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On July 26th, voting closes for the election of the next RIBA president. When the winner commences their two-year term as president on September 1st, 2023, they will be confronted with a list of burning issues across the UK’s architectural profession; and will be expected to publicly lead a... View full entry
The job ad, posted by design company Zulufish, sought Part 1 and 2 architecture graduates ‘or equivalent’ to work full-time for up to four months without salary.
The post was highlighted on social media by Future Architects Front (FAF), a campaign group seeking to end exploitation in architecture, which described it as showing ‘comical levels of exploitation’.
— AJ
The firm later withdrew the posting after a current of social media backlash brought on by the organization in spite of its having received a “sickening”-ly high level of responses from applicants. The advertisement called for a full-time schedule in a placement that provided only £75 per... View full entry
The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has released a statement reaffirming its opposition to unpaid internships in architecture as well as offering advice for how firms and students can help combat the issue. Under NCARB’s licensure rules, employers are required to... View full entry
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... View full entry
A lecture at MIT that was to be given by the Japanese architect Junya Ishigami has been cancelled following revelations that Ishigami's Tokyo-based studio was relying on unpaid interns—a controversy that has prompted wide discussion and raised questions over the value of labor in architecture. ... View full entry
A few weeks after being commissioned to design the 2019 Serpentine Pavilion, Junya Ishigami + Associates and the Serpentine Galleries are now under fire after it emerged that the big-name firm uses unpaid interns in Japan, the Architects' Journal reported today. An email sent by Junya Ishigami... View full entry
Last week we witnessed the loss of Dame Zaha Hadid, one of architecture's most formidable and prolific talents. We'll be devoting a later podcast episode to remembering her and honoring her work. Until then, we'll continue catching you up with the most significant architecture news from the past... View full entry
The Center for Emerging Professionals introduces a campaign dedicated to informing all generations of architects about the value Emerging Professionals bring to the field and the importance of getting paid for internship hours. — aia.org
Responding to ongoing debates regarding unpaid internships and the devaluing of the profession, the AIA has launched a new educational campaign called "Know Your Worth", to inform and publicize how architects should value themselves in today's profession.In a pair of videos introducing the... View full entry
Employers have considerable leeway to use unpaid interns legally when the work serves an educational purpose... — New York Times
Writing for a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Judge John M. Walker Jr. held that the Labor Department’s criteria were both out of date and not binding on federal courts.He argued that the proper way to determine workers’ status was to apply a... View full entry
A student was underpaid almost $7000 during an internship with a Sydney firm of architects, a Fair Work Ombudsman investigation has found. The student was completing a masters degree in architecture when he was paid $12 per hour for six months of full-time work. His duties included architectural drawing, consulting with clients and and conducting site visits...the student, aged in his 20s,... was short-changed $6830. — smh.com.au
According to Australian labor laws, the student was performing work that was not part of his architectural education and should have received minimum wage payment. Australia's minimum wage is $16.88 (in comparison, the US minimum wage is currently $7.25/hr) and after the student's graduation his... View full entry
Proponents of unpaid internships say the jobs help aspiring professionals get on-site experience and résumé entries that can spur their careers. Detractors insist that unpaid positions exploit workers, take jobs from would be entry-level employees, favor the privileged who can afford to make no money, and perhaps most importantly, break longstanding labor laws... employment defense lawyers are increasingly advising clients to start paying interns at least the minimum wage... — forbes.com
... the Labor Department established a six-point test for circumstances in which aspiring workers in need of skills, like trainees and interns, don't have to be paid.
Must be similar to training you'd get at a school
Must be for the intern's benefit
Must not take the place of other, paid, employees
Must provide the employer "no immediate advantage"
Must not necessarily be entitled a job after the internship
Must be understood by both the employer and intern to be unpaid
— vox.com
“Any time you post an ad for an unpaid internship, you’re writing ‘Poor people need not apply’ in big letters at the top,” says Mikey Franklin, founder of the Fair Pay Campaign to end unpaid internships.
If the fairness argument hasn’t been persuasive, the threat of lawsuits has been. Magazine publisher Condé Nast just settled a suit brought by some of its former unpaid interns. Rather than start paying, the company shut down its internship program altogether.
— marketplace.org
Previously View full entry
Call them members of the permanent intern underclass: educated members of the millennial generation who are locked out of the traditional career ladder and are having to settle for two, three and sometimes more internships after graduating college, all with no end in sight. — The New York Times
Amelia Taylor-Hochberg, Editorial Manager for Archinect, traveled to Aedes Network Campus Berlin as a fly-on-the-wall, and reported back with 7 Lessons from the 3rd International Architectural Education Summit. These were; 1) The relevancy of the “Architect” is fleeting, 2) Kids... View full entry
