The Border Wall: Immigration and Construction

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

Panel 1: The Border Panel – Moderator: James Heard
Ronald Rael, Ana Teresa Fernandez, Ane Gonzalez Lara

Panel 2: The Immigration Panel – Moderator: Neeraj Bhatia
Carlos Martin, Cesar Lopez, Mabel Wilson

Panel 3: The Labor Panel – Moderator: Irene Cheng
Carlos Porras, Margie O’Driscoll, Nathan Friedman

Full Group Discussion – Moderators: Ashton Hamm & Peggy Deamer
Discussion among all panelists

Photo by Patrick McAndrews

Campaign

Visit ‘Organizing the Lobby’ at the 2025 Venice Biennale

Visit The Architecture Lobby’s “Organizing in the Lobby” at the Arsenale Corderie—an interactive installation featuring 26 interviews with activist architecture organizations from around the globe. Discover how architectural workers worldwide are building collective power, fighting for climate justice, and challenging profit-driven development. The exhibit features 16+ hours of video documentation and displays a growing movement […]
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! […]

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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