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.