One afternoon session was just devoted to WID stuff. I’ll try to give a summary here of everything.
Part One : The Work
Tamara Roy, Maryann Thompson, Jinhee Park, and Shauna Gillies Smith presented their design work – see pdf posted here: \\jupiter\Support\5210 Professional Organizations\WIDKC
As a woman architect, I’ve tried to influence how we work, when we work, and why we work. But does being a woman change the design itself? Should it? (Tamara Roy)
In her students work and in the profession Maryann Thompson thought she saw a difference in the way men and women design – she thought women (in a huge generality that she admitted to) were more often designing spaces where men were more typically interested in object making. Her work is a lot about the spaces between, and about creating active spaces.
Jinhee Park’s work was much more theoretical and simple.
Shauna Gillies Smith was with Martha Schwarz and now has her own company called Ground – very interesting landscape work. She skipped over a slide (and I didn’t get a chance to ask her about it) that showed a Quadruple Bottom Line: People+Planet+Profit+Culture(aesthetics) It was also interesting that she considered her work in landscape (which is typically about space) to be more about form making (opposite what Maryann Thompson had observed!).
We then broke into small groups facilitated by individuals for the panel and we just discussed why we were here, what we were doing in our firms and what we hoped to gain from this forum. We made good connections and I think learned that BNIM has a great policy for flexible schedules, which we should celebrate. Many were interested in learning from us. We are far behind many of these firms in terms of diversity however, Sheply Bulfinch has close to 50% women.
Part Two : Statistics & Strategies
A great presentation of the statistics that are available – more accurate data gathering needs to happen. It’s still quite disturbing the amount of women leaving the profession after graduation from a design school, and while the numbers are creeping up, minority numbers are actually DECREASING! I’ve asked for the powerpoint and will post it when available.
Part Three : Leadership & Call to Action
A panel discussion about leadership from the Boston Women Principals Roundtable (which I thought was pretty cool even existed)..
Becoming a Leader: self awareness, integrity, optimism, action.. “Your ambition & dedication must be stronger than your weaknesses and fears”
Being a Leader: communication (the ability to communicate a vision) creating your own future, building team trust (acting as a conductor), translating the vision of a client, knowing your firm’s “elevator speech”
Passing it on: Tell people how much you love your job, recognize leadership qualities, discern talent from politics, do not seek replicates of yourself, find people to complement each other, provide critical reviews and clear pathways to leadership, provide opportunities
We broke into several small groups again to discuss goals on the personal, firm and AIA level and then presented our discussions to the larger group. Kara and I represented BNIM (and KC) well and both presented for our groups. (Yeah!!)
Individual:
It was pretty cool to have Beverly Willis in my group http://www.bwaf.org/ - she’s one of the pioneering women in the last fifty years and has now established a foundation to expand the knowledge of women’s contributions to architecture. Her foundation organized the Women in Modernism exhibit at MOMA last year and is working on one to be in conjunction with the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit in 2009 at the Guggenheim. She asked that we all apply for grants and write more about our contributions.
Other personal goals: reconnecting with mentors, finding the edges for different project types, cross-pollinate and increase communication
Firm: (working on text)
AIA: (working on text)
On a related note, I just got a book signed by sarah susanka – author of not so big house. She has a new one called the not so big life… just read the prologue and it looks like a good one – we might think of bringing her to KC for a WID thing..
Amy
