In Advocacy of Amplifying Emerging Professionals Design Voices

In order to fully contend with the social, political, and technological futures of tomorrow, the field of architecture must shift its focus, engage in new design thinking, and amplify new voices. Emerging professionals are the key to this progress. The profession has the potential to reach new heights–heights that adopt emerging technologies, holistically embody sustainability, and lead conversations in equity, diversity, and inclusion.

The voice of the emerging professional is profoundly unique for two reasons: it’s constructed by the voice of the student and the voice of the employee. The former is newer to the experience of the profession and the constraints of construction realities. The latter is a sponge to new workplace techniques and methodologies used by the employer. The result is an amateur practitioner and an expert scholar.

Within the first few years out of school, emerging professionals are often molded by the place of work to conform to their practices. The benefit is that the emerging professional begins to grapple with the complexities of architecture from its codes and regulations to its intricacies and constructability. Through this, the emerging professional truly learns how to design considering the health, safety, and well-being of the practice. The shedding of the student cocoon metamorphosizes into an individual competent in management and production within the practice. Over time, the student-minded employee becomes the practitioner who has distanced themselves from the university setting both physically and mentally. And, yet, the emerging professional still has so much to offer: to the firm, to the field, to the world.

In university, students embodied radical thought processes and technologies that propose ways of transforming the field of architecture and the future as we know it. By distancing themselves from the pedagogy and academia that they once knew pre-graduation, their radical design thinking is lost. Therefore, it is up to the emerging professional to maintain that grasp on progressive forms of reality - to make a better future for tomorrow. Thus, emerging professionals must act as a bridge to bring pedagogy and practice together and positively impact the field.

Because of their unique perspective, emerging professionals must be empowered to impact design, professional organizations, and pedagogy in order for the field of architecture to move forward.

Pedagogy

As seen throughout the emerging generation, students are bringing their passions for climate justice, social activism, and future-focused technologies into the classroom and this criticality is blossoming in design schools, merging radicality with design thinking1. For this reason, emerging professionals are best situated to ensure that equity, diversity, inclusion, sustainability, and emerging technologies are fostered in new curricula and design thinking.

Ensuring that these emerging professionals have a space to engage in pedagogy after their schooling is critical to developing a culture of radical change within the design field. One such way is through empowering young professionals to become adjunct professors, serve on academic juries, and engage in institutional discussions. Similarly, by creating a culture of radical design thinking and doing within firms, the field will continue to foster equity, diversity, inclusion, sustainability, and emerging technologies to positively impact the future of the built environment.

Design Practice

The emerging professional has no shortage of opinions and thoughts about the process of design. Going into practice with a background in unconstrained design thinking, they can see design opportunities others, who have been long-time practitioners, may not. For this reason, it is important to elevate their voices in design conversations and implementation. Although they have much to learn about the inner workings of design firms and the construction of projects, they can also offer insights that elevate the designs that can emerge from the professional realm. Even as they continue to grow in their experience, emerging professionals have a valuable voice that can contribute to larger design discussions.

Emerging professionals should have opportunities to speak up and offer insights into how the firm could improve, be involved

Case Study: Call for Decolonized Curriculums + Design Advocacy-Centered Pedagogy

Not every professional is willing to engage in experimental pedagogy and connect architecture to the political, social, and technological environment in which it is situated. In recent years, many students (as well as faculty) are making calls for pedagogical reform - to decolonize curriculum, de-center architectural eurocentric history courses, and infuse studio prompts with radicality connecting the social and political worlds into design-thinking. Architecture + Advocacy (previously the Comprehensive Diversity Initiative) is one such organization - founded through a survey distributed to the USC School of Architecture, asking for student input on the existing status of architecture school culture and curriculum2. What emerged were six demands to enact inclusive policies to improve the spatial and educational experience of systematically marginalized groups (ranging from hiring more BIPOC professors to restructuring courses to center BIPOC voices, to further outreach with marginalized communities surrounding the school). Through discussions with administrators and professors, students helped redefine curriculum standards, even going as far as to help restructure introductory courses. Students have learned to leverage their voices to demand structural change inside and outside of the classrooms and connect architecture to the political society in which it is entrenched - something that students are excited to engage in. As they graduate, it is important to continue to stimulate their eagerness to change pedagogy and keep those conversations alive. in design, and be allowed to represent their firm at conferences, workshops, or other organizations that could amplify and build their voices. Firms often give emerging professionals support towards licensure with study materials, mentors, and exam reimbursement. While extremely useful, these tools give the impression that one must pass their exams before one can sit at the design table.

