The workshop “Re-structuring Architectural Work: Tools and Tactics” led by independent collective Architectural Workers took place on Saturday 20. 10. 2018 from 11:00 to 17:00 in the Prague Creative Center (2. floor, room n. 222 = Hall 4). The workshop was part of the accompanying program of the exhibition “Dear Architects… — Ethics in Architecture”.
What makes ‘good’ or ‘bad’ architecture? Critics, developers, local communities and governmental figures all have different measures of architectural value; rarely are the means of production taken into account. The way architecture is made is often invisible, such as the uncounted hours of unpaid labour in the office, or the ‘necessary’ displacement of existing residents, but these under-represented processes have a substantial impact on our buildings, cities, and landscapes. Collectively re-evaluating how architecture is made is the first step to radically re-structuring it.
Architectural Workers, a UK-based group of employees of the industry, share the tools and tactics they have adapted and developed – with and from others – to measure, demolish and rebuild the architectural profession from below.
In this peer-to-peer workshop, we will be examining our experiences of work, and the ways in which we can collectively demand change. We will discuss the position of the architectural worker, as both privileged and exploited; and scope out ways in which our collective agency can be redirected, in alliance with the communities our work most effects.
This event was welcome to all; questions we collectively answered are relevant to anyone living or working in and around the built environment.
Architectural Workers is an anonymous, independent network of people who work in and around the architectural industry. They campaign against the negative effects of architectural work: on physical bodies and mental health, as well as the wider social and physical environment. They formed in December 2016; with an open letter calling for the media and public attention garnered by Patrik Schumacher’s plans for privitisation of social housing to be refocused onto their bosses, the heads of London’s leading regeneration firms. Since then they have organised public discussions around the Architect’s role in gentrification and the housing crisis; and continued to campaign on the issues affecting workers within the industry: unpaid overtime, the London Living Wage, and the moral evaluation of the tasks of architectural employment. They are affiliated with Workers Inquiry: Architecture – a series of research projects, workshops, and meetings, open to all (excluding bosses!); for the purpose of surveying the industry from below, and ultimately, the creation of a worker-led union.
www.architecturalworkers.wordpress.com