Organizing for Green Social Housing

T-H-E
A-R-C-H-I-T-E-C-T-U-R-E
L-O-B-B-Y

Campaign

Citygroup Workshop – 3

104b Forsyth St.

New York, NY

March 11, 2024

7-8pm

Across New York, support is growing for social housing. Building new social housing—that is, decommodified housing—has the potential to directly address the profound inequality of urban life we face today, while creating ground for progress on larger social, political, and environmental questions.
Historically, organized labor has been a major voice in the ask for social housing. Rarely, though, have organized architects been involved alongside them. This event brings together housing and labor organizers from many disciplines to ask how our networks of solidarity can amplify and lead efforts to make social housing a reality.

Guests:

New York Communities for Change – Wally Mazon

Architectural Workers United – Andrew Daley

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Just the FAECTs: Organizing technical work from the 1930s to now

Recent labor organizing in architecture and engineering is unprecedented in recent history. Looking further back, though, we find a rich history of architects and other technical workers organizing together better working working conditions and, more than that, a better world.
NYC Chapter to attend local performance: ‘GRENFELL’ at St. Ann’s Warehouse

NYC Chapter to attend local performance: ‘GRENFELL’ at St. Ann’s Warehouse St Ann’s Warehouse, St. Ann’s Warehouse,45 Water Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 May 11th, 2024 7:30pm-10:00pm It’s rare for topics related to the built environment to be dramatized into theatrical performances, especially ones that the Lobby is already organizing around. Let’s go see it together! […]
Campaign

Who owns social housing?

Often, we think of mass social housing as something needing large entities—government agencies, philanthropies, or unions—to take on the profit-driven real estate sector. The history of New York City’s housing activism suggests otherwise, that tenants themselves are capable of leading the struggle for affordable and livable cities.

Our Manifesto

Build worker power and collective agency through unions and cooperatives.
A living wage, benefits, job security, and wage transparency across the discipline.
No more free labor; no unpaid internships, unpaid overtime, or unpaid competitions.
Center the importance of labor in our understanding of architecture. Architecture is work!
Stop peddling buildings as products. Demand compensation based on the value and impact our work creates.
End oppression based on gender within and enabled by the discipline.
Confront the complicity of architecture in racism. Confront racism in our workplaces.
Design for the full spectrum of human life. Universal design is not an afterthought.
Challenge the concept of licensure. Expand the right to practice.
Celebrate the collective process of producing architecture. Demystify architecture as the work of a solo creative genius.
Climate justice as the basis of all architectural work. There can be no sustainable future without sustainable labor practices.
Fight for democratic alternatives to the capitalist system of development.

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Contact

info@architecture-lobby.org

50 Woodward Ave
New Haven, CT 06512