All the architects in this book deserve international recognition. The reality is, though, that few are household names.
Over the last decade, awareness of the need for gender balance in architecture has gained traction. Within the profession, women remain underrepresented, underpromoted and underpaid. Failure to acknowledge women’s contribution to the built environment has perpetuated this cycle and impoverished us all.
By showcasing 100 exceptional architects – who happen to be women – this book provides a flagship reference to inspire and support everyone working in the profession, no matter how they identify. Global in outlook, the book presents an equitable sample of architects from every continent. We all need heroines as much as heroes.
Through illustrated interviews, each woman shares how they are responding to a profound disconnect between architecture and the people and landscape it serves. Their visions, methods and models of leadership are essential to connecting the needs of humans and the planet. In the words of Indigenous Canadian architect Eladia Smoke: ‘Now is a critical time to seek out every opportunity to transmit this knowledge to future generations.’
Featuring:
• 100 interviews with leading women architects, including: Tatiana Bilbao, Odile Decq, Liz Diller, Julia Gamolina, Dorte Mandrup and Farshid Moussavi.
• Over 400 photographs and drawings.
• Geographically balanced selection, with profiles across every continent.
Author Biography:
Dr. Harriet Harriss (ARB, RIBA, PHEA, Assoc.AIA, FRSA) is an award-winning educator, writer, qualified architect and professor at Pratt Institute, New York, where she previously served as the Dean of the School of Architecture for three years. Her research and scholarly specialisms confront the relationship between the built (and un-built) environment, and questions of diversity, equity and inclusion - and - propose climate crisis and social justice curriculum and pedagogies. Harriet has spoken about these matters across a wide range of media channels including the BBC TV and Radio, Sky TV, and Fox Nation and was nominated by Dezeen as a champion for women in architecture and design in 2019. Her highly-regarded past publications include Radical Pedagogies; Architectural Education & the British Tradition (2015), A Gendered Profession (2016), Interior Futures (2019), award-winning Architects After Architecture (2020), Greta Magnusson Grossman: Modern Design From Sweden To California (2021), Working at the Intersection: Architecture After the Anthropocene (2022) and Architectural Pedagogies of the Global South (2023).
Naomi House is a Designer, Educator and Writer. Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange for the department of Design and Senior Lecturer in Interior Architecture and Design, at Middlesex University, London, she is an experienced academic who taught for many years in Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art, and previously at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London Metropolitan University and University of the Arts, London. Naomi’s particular expertise is in the field of interiors using forensic methods as a strategy for exploring and questioning how objects, environments and their interactions can be analysed, interpreted and animated. She has recently published Greta Magnusson Grossman: Modern Design From Sweden To California (2021) and Working at the Intersection: Architecture After the Anthropocene (2022). She is currently collaborating on various projects around themes of social justice and climate emergency, urban regeneration and practices of empathy and care, including Kilburn Lab (2022-23) and Endangered Domesticity (2023).
Monika Parrinder works at the intersection of design, research and education. Coming from a graphic design practice background, she has spent two decades in art schools, teaching contextual studies to designers, artists, curators and historians. She works at Goldsmiths, University of London and Central Saint Martins, with senior roles at the Royal College of Art and external roles in Europe, the USA and India. Her cross-disciplinary experience feeds into facilitation for interdisciplinary funding bids and impact research. She is often commissioned to write about future trajectories, through writing, public speaking and convening events. Publishing includes magazines and essays in books; the Future of Publishing (2012); Typography Today and Tomorrow (2015); Interior Futures (2019). Her books include Limited Language: Re-writing Design – responding to a Feedback Culture (2012). Monika is a Trustee of the Arts Foundation which provides funding for creatives, where her particular focus has been the long-running Materials Innovation awards, for which she convened The New Materialists event at the Design Museum, London (2020) and the Bio Design Award (2023).
Tom Ravenscroft is a multi award-winning architectural journalist and writer. He is currently the editor of Dezeen – the world's most influential architecture and design website. He holds masters in architectural history from both The University of Edinburgh and The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Tom's writing has been published in numerous architecture publication's including the Architects' Journal, RIBA Journal, Icon, BD, City Metric, Architectural Review and ArchDaily. Videos on architecture featuring Tom have had over five million views on YouTube.
