Architecture Workers: Organizing for Change
Screening & Discussion Guide
A message from the TAL film team
Thank you for hosting a screening of Architecture Workers: Organizing for Change! This film is the product of four years of effort on the part of The Architecture Lobby, and we are honored to be sharing it with you. We set out to make a film that is honest, generous and moving, but above all, we hope it will be useful.
Documentaries are good at bringing people together, and architecture workers need each other right now. Long hours, unpaid overtime and layoffs with every downturn aren’t personal failings to push through alone. They are shared conditions, and they call for shared solutions. That is the subject of the film and, we hope, what your screening can set in motion.
The film also arrives at an exciting moment. More than 100 workers at Dattner Architects in New York, the firm behind the Spring Street Salt Shed and the Bronx Library Center, are organizing what would be the largest union at an architecture firm in the US. Worker cooperatives are forming in a profession that barely knew they were possible. Students and adjuncts are organizing their schools. Architectural Workers International now connects groups from 20 countries. And all of this is growing while labor protections in the US are being stripped back, which makes building our own power more urgent.
By bringing people together around this film, you become part of that momentum. Organizing starts with conversations like the one you’re about to host, with the people in your daily context.
In solidarity,
Valérie Lechêne, Eloise Sherrid, and The Architecture Lobby
About the film
In a profession built on unpaid labor and precarious work, architecture workers are organizing, workplace by workplace, into a movement for change. Screenings introduce the movement, help people connect the film to their own working lives, and start organizing that continues after the lights come up.
50 minutes, seven chapters. Full synopsis, stills, poster and credits are in the press kit.
Organize a screening in your community
Interested in organizing a screening where you are? Email the TAL strategy committee at strategy@architecture-lobby.org with your city and context, and we will support you in planning it.
The film adapts to how your group meets. The full 50 minutes suits an evening event with a panel conversation or a Q&A. The 20-minute cut (Chapters 1, 3 and 7) fits a lunch hour, a union meeting or a class, and leaves most of the time for talking. A single chapter can anchor a more focused conversation. A practice exploring new models might start with Cooperatives, a student chapter or faculty meeting with Organizing Academia, and a history seminar with Past Organizing. You could also show one chapter every week or month and build a reading group around the series.
Screenings are free. We can send a digital file with English subtitles. We ask that you credit the film and The Architecture Lobby, and send us a short note after. Donations to TAL are welcome. We’re setting up a new donation process, so for now, please ask us by email.
Step by step logistics
Planning
- Find an accessible room with a screen. A classroom, office, union hall or living room works.
- Test the file and sound on that screen before the day.
- Optional: invite one or two people to speak after the film, like a local organizer or a colleague with a story to share.
- Optional: host with another group, such as a student organization, activist campaign, tenant group, or union local, to reach more people.
Dissemination
- Set up an event link. Luma or Eventbrite let you message attendees if anything changes at the last minute. A Google Calendar invite link is simpler and lets people save the details, but you won’t have their contacts.
- Use the poster and synopsis from the press kit.
- Ask your school, workplace or organization to share the event within their networks.
- We can post your event on The Architecture Lobby website. Send us the details.
- Consider posting on social media, and if you do, tag The Architecture Lobby!
- Optional: invite local writers. The press kit has what they need.
On screening day
- Introduce the film briefly (script below).
- After the film, dim the lights up for the discussion.
- Optional: pass around a sign-in sheet if you didn’t collect contacts with your event link.
After
- Reach out to attendees to thank them, and share a next step if you have one (a meeting date, a group to join, a petition, etc).
- Send us a short note on how it went. Photos are welcome and highly appreciated.
Day of facilitation
Introducing the film
- Thank the venue, co-hosts and speakers.
- This film was made by members of The Architecture Lobby, an organization of architecture workers. Footage was recorded from 2022 to 2025 and premiered in 2026.
- It’s structured in seven chapters, and most end on a question or call to action. These questions are relevant to our context, and we can talk through some of them together after the film.
1. Why Organize (3 min)
The Personal Stakes of Architecture Labor
How has architectural work affected you?
2. Past Organizing (9 min)
A History of Architecture Workers Organizing in the US
Where does professional identity show up in your work?
3. Unionization (7 min)
Building Worker Power in Architecture Firms
What if you had a say in how work shapes your daily life?
4. Cooperatives (6 min)
Envisioning Cooperatives of Architecture Workers
How would working cooperatively change your practice?
5. Organizing Academia (6 min)
From Studio to System
How will you turn education into a force for change?
6. Beyond Licensure (8 min)
New Pathways to Architecture Work
What skills matter and how will you pass them on?
7. Expanding Solidarity (10 min)
Social and Global Justice by and for Architecture Workers
Where will you build solidarity? Who will you bring with you?
Chapter-based discussions
Each chapter ends with a call to action. Use its question to open the conversation after you screen it. Each chapter page also has a full discussion guide, with more questions, quotes from the film, further facilitation tips and further reading, if your group wants to go deeper.
Making it a safe space
- Agree on a few ground rules before the discussion starts, like listening without interrupting and keeping what people share about their workplaces in the room.
- People may talk about their employers. Let them choose how much to say, and remind photographers to ask before taking pictures of attendees.
- Give people a minute to talk in pairs before opening up to the room. It’s easier to speak to a group after speaking to one person.
- Make space for people who haven’t spoken yet, whatever the reason. Silence can mean many things, including disagreement.
- If someone says something hurtful, address it right away. Speak to what was said, and leave the person room to hear it.
Tips
- Start with lived experience, and gradually move toward remedial action. People open up once they hear other people’s stories.
- Take two or three comments at a time.
- Keep the last ten minutes for next steps.
- For more, see Seeds for Change’s guide to facilitating meetings: http://seedsforchange.org.uk/resources
- On the last round, prompt participants to name one thing they’ll do in the next month, and with whom.
Tell us how it went
How did your event go? How can The Architecture Lobby better support organizers like you? We’d love to hear from you. Email the Lobby Strategy Committee at strategy@architecture-lobby.org
Join The Architecture Lobby
Help build worker power and collective agency from below. Join us! https://architecture-lobby.org/join-us/
