The symposium aims to highlight how women and gender minority architects have overcome their day-to-day challenges, professional or personal, to make a career in architectural practice. They have exercised agency in actively dismantling gender stereotypes at home, bringing qualities of care and empathy in the workplace and infusing architectural production processes with gender sensitivity, among others. In short, they have brought in humane qualities into practice without compromising on professionalism.

We hope to go beyond the idea of success as being ‘famous’ or being ‘starchitects’ by recognising the valuable contribution of lesser-known women architects to the built environment. We aspire to give voices and visibility to women who have been working at various levels in the industry as employees, owners/partners and collaborators. The symposium especially wants to stress on empathy, co-operation and social justice by bringing out ways in which they have dealt with their everyday challenges. We acknowledge and appreciate the diversity and the broad scope of professional engagements that they have brought into architecture. 

In the symposium, we hope to develop a collective, positive knowledge through sharing of experiences, policies and strategies and to build on one another’s success trajectories while also learning from failures. In order to re-define the discipline and practice of architecture from a feminist perspective, the discussions will range from personal struggles to larger changes that need to be made as a fraternity.  It will address current work as well as the empowerment of the next generations. 

We also want to recognise changing thought processes among men who are playing their part in the spirit of equality. We call upon women and gender minority architects who are fighting the tide every day, breaking the glass ceiling of the discipline and making their mark in a ‘man’s world’.

Symposium Concerns

• Interaction with and respect from people: For example, clients, consultants, executing agencies, fellow architects, employers.
• Dismantling gender roles: For example, socio-cultural biases at the workplace, at home, and at the construction site.
• Evaluating the workplace: For example, work roles & responsibilities, pay equity, mental health, job security, mentoring, career development and leadership, facilities
• Challenges to work/life balance: For example, childcare support, flexibility in schedules, maternity leave and availability of site facilities, role of men/family.
• Working towards gender sensitivity: For example, influencing policies and increasing representation of women in decision-making bodies, changing the way the profession and/or professionalism are defined, making the workplace gender sensitive.

Symposium Components

The keynote lecture for the symposium will be delivered by Shimul Javeri Kadri, founder and principal of SJK Architects, Mumbai, one of the leading architectural practices in India. Since the 1990s, SJK Architects has contributed considerably to the architectural profession and has won several awards and accolades under Shimul’s leadership. 

The symposium will address the key concerns through Panel Sessions, Poster Presentations, a Student Photography Competition and Workshops. There will be 3 moderated panel sessions based on diverse modes of practice, in which practitioners will share their personal and professional experiences through a presentation. In the poster presentations, students and architects will share their research, experiences and suggestions on the symposium concerns through academic or professional work. The photography competition aims to encourage students to become observant and sensitive towards the gendered nature of everyday spaces and ways in which women and gender minorities claim their place in society.  

Selected posters and photographs will be exhibited alongside the panel discussions and workshops. Access details on the above components under Call for Entries.