual summer program tackling capitalism, labor, and practice within architecture

2021-04-27T13:23:00-04:00

Advocates of social and structural change within architecture and professional practice, the Architecture Lobby has announced the launch of a new online summer program that will address three themes: capitalism, labor, and collective practice.

The Architecture Beyond Capitalism (ABC School), invites students, faculty, practitioners, and members of various publics in all parts of the world to "interrogate the structures and systems of power." Starting on Saturday, June 19, 2021, each theme will be discussed and broken down into a 2-hr live session every Saturday for six weeks. The Architecture Lobby adds, "each theme has two components: debates stimulated by lessons from people whose work is central to the week's theme and salons for discussing the outcomes of design assignments pertinent to that theme."

Image courtesy of The Architecture Lobby

During a time of much-needed reform and the dismantling of inequitable work ethics, the Architecture Lobby has been champions of change withi...

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...

The Architecture Lobby advocates for “employers to prioritize the health and financial security of architectural workers” amid COVID-19 crisis

2020-03-19T14:59:00-04:00

As the economic and social fall out from the growing novel coronavirus pandemic continues to take shape, The Architecture Lobby (TAL) has published a letter calling on employers to protect the health and welfare of their workers.

The statement, published on the TAL website, implores architecture firms to “prioritize the health and financial security” of their employees during the COVID-19 crisis, while also pushing them to offer paid sick leave, “full healthcare coverage,” and employment flexibility in this time of social distaning and remote work. In addition, the letter argues that firms will need to adopt “new models of interaction and practice” to survive this crisis while warning that the impacts of the pandemic are “predicted to be far worse than the Great Recession of 2008.”

Previously on Archinect: “Architecture Billings Index rose in February. That was then.” AIA's latest Architecture Billings Index numbers paint a positive economic picture prior to the outbreak of COVID-...

UPenn and The Architecture Lobby to livestream "Designing a Green New Deal" symposium

2019-09-12T07:00:00-04:00

This Friday, the University of Pennsylvania will hold Designing a Green New Deal, a day-long symposium aimed at articulating a design perspective for "a still-abstract set of proposals for decarbonizing the economy, eliminating poverty, creating green, working-class jobs, and retrofitting communities for the coming effects of climate change."

The day-long event features a series of panel discussions made up of some of the leading voices in the climate, sustainability, labor, and design communities, including Peggy Deamer of The Architecture Lobby, landscape architect Kate Orff of SCAPE, and Billy Fleming, director of UPenn's Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism + Ecology.

A description for the event, which will be livestreamed below, says, "Domestically, a Green New Deal would constitute a generational investment in planning and design, reshaping the social and physical landscape of the U.S. in ways matched only by the Industrial Revolution, New Deal, and postwar suburban boom. But th...

Architecture: Professional calling or exploitative trap?

2019-08-19T18:30:00-04:00

The myth of the calling obscures the role of architectural support staff and encourages architects to surrender their workers’ rights. It stands in the way of solidarity between all architectural workers.

Writing in Failed Architecture, Marisa Cortright unpacks how the sense of unwavering duty implied by the architecture profession’s persistent reliance on hero myths and the idea of architecture as a calling undermines both the individual and collective interests of architectural workers, including those of non-architects like the administrative, finance, legal, public relations and business development professionals often employed by architecture firms.

Architects continue to speak out against border security construction projects

2019-08-15T18:00:00-04:00

The Architecture Lobby, a national group that organizes and advocates on issues related to the profession, published a call for design professionals to sign a public pledge condemning “all policies that use the built environment as an instrument of torture and oppression” and refusing to work on any project—be it an ICE office, a detention facility, or a wall—related to the Trump administration’s policies on immigration.

After the devastating and inhumane conditions detained individuals at the border have experienced in recent few years, groups of architects and organizers are increasingly speaking up against design projects relating to border control. As Fast Company's Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan points out, "someone designed each of these spaces, of course."

Since May, over 52,000 people have been detained at these border control sites, and close to 1,000 children have been separated from their families, according to the article. Ethical practices between architects and large firms vary, unfortunately. Border security has grown to be a highly lucrative market. However, several members of the design community are taking a stand to boycott any projects involved with the Trump administration's plans for detainment centers.

In July, The American Institute for Architects (AIA) issued a statement discussing the buildings at the border. Since their statement was published, many members of the architectur...