Architects S t o r y b y J U DY BA RO U C H P h o t o g r a p h y b y J OH N F E D E R
Women breaking the mould Female architect disruptors are staging a pushback after a history of gender imbalance in their industry. Under challenge, too, is the edifice complex of male starchitects, whose show-pony exteriors are designed to target publications and garner accolades. Recent strike across the bow: the snaring of the 2020 Pritzker Prize (architecture’s Nobel) by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, co-founders of Ireland’s Grafton Architects. And last October, Abbie Galvin was appointed the first female NSW Government Architect since the position was created more than 200 years ago, following in the footsteps of Jill Garner, Victoria’s State Government Architect. Yet despite the ratio of male to female graduates being roughly proportionate – and the majority of deans in Australia’s 19 schools of Architecture now being female – women architects are still under-represented in senior management roles and wage disparity remains a bête noire. The Australian Institute of Architecture’s Gold Medal, awarded annually since 1960, has only ever had three female winners. According to Tone Wheeler, President of the Australian Architecture Association and principal of Environa Studio, it’s only recently that female architects have begun scoring the “glamour” positions and projects that define Gold Medal winners. “Diligent, but not spectacular, community buildings that women specialise in just don’t rate in the men’s club,” he says. Here, five established and GenNext architects share their thoughts.
The one to watch
Felicity Stewart, director of Stewart Architecture, Sydney & Canberra
“My hope is for a future with a more considered approach to residential architecture.”
Stewart has a Master of Architecture and Urban design from Columbia University NYC, and a Bachelor of Architecture (Hons 1) capped with a University Medal. As co-founding director of Stewart Hollenstein, she was instrumental in realising the $65 million Green Square Library and Plaza, winning the2019 Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture. “My hope is for a future with a more considered approach to residential architecture, one where quality comes before quantity,” she says. “A friend described her COVID-19 isolation experience as ‘life shrunk down’: her world became smaller and less complicated. The pandemic has reframed our domestic values. Despite ongoing hardship, on a positive note there’s more cooking, making, growing, repairing, and local activity in streets and green spaces, which have become welcome extensions of our homes. Those with smaller homes can take advantage of spaces like libraries, which bring greater opportunity for connection. “This is increasingly important in Australia where, according to census data, one person in every four lives alone, with numbers rising.” 26
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THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
| JUNE 13-14, 2020
