A Just Transition for Architecture: TAL GND WG with the Cooper Climate Coalition

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A Just Transition for Architecture: TAL GND WG with the Cooper Climate Coalition

Like the energy sector, the building sector operates at the heart of the fossil fuel economy. We – architects, engineers, and designers – are fossil fuel workers, and the basic functioning of our industry is ecologically untenable. Architectural projects entail the mobilization and consumption of enormous quantities of material, land, and energy. The entire economy of the building sector needs to be reoriented to achieve a racially, socially, and ecologically just future.

In response, The Architecture Lobby’s Green New Deal Working Group will be joined in conversation by the Cooper Climate Coalition to discuss the need to build collective power, engage with policy and policymakers, and advocate for a Just Transition for architecture. The conversation will be moderated by Elisa Iturbe.

View event recording on Cooper Union website

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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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info@architecture-lobby.org

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New Haven, CT 06512