Archinect - News

RIBA will explore gender disparities in architecture in major new study

2024-11-01T17:17:00-04:00

This week, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) announced its participation with the nonprofit Fawcett Society in a new study of women architects who are either currently practicing or have left the profession. The study, which is due out next year, aims to establish a clearer picture of the scale and complexity of gender equity in the design field. It will inquire as to the reasons for a stalled rate of progress on the topic given the known barriers that exist and produce an assessment of "what works" and what further actions can be taken by different actors.

RIBA's Chief Executive Dr Valerie Vaughan-Dick states: "Following decades of research, the pace of change remains far too slow compared to other professions, and significant action is still needed. Understanding the barriers to making more rapid progress is critical."

The organization is asking those interested in receiving updates from the study to sign up by visiting this link.

New York City's pay transparency law is about to take effect after six months of delay

2022-10-31T12:11:00-04:00

Starting Tuesday, most employers in New York City will be required by law to post salary minimums and maximums in any open job posting. Almost all job postings online or on signs on storefronts across New York City will be required to list a salary minimum and maximum starting Tuesday. Postings can’t leave the salary open ended, like posting “$15 an hour and up.” Any job that can be performed at least partly in New York City is covered, whether the worker is in an office or working remotely.

The city had previously voted to delay the law from taking effect in May amidst resistance from the business community, which in the end only gained an amendment laden with small concessions. Now first-time offenders will no longer be penalized, though fines for any proceeding non-compliance can be enforced up to $250,000 if the posting is not corrected within 30 days. Industries like construction that are facing labor shortages will not be exempted in spite of the lobbying campaign.

A separate statewide transparency bill is still awaiting Kathy Hochul’s signature after it passed the State Assembly and Senate back in June. Both are considered ‘game changer[s]” for workers and have been lauded for the effort to address gender pay gap across various industries. They join a growing list of states that includes Washington, Maryland, and California who have all passed similar legislation aimed at the issue, which also disproportionately affects women of color and is seen as one of the g...

Foster + Partners, releasing gender pay gap in staff salaries, commits to taking action

2018-03-07T18:24:00-05:00

Despite their recent work creating carbon-fibre roofs of impressive thinness, the UK-based Foster + Partners appears to be less adept when it comes to those made of glass. Releasing their gender pay gap data, the firm revealed yesterday that they have been, not so shockingly, paying women 10.5% less per hour than men—a figure that sits slightly above the country's national average of 9.1%.

In 2017, in an effort to help close the wage gap, the UK began requiring all companies with 250 or more employees to submit gender pay gap data to the government. As the UK's largest architecture practice with 1,450 employees globally., Foster + Partners was one of the many companies obligated to submit their figures, which they have also made public.

According to the firm's analysis, the pay gap is less the result of men and women not being paid equally for equivalent jobs, and more the result of unequal gender distribution across the firm. Senior, higher-paid roles are comprised of a larger pe...

New website champions the remarkable contributions made by 50 pioneering women in architecture

2017-12-20T19:40:00-05:00

Norma Merrick Sklarek was the first African American woman architect to be registered in New York and California. She was also the first black woman to be elected to the prestigious Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and the first female director of Gruen and Associates, where she worked behind the scenes on some their largest architectural projects such as the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, CA. However, despite her immense responsibilities and vital contributions, she was rarely acknowledged on the finished project and you likely weren't taught about her in architecture school.

Seeking to change that, the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation has recently launched a new website that highlights the far too often overlooked history of women in architecture by featuring the stories of 50 trailblazing women, Sklarek included. The website, Pioneering Women in American Architecture, is the culmination of a five-year research effort by the foundation made possible b...

SCI-Arc can't seem to find a single female architect to include in its Spring 2017 lecture series

2017-01-11T17:28:00-05:00

SCI-Arc has announced its Spring 2017 lecture series. And not a single female architect was included in the list. Really, SCI-Arc?

Granted, the roster includes historian and theorist Sylvia Lavin as well as the artist Amalia Ulman—but the lack of a single practicing female architect is pretty striking. In recent years, criticism has been waged at institutions for privileging men when it comes to lecture series, as well as panels, faculty, exhibitions, firms, commissions, wages, and interpersonal relations.

It’s not exactly like there’s a paucity of exceptionally talented women in the field. The Feminist Wall of Shame also took note and posted on the omission.

Why International Women's Day matters (for architects)

2016-03-08T15:45:00-05:00

You’ve probably heard that today is International Women’s Day. But what exactly is it? And why is it important?

For many in the global West, the significance of March 8th is probably a lot less familiar than, say, Mother’s Day. In fact, the holidays originated around the same time, during the early 20th century, at the nascence of struggles for equal rights and suffrage. But unlike Mother’s Day, International Women’s Day has always been explicitly political: a day to both celebrate women and to fight for emancipation.

A first iteration of Women’s Day was organized by the Socialist Party of America in 1909, but its international observance began properly in 1911 with large protests throughout Europe, albeit on different days in the different cities. In 1914, International Women’s Day was held for the first time on March 8. Sylvia Plankhurst, the great British suffragette, was arrested in front of Charing Cross on her way to deliver a speech at Trafalgar Square.

Then, on March 8, 1917, R...

"Women in architecture" vs. "now in architecture": Mimi Zeiger on gender and architecture today

2016-03-01T15:56:00-05:00

For a while I’ve held the belief that identifying oneself as an architect is a kind of drag, a mannered persona donned for effect. How else to describe the clichéd sartorial signifiers: extreme eyewear, black daywear and designer footwear? As the education of an architect is so historically weighted to a canon of male practitioners, theorists and educators, a woman entering the field often operates as a kind of architectural androgyne...

"...we are trained to see world of design through black-framed, male-coloured glasses. Gender differentiation, then, comes with a thorny rhetorical question: ‘What’s the difference?’ If the goal is to recognise talent, experimentation and innovation, there seems no reason to create a binary in the field."

For more articles on issues related to gender-parity and -visibility in architecture, take a look at these links: