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At the end of last year, we described 2022 as the year that “architecture’s labor movement roared back to life.” In 2023, the movement kept the volume on 'high.' Across the U.S. and internationally, reforms in labor conditions continued from the top down and the bottom up. Throughout the... View full entry
The UK-based salary transparency advocates The Pay 100 have released their latest set of survey data on average salaries across UK firms. Expanding upon last year’s inaugural snapshot of results, the 2023 addition also includes data on unpaid overtime. As reported by the Architect’s... View full entry
New York State’s pay transparency law has come into effect, requiring employers to disclose proposed pay rates. As of Sunday, September 17th, employers with at least four workers must disclose the minimum and maximum annual salary or hourly range of compensation in any advertisement for job... View full entry
A new law is set to take effect in New York City, which will regulate how companies can use artificial intelligence in hiring decisions. Enforcement of NYC 144 will begin on July 5th, 2023, requiring companies using AI software in the hiring process to notify candidates that such software is... View full entry
In any future analysis of architectural workplace conditions, the impact of 2022 cannot be understated. Throughout the year, our editorial played host to a wide variety of labor-related developments in the profession, from top-down efforts to improve salary transparency to bottom-up unionization... View full entry
A UK-based organization dedicated to salary transparency in architecture has published its first snapshot of salary results following hundreds of grassroots submissions. As we reported in October, The Pay 100 is calling on architecture workers in the UK to submit their salaries to the group, who... View full entry
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.
— Gothamist
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... View full entry
A city-appointed evaluation committee heard presentations from the architects on Tuesday and Wednesday, yet the city is declining to make public the identities of the committee’s members. Worse, the committee will prepare a report, but that report won’t be made public. — Chicago Tribune
The highly anticipated international design competition to expand Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has released their shortlist of five proposals from heavyweights Foster + Partners, Studio Gang, Calatrava, SOM, and Fentress. Amidst chatter on the merits of each, questions have been raised... View full entry
At $1 billion, it is the most expensive embassy ever constructed. But its designers say the new American chancery on the Thames River marks a paradigm shift: The U.S. Embassy here will exude openness while hiding all the clever ways it defends itself from attack.
After decades of building American embassies that look brutalist or bland, like obvious fortresses, the soon-to-be-opened chancery in London is a crystalline cube, plopped down in the middle of a public park, without visible walls.
— washingtonpost.com
Image via the U.S. Embassy in London's TwitterThe KieranTimberlake-designed U.S. Embassy in London is preparing for its grand opening on January 16, and the building pleasantly departs from the increasingly common drab 'fortress' chic that American chanceries in cities with heightened risk of... View full entry
Today, the Greater London Authority released a biting investigative report on the Garden Bridge conducted by senior Member of Parliament Margaret Hodge. Last October, Mayor Sadiq Khan formally appointed Hodge to lead the independent review, as part of Khan's promise to investigate the decisions... View full entry
... transparent photovoltaic cells are fundamentally inconceivable, considering that solar panels can develop energy power through a transformation of absorbed protons into electrons [...] light would have to flow unrestrained to the eye, meaning that those protons would have to go wholly through the substance. Therefore what the Michigan State team developed [...] a device that utilize organic salts to take in wavelengths of light that are imperceptible to the human eye. — Next Nature
Seoul-based cinematographer and photographer Nils Clauss put together a new film highlighting the works of esteemed sculptor and installation artist Do Ho Suh. Suh's site-specific pieces play with the boundaries of identity and revolve around the physical and metaphorical malleability of space... View full entry
The Architecture Lobby is an organization of architectural workers advocating for the value of architecture in the general public and for architectural work within the discipline. […]
The Architecture Lobby survey that is being distributed here gathers information that provides evidence for ourselves and for the public about the nature of our work and where we do and do not place value; where we could and should demand respect.
— The Architecture Lobby
UPDATE: Please take the Archinect/Architecture Lobby survey on job satisfaction here.---Frustrated by a lack of professional agency and fair compensation, an organization of architectural workers known as the Architecture Lobby are vying for a renewed critical appreciation of the architecture... View full entry
At the intersection of these two domains – technology and civic life – a small and fascinating sector has been taking root for the last few years. [...]
Together, these types of companies and organizations have loosely come to define "civic tech" – and the potential for a future where technology finally, seamlessly, significantly alters how we relate to government and our neighbors.
— The Atlantic Cities
Not without its growing pains, the U.S. government is slowly learning to effectively use technology to connect to its citizens. The expanding field of "civic-tech" focuses on the sharing and distillation of government data, to grease the bureaucratic wheels and ramp up personal civic engagement... View full entry
