VALUE: architecture


The Architecture Lobby Survey Report

Is there a better way to approach architecture?

The 2008 recession was an important wakeup call for many professions, causing some to question their value in a global market. The Architecture profession was especially affected due to the slowdown of construction worldwide. Today, architects have an opportunity to re-examine their value and a choice to evolve their practice for the future.

The Architecture Lobby was founded in 2013 in response to a general sense of dissatisfaction with architecture as a profession: long hours, disappointing compensation, limited career options, family-unfriendly policies. Despite the recognition of the issues, there was a paucity of hard facts to drive the conversation forward.

Much of the available professional research focuses on licensed architects. In addition to these licensed professionals we wanted to hear from new grads and intermediate professionals (3-5 years experience). We were also curious about the different experiences of employees and owners. Overall, we wanted a quantitative snapshot of the profession through the lens of myriad experience levels. We hope to use this data to help answer questions related to how the profession can maintain it’s relevance, how it is preparing future generations of practitioners and about the value of its own labor in the form of basic business practices.

In 2014, The Architecture Lobby conducted a survey to gather information related to these issues. Subsequently, we have undertaken analysis of the collected data, and over the coming months will release a series of reports based on trends observed in the survey responses.

More

  • Architecture Workers Are Building Power on the Job

    Architecture Workers Are Building Power on the Job

    Eloise Sherrid Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee July 21, 2025 Excerpt: “I think the exhibit really got people thinking. It was one of maybe two or three genuinely political projects in this entire massive exhibition, and it was the only one that talked about labor. The other ones about politics were about housing. Also, we managed […]

  • The Architecture Lobby presents oral history of labor organizing at the 2025 Venice Biennale

    The Architecture Lobby presents oral history of labor organizing at the 2025 Venice Biennale

    Josh Niland Archinect May 8, 2025 Excerpt: “The Architecture Lobby is part of this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale with the installation Organizing in the Lobby, which documents their mission as an advocacy group within its place among a worldwide network of new labor activist groups representing the architecture and design industries.  The list of collaborators it features includes Architectural […]

  • Arsenalegeddon

    Arsenalegeddon

    CCCP ’26 E-flux May 2025 Excerpt: “Yet, there are some moments of fruitful relation. Deep into the exhibition, squeezed against the amphitheater of Speaker’s Corner (by Christopher Hawthorne, Johnston Marklee, Florencia Rodriguez), Organizing in the Lobby (by The Architecture Lobby) highlights our time’s labor crises through video interviews with architecture activist groups, contributing a frame of reference for the […]