to draft perchance to dream, or even better sleep...

Why do we compete? How do we practice architecture as talented and enlightened individuals? How can we in the profession bring forward thinking to our practice rather than just to our designs?

The firm I am employed with recently landed an important project with a private University here in Texas. The job requires our firm to team up with another large firm from San Antonio that is famous for their design work. Prior to landing the job with this design firm, our firm opened the office for a tour. We were asked to be available to be present during the tour to greet the visiting designers. A colleague in the office later related her introduction with one of the famous visiting designers. She explained to me that the visiting designer was told that the north side of the office, where she is located, consists of administrative staff and CA’s and upon meeting my colleague during the tour the designer assumed as he shook her hand that she was part of our administrative staff. She announced that she is actually a licensed architect involved in projects during the construction phase.

As an aspiring architect I admire this architect. She has been involved with the architectural profession for over seven years. Unfortunately my firm lost this architect to another company that offered her more responsibilities and pay when she obtained her architectural license. She is currently working in the role of a project management. My colleague never discussed her pay with me however she did explain that she was surprised to only earn a 3% raise at our firm when she obtained her license. In the office, we often discuss our experience of working in the architectural profession. In these discussions, we have reflected on our architecture school experience. The camaraderie found in the profession exists primarily because of shared sense of being a“survivor” of architecture school.

This leads in to the next question of what is necessary for a productive working environment.This question most certainly pertains to the professional practice as well as the educational environment. In the article, “Why women leave architecture”, the architectural profession is examined in the context of what is the professions’ rate of progress? Is a woman provided opportunity when faced with a class of entirely all male peers in an introduction to architectural design course, does she find her place within the class? Most often, I believe the female student would move on to a different field of study. My sister once faced with this question, determined that architecture did not have a place for her. I have never understood what the profession gains in this outward division among the genders. It is certainly dangerous to risk this isolating practice and what is truly gained by the few who manage to make the crossing across this divide? How could the profession truly benefit from this practice? Architecture suffers from the loss of understanding of the individual; the danger is in perpetuating the cycle of Architecture as a “few good men” and a couple of women. Is the goal to teach acceptance in order to survive in the profession or is it to teach acceptance of the people? How does architecture take responsibility when it develops architects that are hardened and insensitive; how does this provide for better public design solutions?

I learned early on in my undergraduate studies that acceptance is a method of “survival”. There are defining moments in life; I found that my first moment occurred during a lecture class in undergraduate school. I learned in this class that as a female student I would never be asked to participate in after class discussions at the local coffee shop. My professor extended the invitation for coffee to his male students, and specifically excluded the female students. This was disappointing as I respected the professor greatly. During this particular lecture I learned that I may be an architecture student, but I am a female architecture student. This is when I realized I would be expected to make it on my own as an architecture student but I also will be developing as the lone woman in the studio. At this moment it was clear that there was ME and then there would be all of them. I challenge my peers to consider this; how does the exclusion of women in academic discussions in curriculum help the profession or those involved with the profession become comfortable with the notion of equality and the notion of teamwork? A lecture hall of men and women on this day learned that we are not expected to work together. How many women felt their voice quieted on that afternoon?

Is architecture meant for only one type of individual’s experience, or are we employed to design for the public? And in what manner does an architect begin to understand the public as a whole people? During the first position earned after college, during college, prior to college; or is it a conversation that is an open forum in order to make informed and understanding design decisions?

-articles read: from The Guardian, on Zaha Hadid, titled “I do not do nice”

Excerpt:

“In 2006, Hadid is still the world's only major woman architect, by which I mean an architect who will go down in the history books.”There have been some well-known women architects in the US," she says. "But they have always been part of husband-and-wife teams, like Bob Venturi and Denise Scott Brown [who designed the National Gallery's Sainsbury Wing]. There have been very intelligent women architects working in local authorities and government offices worldwide, too. But for a woman to go out alone into architecture is still very, very hard. It's still a man's world

What's more, she says, architecture requires 100% dedication. "If it doesn't kill you, then you're no good. I mean, really - you have to go at it full time. You can't afford to dip in and out. When women break off to have babies, it's hard for them to reconnect on the big scale. And when [women] do succeed, the press, even the industry press, spend far too much time talking about how we dress, what shoes we're wearing, who we're meant to be seeing. That's pretty sad for women, especially when it's written by women who really should know better.

"In another way, I can be my own worst enemy. As a woman, I'm expected to want everything to be nice, and to be nice myself. A very English thing. I don't design nice buildings - I don't like them. I like architecture to have some raw, vital, earthy quality. You don't need to make concrete perfectly smooth or paint it or polish it. If you consider changes in the play of light on a building before it's built, you can vary the colour and feel of concrete by daylight alone.”