Women in Architecture

On February 26, the AIANY WIA Committee hosted an engaging panel—Allies for Women in Architecture—at the Center for Architecture. The panelists—Eric Goshow, FAIA, Partner, Goshow Architects; Bill Harris, AIA, Managing Principal, Perkins and Will; Tim Milam, AIA, Managing Director/Partner, FXCollaborative; RJ Panda, Project Director, Lehrer Cumming; Lonny Rossman, AIA, Managing Principal, API Partners; and Susi Yu, Managing Director & Head of Development, L&L MAG, offered excellent insight on allyship for gender equity. The conversation was candid, compelling, and relevant to our current workplace environment. Kim Yao, AIA, Principal, Architecture Research Office, and 2020 AIA New York President, did an incredible job moderating the panel which allowed for a fluid, productive discussion.  The panel identified strategies on how to create parity and demonstrate a business case for it. The discussion ended with questions and comments from the audience that were insightful and important. It was emphasized that a lot more work needs to be done toward this cause.

We are extremely grateful for the contribution and support of our panelists, and hope this promotes conversations and initiatives at firms to achieve an equitable workplace for all.

In case you missed it, you can view a compilation of references and key takeaways here.

At our February Monthly Committee Meeting, we were honored to have Mimi Raygorodetsky, Environmental Practice Leader at Langan Engineering and Founding member of Women@Langan, share her presentation ‘Gender Equity: Why It Matters-Industry Best Practices for Recruiting, Retaining and Advancing Our Women’ with our members in attendance. Interestingly, Mimi also holds a Diploma in Wine and Spirits from the Wine and Spirits Educational Trust and was our sommelier for the evening, and curated fine wines to taste.

We were delighted to have an engaged audience, and are thankful to Mimi for her presentation which enabled an interactive, productive discussion with some excellent takeaways.

The Monthly Committee Meeting Agenda can be accessed here.

On Friday, February 2nd, Winka Dubbeldam, founder and principal of Archi-Tectonics, presented a wide range of project typologies at our Leadership Breakfast event. Winka described her architectural designs through various scales: the progression from digital media &  virtual reality, to small clusters of people in mindfulness meditation pods, a medium-sized residential house with a kinetic Brise Soliel, and finally, the urban scale with her winning design-competition entry for the Asian Games.  Her fluency in design exhibits an understanding of how socities function as a individual parts of a whole. No matter the size, Winka’s designs enhance individual cognizance of inhabited space.

The breakfast concluded with a lively Q&A moderated by Rosalind Tsang.  AIANY WIA is grateful to Winka Dubbeldam for sharing her work with our members on an early Friday morning.

At our first Women in Architecture Monthly Committee Meeting, we kicked off 2020 with a presentation of “A Year Celebrating Women in Architecture“, a recap of the 33 programs and events we had in 2019, followed by announcements of Upcoming Events, Around Town & Related Events, Topics, and Good Reads & More. You can view the meeting agenda here.

Cameron Ringness, an Associate at FXCollaborative then presented the AIA award-winning Statue of Liberty Museum project. Her beautiful sketches reflect a comprehensive design process, sensitive to the history, site, and the visitor’s experience. The Statue of Liberty Museum’s unique design solution not only celebrates the history and symbolism of the island, but captures the essence of purpose that truly represents the power of design. She talked about how the careful selection of materials, the meticulous attention to the details, and the rigor applied to the execution, which all complimented the design and delivered an extraordinary work of “A”-rchitecture.

We look forward to having Cameron give our members a tour of the Statue of Liberty Museum this Fall.

On January 8, 2020,  the AIANY WIA Committee held its 10th Annual Women in Architecture Recognition Award and Holiday Party at the Fisher & Paykel Experience Center and it started with a slide show of A Year Celebrating Women in Architecture, with photos and video of all 33 inspiring, educational and fun events the committee had in 2019.

Andrea Lamberti, AIA, the AIANY Board of Directors and Vice President for Professional Development, then presented the 2019 Vice President Citation for Professional Development for the committee’s wide array of programming to promote women in design and leadership and to foster more equitable practice environments for all, to the WIA Committee Co-Chairs Vivian Lee and Kerry Nolan.

The AIANY WIA Committee also honored Grace Yu as the recipient for the 10th Annual Women in Architecture Recognition Award for being licensed in 2019 and for demonstrating strong leadership skills with a commitment to the growth and advancement of our profession. A plaque was presented to Grace, along with a check of $1,000 for her expenses to attend the A’20 in Los Angeles this coming May.

Grace Yu, together with the five other candidates for the WIA Recognition Award, Alexia Beghi, Kaitlin Gerson, Siobhan Lee, Kelly McFadden, and Hanxiao Yang, shared with the WIA members their aspirations, professional experiences, and licensure tips and advice.

Mary Burnham, AIA, Jennifer Graham, IIDA, Anik Pearson, RA, and Andrea Steele, AIA were the jurors for this year’s WIA Recognition Award. The jurors talked about their selection process and were impressed by the accomplishments of all candidates who submitted their qualifications. Catherine Joseph and Leanne Zick were two applicants for the award who were not present at the event.

Danei Cesario, AIA, was the lucky winner of the WIA raffle and received the book “How Women Rise”, by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith, with their advice on how to break the habits holding women back from the next raise, promotion or job.

The AIANY WIA Committee would like to congratulate all the following 56 New York City licensed architects and we hope the numbers will continue to rise for the next decade.

Dorit Aviv, AIA; Marissa Barresi, AIA; Alexia D. Beghi, AIA; Marrina Boontheekul, AIA; Amina Bouayad, AIA; Julia R. Brooks, AIA; Jingyu Cao, AIA; Beth C. Carliner, AIA; Xinyang Chen, AIA; Shu-Hsuan Cheng, AIA; Monica Coghlan, AIA; Betsy Daniel, AIA; Carly Epler, AIA; Laura E. Fiset, AIA; Arianna M. Galan Montas, AIA; Yiwei Gao, AIA; Kaitlin M. Gerson, AIA; Lauren M. Greer, AIA; Tinglan Guo, AIA; Alkananda Y. Jakkaraju, AIA; Catherine Joseph; Rachel E. Kaplan, AIA; Olivia M. Lau, AIA; Siobhan Lee, AIA; Tietong Lu, AIA; Kristin Luks, AIA; Kelly McFadden;Tess McNamara, AIA; Kasey A. Motley, AIA; Anna L. Oursler, AIA; Maja Paklar, AIA; Soyun Park, AIA; Karen E. Rebele, AIA; Heather Rosen, AIA; Carrie Rothfeld, AIA; Nelya Sachakova, AIA; Shefali H. Sanghvi, AIA; Tanvi D. Sanghvi, AIA; Bisma Sarfaraz, AIA; Andrea N. Sforza, AIA; Amy E. Shell, AIA; Elizabeth Snow, AIA; Jacquelyn Stinson, AIA; Mengshi Sun, AIA; Iris Wang, AIA; Jennifer T. Wang, AIA; Peijen J. Wang, AIA; Jennifer L. Whisenhunt, AIA; Hanxiao Yang, AIA; Li Yang, AIA; Grace Yu; Leanny Zick.