Day 54: Monday 27 March
Coming out of the ditch.
I had many conversations on Friday that showed me the challenges I face in my work. Whilst none of them make the work easier, it’s reassuring. It’s not entirely me. It’s a hard nut to crack and maybe I won’t.
The thing here is that the conversations are much the same. So it’s time to spread them further afield. Finding time to Reach Out to people outside fo the profession. To find perspective in their thinking and insights. Finding a space where new approaches, thinking and ways of working. Using that to inform my work and perhaps in turn inform the work of the profession.
On Values and Value
Sarah Wigglesworth gave a RIAS Keynote lecture in 2022 by the above name.
…architectural workers also face low pay and long hours, and there is no system in place for collective representation of their position. Yet it is our collective failure that we have been reeled into this way of doing things. All of us, including those that represent us – our professions, our civic institutions, our governing bodies and the large practices that lead the industry – are part of the problem. If we do not challenge it, we sanction it.
I had seen this before, not the words but the insight. What I hadn’t seen before was that maybe this was my work.
Making change feels like an impossible task, yet future generations won’t forgive us unless we try.
This is not a challenge that is centred on human skills but is nevertheless about leadership and culture. The difference with focusing on this change is that the teaching of the skills contributing to a better culture, better leadership, is still the most important part. It’s just that the thinking shifts from being about simply “better culture” to help architects change so that they may change the values and value invested in the built environment.
It identifies my value as well as a problem I can help solve.
It’s a new starting point.
