Practice, Practise | Roundtable 1 - (Un)learning architecture (looking in)
09 June
Core Programme Online Discussion
Event Summary
An evening of talks and provocations looking at the way we practice architecture, both now and in the future.
Book hereTime
7pm-8:30pm BST
Date(s)
09 June
Organiser
Architecture Fringe
Practice, Practise | Roundtable 1 - (Un)learning architecture (looking in)
With
FAME Collective, Jos Boys and UVW-SAW
Facilitated by Christina Gaiger PRIA
Practice, Practise seeks to explore current conditions of practice for architects and those working with/for the built environment. Through a process of unlearning and building anew, we look to generate speculative proposals for future practice addressing its values, systems, modes of operation and types of work.
In the first of two discussions, Roundtable 1: Unlearning Architecture (looking in) explores the methods, ethics, culture and structures of practice, and how the profession operates with a view to reimagining a future form of practice.
How do the ingrained cultural norms and methods of working stifle progression in the industry? Are professional bodies doing enough to support their members and lobby change? Is the profession underselling its skills and value to the construction industry, at the expense of the workers? Has the profession actively changed to promote diversity and encourage individuals from marginalised backgrounds to advance and excel in their field? Is the desire for change generational, or do we continue to see the same barriers, reluctance and resistance time and time again?
We will be inviting three panellists to prepare short provocations, for how we might unlearn the entrenched rituals of Architecture Practice and move towards a new progressive future. This will be followed by facilitated discussion between the contributors and the audience.
Confirmed panellists:
FAME Collective / Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows | Female Architects of Minority Ethnic Collective is a research based collective founded to support women of diverse backgrounds and ethnicities in Architecture and the built environment. Their aim is to raise awareness of the barriers, inequality and lack of diversity in architecture and demand change.
Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows is an award-winning British architect and founder of Fame Collective. She also co-founded the interdisciplinary practice Our Building Design, the charity Mannan Foundation Trust & the Asian Architect's Association which (in addition to FAME) promotes and supports architects from the ethnic minority in the UK. She is a Senior Lecturer in architecture at the University of Westminster where her teaching draws on her research methodologies on interdisciplinary approach to design. Tumpa was awarded the RIBA-J Rising Star Award in 2017, and a commendation for the RIBA President’s Award for Research in 2019.
IG: @fame_collective
T: @collective_fame
Jos Boys | Jos originally trained in architecture and has worked in feminist and community-based design practices, as well as a researcher, educator, and journalist. She is currently working at the Bartlett UCL. She has published extensively, about learning spaces in Higher Education, feminist approaches to architecture and interrelationships between disability and the built environment.
W: Disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk
T: @disordinaryarch
UVW-SAW | United Voices of the World – Section of Architectural Workers (UVW-SAW), is a newly-formed grassroots trade union for architectural workers in the U.K. SAW collectively take action and fight against the negative impacts of architectural work on workers, communities, and the environment.
Members of SAW organise both in their workplaces and across the sector around overwork, under-pay, unstable employment, a toxic workplace and university culture, discrimination and unethical practice.
IG: @uvw_saw
T: @UVW_SAW
Christina Gaiger | President of the RIAS
Christina is the youngest-ever President of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, and only the second women to be elected to the role. Christina is committed to the creative reuse of buildings and the construction of a supportive network for the profession, to give traction to the value of good design. Following graduation, Christina has worked on a wide variety of projects, including universities, education facilities, museum design and domestic architecture, for design-led practices Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Paris and TsAO & McKOWN Architects in New York.
Christina returned to Edinburgh and joined Helen Lucas Architects Ltd at the end of 2014, being particularly interested in the practice's attention to detail and work in architectural conservation.
T: @christinagaiger
