On my first day at shedkm we held a Women in Practice workshop for the whole studio, as part of our monthly series of internal talks designed to understand and tackle challenges faced by women in architecture. The format for these sessions is informal with open discussion around practical ways to support equality of access and opportunity for women.
Inspiring Leadership Coach Rachel Hughes delivered a session on the ‘Barriers to Women’s Careers in Architecture’ which focussed on visibility, commonality and internal biases. What I found so refreshing about this particular session was the fact that it was equally attended by men and women in the practice. shedkm has built a culture of genuine allyship where colleagues are open and invested in understanding the challenges to achieving parity, from which we all gain. As a group, we subsequently pledged to seek out conversations with colleagues outside our own projects, interests or personality types.
“we need allyship to accelerate action, we are stronger together.”
Diversity remains a challenge for our industry but with university student figures nearing a 50/50 gender balance the next generation of architects is likely to be more reflective, from a gender perspective at least. Our employees often mention that they have been attracted to shedkm due to our gender balance and strong, visible female leadership, and as an EOT our internal culture benefits from greater representation and contribution at all levels of the practice.
If you would like to contribute to our monthly women in practice programme please get in touch.