It should also be noted that there are limits to pedagogy, as seen with the ever-present NAAB and Universityspecific regulations. And, yet, as seen at USC and other such programs, there are opportunities to push boundaries, defy norms, and make structural changes to amplify marginalized ideologies, histories, and practices. With engaged students and emerging professionals, the opportunities for change are endless.

By giving emerging professionals the opportunity to utilize their design voice, the field of architecture will holistically create a dynamic working environment that embodies bold and innovative design ideas that allow all participants an opportunity to learn and grow - producing the best design outcomes for their clients, the firm, and the built environment, as a whole.

Many firms hold a deep commitment to the mentorship of the next generation of makers, thinkers, and doers within the architecture and related design fields. DLR Group is one such firm invested in such a practice - hosting interns every summer and engaging with them, as well as new graduate hires, through the Emerging Professional Experience. Participation in this Experience allows everyone access to firm transparency, incorporates round table discussions with the CFO and CEO, among others, and creates the opportunity for everyone to amplify their design voice4 DLR Group and other such firms are pushing boundaries to create space for emerging professionals.

Professional Organizations

The emerging professional participates in professional organizations within the collegiate environment, and allowing their voices to continue to be heard nationally is crucial. Organizations like AIAS and NOMAS are key to cultural and professional growth within the student experience during college. This connection between students and large organizations in the architectural field is foundational for a life-long commitment. Ensuring that emerging professionals still have a voice within these professional organizations once they graduate is crucial to sustaining that strong connection.

Case

The Young Architects Forum is a perfect example of how emerging professionals can maintain their connection with professional organizations and have a space to amplify their voices. AIA YAF creates a space within the AIA for younger professionals to center programming and discussions on their communal needs and interests, something that not every professional organization has6. It creates a bridge between recent graduates and the AIA, many of whom might feel lost when transitioning out of college and emerging as newly graduated and newly licensed architects.

It is necessary that emerging professionals be given the opportunity to continue their connection within professional organizations and have their voices amplified. They shouldn’t be excluded from conversations around practice and organization structure, nor should they be siloed into their own organization (YAF is a great space for emerging professionals, but it must be ensured that they also have a place within the greater AIA organization).

As professional organizations continue to emerge and develop, engaging and amplifying the emerging professional experience is critical to creating a solid foundation of memberships and maintaining life-long engagement. Conversely, emerging professionals who have a space to engage with others, raise their voices, and leverage their opinions will help them further develop their design voices and cause positive change within the field and the built environment, as a whole.

Conclusion

When it comes to emerging professionals, questions of competency are not unfounded. After all, as architects, competency in maintaining the health, safety, and well-being of the public is the highest goal. Yet, what we want to assert is that a licensed professional is not the only mark of competency and competency is not the only determinant of a valuable voice. There is no doubt that emerging professionals have more to learn in practice but what they can do for pedagogy, a firm, or for a larger socio-political institution is constantly under discovery. Their ability to fail and try again should be seen as a valuable voice within the atmosphere of architecture. With the right advocacy, agency, and accountability, emerging professionals can impact architecture in profoundly positive ways.

If you have emerging professionals within your office, utilize your position and power to advocate and amplify their voices.

If you are an emerging professional, find ways to advocate for yourself, make sure you are still thinking and practicing radically, and get involved professionally and organizationally to align your passions within practice.

Annotated Sources

1 https://dailytrojan.com/2020/08/21/architecture-students-create-demands-to-improve-schools-inclusivity/

² https://architectureandadvocacy.org/

³ https://inclusiveinitiative.wixsite.com/mysite

⁴ https://www.dlrgroup.com/emerging-professional-experience/

⁵ https://www.dlrgroup.com/emerging-professional-experience/

⁶ https://www.aia.org/resources/195236-young-architects-forumhttps://www.aia.org/resources/195236-young-architects-forum

⁷ https://aiarva.org/young-architects-forum-yaf/

Abriannah Aiken, Assoc. AIA

Aiken is an activist/architectural designer at DLR Group in New York City, New York. Aiken is a co-founder of Architecture + Advocacy, Feminist Spatial Practices, and co-authored Disappearing Queer Spaces.

Rourke Brakeville, Assoc. AIA, M.S

Brakeville is a project coordinator at The Preston Partnership in Atlanta, Georgia. Brakeville is also a Part-Instructor at Kennesaw State University, has co-founded his own architectural practice, and coauthored Disappearing Queer Spaces.