The Architecture Lobby and DAARNA

03 October 2025

To Evelyn Lee, FAIA, and the leadership of the AIA-

The Architecture Lobby and DAARNA support the International Union of Architects (UIA) Resolution on Palestine passed on September 20, 2025 and urge the American Institute of Architects (AIA), which is the representative body from the US to the UIA, to adopt this resolution. The occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians by Israel is an ongoing and urgent crisis with international complicity and is inseparable from colonial projects and violence brought upon Black, Indigenous, Brown, and people of color around the world. The architectural profession is especially complicit in these processes through the built environment forms of jails, prisons, walls, checkpoints, hostile divisions of cities like Hebron, settler developments, and more.

Despite nearly two years of aggression by Israel that have led to over 75% of all buildings in Gaza being destroyed and over 65,000 Palestinians killed (source), the AIA has not yet condemned the genocide occuring in Palestine, nor called for its members to refrain from furthering illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. This complicit silence is only compounded by the 2022 AIA decision to terminate the Middle East chapter president for inviting historian Ilan Pappe to present a webinar on the urban history of ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

Not only is the AIA enabling projects against its own Code of Ethics, but also against the global values of the UIA and UN charters. AIA members continue to design an embassy on disputed land in Jerusalem, Israeli state-funded cultural and educational institutions, and settlements on Palestinian land. These acts prop up the criminal state of Israel and expose architecture’s complicity in illegal colonial occupation, repression, and erasure of Palestine.

The Architecture Lobby also joins Architects for Gaza in their call to expel Israel from the UIA and censor complicit architectural firms participating in projects in illegally occupied territory, as well as in their insistence that Palestine be rebuilt and occupied by Palestinians. Our profession is one that should uphold human rights including the right to shelter and lead with values focused on human dignity and public good.

We call on Evelyn Lee, FAIA, President of the AIA and the leadership of the AIA to:

• Publicly adopt the September 20, 2025 UIA resolution on Palestine
• Censor in the form of disqualification from awards, leadership, or AIA media coverage of AIA members who participate in projects that promote occupation, colonization, or erasure of Palestinians or in illegally occupied territory, unless it is for the benefit of Palestinians in their land
• Support international efforts to rebuild Palestine for Palestinians and center the voices of Palestinians within that rebuilding process
• Disclose AIA ties to Israeli state institutions – whether through funds received or services provided
• Divest from any funding from and to Israeli state institutions and those firms complicit in the illegal occupation, colonization, and erasure of Palestine

We invite members and allies of the architectural profession to join our call as signatories to this statement. We also call upon architectural workers to join in international solidarity on October 7 by opting out of work and instead focusing efforts to promote peace and end the occupation + genocide. Our labor is the power to create and enact change.

In solidarity

-Membership of The Architecture Lobby and DAARNA

MORE INFORMATION

The Architecture Lobby is a grassroots organization of architectural workers — architects, landscape architects, planners, designers, students, and others — advocating for just labor practices and an equitable (built) environment. We believe that building solidarity between architectural workers and fostering capacity for organizing labor is a critical tool in confronting the white supremacist and heteropatriarchal systems woven through the architecture and design fields.

DAARNA is a diverse team of educators, thinkers, Architects, designers and activists who believe social equity and community based designs can act as solutions to end displacement. DAARNA partners with refugees, local communities, and activists to provide needed resources that can empower refugees to find the sense of home.

Resources:

Architects for Gaza: https://architectsforgaza.com/ ; https://www.instagram.com/architectsforgaza/

Palestine Regeneration Team: https://www.palestineregenerationproject.com/home

UIA: https://www.uia-architectes.org/en/

Forensic Architecture: Architecture of Genocidal Starvation report; all Palestine materials/reports

Cosignatories:

The Architecture Lobby

DAARNA

Kassidy Miller

Magdalena zink

Nour Ziada

Sasria Aditya

Blake Fisher

Daham Marapane

Rand Lemley

Become a cosignatory here