Architectural practice needs a significant transformation to respond to the urgent issues of climate change, social and racial injustice, unjust labor practices, and rapidly changing new technologies. If we revisit our professional objectives as architects and embrace a more critical view of our roots, tools, scope, services, and processes, we can be better equipped to dismantle oppressive structures and build a more just future.
The purpose of an architectural license is to ensure that the architect has met minimal competencies to protect the safety, welfare, and health of related personnel (construction workers, MEP professionals, contractors, engineers) and the public. As service professionals, architects are contractually bound to their clients, and also have an ethical obligation, per The American Institute of Architects code of ethics, to the public, to their colleagues, to the architectural profession, and to the environment. To fulfill their obligations, design professionals need to confront design inequities and foster a more inclusive narrative of their obligation. They help do so by centering the experiences of marginalized individuals and groups through storytelling and counterstory-storytelling, through celebrating the inter-sectionality of identities, and through embracing a robust vision of co-creation and collective learning within their practices. As practitioners, educators, and students, we are expected to demonstrate technical competence and critical thinking skills, while simultaneously navigating our political, social, economic, cultural, and environmental contexts. This is no small feat, especially for those minoritized in the profession. The 2020 Baseline on Belonging study by the National Organization of Minority Architects and the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards highlights obstacles faced by minority professionals on the path to licensure, reflecting the lack of diversity in our field. We need to promote a more inclusive profession. But how?
Through collaborations at all stages of an architect’s career, and by having a less self-referential and self-contained set of processes, architects can effect meaningful change. We should embrace multidisciplinary development plans that provide opportunities to build productive coalitions that are also actively included in local communities. It is our responsibility to expose students to inclusive design in the public interest as exemplified in practices like the Detroit Collaborative Design Center at University of Detroit Mercy. Academia can also help us forge interdisciplinary practices. For example, landscape architect Sara Zewde, an assistant professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, engages the legacy of slavery to produce new works at both her New York–based practice, Studio Zewde, and in classroom seminars like “Cotton Kingdom Now,” which wrestled with the legacies of Frederick Law Olmstead and the legacies of slavery in the U.S. In recognizing our role not just as architects but as part of a community of design practitioners responsible for shaping the built environment, we ought to better recognize our collective responsibility to create restorative places for the marginalized.
Architects often see themselves as service-based professionals, limited to being merely reactive. However, we can spark change by preemptively arming ourselves with a critical re-evaluation of the instruments of service and whom they serve. Architectural conventions should be more than supplementary tools for the efficient assembly of building construction. What might we learn by seeing material legends, maps, specifications, and details as tools for radical storytelling? What if architectural conventions demonstrated collaborative, inclusive practices tied to the implementation of new technologies? How might we rethink authorship to serve and include the many communities with the skills and knowledge required to complete a building project? By redefining who we serve, we redefine who we are. When we consider the impact of these new conventions across different phases—from pre-design, to site selection, to post occupancy—we will discover creative means of improving education and practice. These suggestions should not be seen as universal either—there is no universal solution to specific legacies of harm. One only needs to look at London-based Forensic Architecture’s unconventional use of architectural tools to present evidence of human rights violations. To address our ethical concerns, our tools of practice should become increasingly particular to overcome the inadequacy of universalism. One model for this is the Community First Toolkit, a resource provided by Stephen F. Gray in collaboration with Caroline Filice Smith, the Urban Institute, and the High Line Network that park organizations can use to embed equity into public spaces.
As we foster opportunities for co-creation, and nurture our practices and the education of the next generation of practitioners, we can begin to transform our profession. We call upon our fellow architects to join us.
Reviewed by Garnette Cadogan, Albert Chao, Deena Darby, Andrew Hart, Lisa C. Henry, A.L. Hu, christin hu, Joyce Hwang, Justin Garrett Moore, and Scott Ruff.
This article first appeared in the October 2023 issue of ARCHITECT, which was guest edited and designed by Dark Matter U.