[ad_1]
FAME Collective founder Tumpa Husna-Yasmin Fellows told Dezeen in this interview that people of color and women working as architects are often actively discouraged from following their design instincts.
The researcher, an educator at Central Saint Martins University in London and co-founder of Our Building Design, believes that some architects in senior positions limit design responsibilities to themselves and underestimate the skills of people from different backgrounds.
“A lot of it depends on the ego and who represents the design or the brand,” Fellowes said. “Women often don’t get this experience or responsibility, and if they do, they don’t get the right recognition.”
“It’s really good for business to have a diversity of skills and talent, otherwise you only get one design. This is where architects can have conflicting opinions because those in power want to stick to their one design. Way. “
Fellows is the founder of the Female Architects of Minority Ethnic (FAME) Collective, an architectural community organization. The group recently launched an exhibition aimed at showcasing the experiences of minority women in architectural academia and professional practice.
The exhibition, held in the library of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) London headquarters, draws on lived experience and data collected by the FAME Collective as part of a research project titled ‘Revealing architectural barriers from a FAME perspective’.
RIBA-funded research aims to highlight the adversity faced by ethnic minority women in architecture and hold institutions to account.
Researchers explain that people face a number of “barriers” to becoming architects in the UK, which are common to many people but disproportionately affect women and ethnic minorities.
According to the researchers, as part of the FAME Collective study, multiple minority women came forward to say they were barred from participating in hands-on design.
“We heard from some really established female practitioners in large practices talking about the idea of who could be in design because it’s very much dominated by people at the top and they’re often men,” she explains. The act of design is a privilege and a power that is political in architecture.”
“Even if some women are allowed to design, they don’t get credit because the designs are filmed and presented by male directors.”
“If their design uses a lot of color, or the design represents their cultural heritage, they’re told that’s not the way architects should do it, or that the language is unacceptable,” Fellowes said.
She believes this is a disservice to architecture studios, which should embrace a wide range of design talent and styles by hiring people from diverse backgrounds.
“We’re not celebrating the diversity of skills in architectural practice,” she said.
Researchers believe this frustration is also present in architectural education, as multiple ethnic minority architecture students have come forward to say they were advised not to include parts of heritage in their programmes.
She claims students often lack academic support to engage in topics related to their cultural heritage.
“One of the barriers we keep hearing is that architectural education needs to be decolonized, transformed or expanded, and that there should be alternatives to other ways of teaching,” Fellowes said.
“For example, some of our participants described feeling frustrated, or being unsupported by tutors and academic staff, when they tried to do a design project that responded to their cultural heritage or a discourse they were interested in that reflected their identity. There were Sufficient knowledge or interest to support them.”
Research by FAME Collective found that numbers of black and Asian students fall between qualification stages, with white people making up the vast majority of registered architects.
“One of the most striking pieces of data we found was that between parts one and two and between parts two and three, large numbers of black and Asian students dropped out entirely,” Fellows said.
“For the third part, we looked at registered architects – 83% are white, 71% are male, so it’s very much dominated by white males.”
FAME Collective has contributed to plans by the Architects Registration Board (ARB) to introduce an alternative route to becoming an architect to the current three-part structure, aiming to minimize the financial burden on students.
It will involve removing the current requirement for an ARB recognized bachelor’s degree (Part 1) and allowing students with a relevant degree or professional experience to go on to become UK registered architects.
Fellows believes this more flexible structure, which the ARB plans to fully implement by September 2027, will help diversify the profession and allow people to earn money in practice while completing their training.
“The work we do with the ARB has informed recent policy changes on how to become an architect,” Fellowes said.
“It relieves some of the financial burden on some students because that’s another huge barrier for the people we interviewed as well — it’s not just gender and race, but class and your financial situation.”
Researchers believe that while many professions experience institutional discrimination against minority women, the construction industry has a particularly strong culture in which white men are seen as puppets above those from different backgrounds.
“As a society, we’re kind of regressing,” she said. “We still respect and celebrate the image of white architects.”
“It’s a social change and it’s a change of attitude and culture that’s necessary for things to happen.”
Fellows said that to drive change in the industry, construction company leaders should attend diversity events and learn from those who have been affected by discrimination.
She suggested that bodies like the RIBA could do more to ensure equality and diversity in architecture.
“The RIBA would be an excellent organization to make it mandatory for at least one practice management member to attend such an event at least once a year and commit to coming back and telling us what changes you have made to remove the barriers faced by under-represented architects,” “said the researcher.
“There are lots of ways the RIBA can help with this and I guess they are trying to do that, but I don’t think there are the right people in the room to be part of the conversation.”
“There should be communication and dialogue between those who are affected and those who can make a difference,” she added.
While she emphasizes that FAME Collective’s work needs to reach out to people in power to have a significant impact on the architecture industry, Fellows also hopes the group’s exhibition is a space where minority women feel welcome and represented.
FAME Collective plans to tour the exhibition and is looking for venues outside of London to reach as many people as possible.
“While we have officially completed our research project, unfortunately our work continues,” the researcher said. “We have to keep going until things change.”
“[The exhibition] is about encouraging a diverse group of women like myself and creating a welcoming space where they can see themselves represented at work and see some of their barriers amplified and heard on a platform like RIBA . “
“We want to raise awareness about the current situation that the field of architecture still faces, which is the lack of diversity and the lack of women and people of color.”
Photography is by Sarah Daoudi and Jim Stephenson unless otherwise noted.
Dezeen goes deep
If you enjoy reading Dezeen’s interviews, opinions and features, subscribe to Dezeen’s in-depth reporting. Sent on the last Friday of every month, the newsletter provides a single place to read the design and architecture stories behind the headlines.
[ad_2]
Source link