Laura Ruxton, Director at Dunwoodie Architects shares some of her experiences as a female architect in a male dominated construction industry.
I was recently interviewed by a University student who was researching the subject ‘Females in Architecture’. It was only when I was thinking about my answers that it occurred to me that women in architecture is a subject that perhaps doesn’t get the attention that it deserves. I graduated from Architecture in Colombia where the majority of architects are women. It is traditionally a career where women find a place and men tend to gravitate more towards engineering as a profession. This was certainly the case 20 years ago when I graduated. It is possibly unfair to generalise based upon an unfortunate experience I had whilst working as a student in an architect’s office in Switzerland where I was treated with total disrespect and sent to do the senior partner’s personal shopping without so much as a please or thank you. Rightly or wrongly, at this early stage of my career this led me to believe that women in architecture must be seen more as personal assistants regardless of their level of qualifications and that would remain with you throughout your career. Consequently, as a result of this experience, I was braced for something similar when I arrived in the UK. My professional experience in this country has been entirely with Dunwoodie Architects and since I started I have always felt listened to and appreciated. I started as an architectural assistant while I converted my degree from Colombia via the Architect’s Registration Board and then completed my final Part 3 qualification at Newcastle University, whilst at the same time starting a family and trying to settle in what was for me a foreign country. I have now been working in the UK for 15 years and in that period I have only ever worked with two other female architects. Clearly there are now many more female architects out there but the unbalance between male and female architects is still, in my opinion, quite significant. I have been in a meeting where I have felt physically threatened by a male client, who, despite knowing his argument was wrong, could not bring himself to accept that a 35 year old woman knew more about contract management than he did so he just lashed out in anger rather than accept his failings in that area. I felt totally intimidated, despite considering myself to be a reasonably strong woman, so much so that I struggled to hold myself together until after the meeting when I broke down in tears due to the pressure he had put me under. This surely cannot be acceptable in this day and age and I think I can fairly safely say that he would have reacted very differently if I had been a man. Fortunately those are just a couple of uncomfortable and inappropriate experiences I have had in my career to date. Overall, I think the good experiences significantly outnumber the bad ones and I have encountered far more instances of tolerant and supportive people on my journey in architecture so far. I am very lucky to have such an incredibly supportive team around me including Peter Swift, my fellow Director, who has been extremely helpful. Female architects face a lot of challenges, least of all we must work harder just to convince others that we are just as capable as any other male architect but, in all honesty, being surrounded by a team that cares and supports you along the way can make all the difference. At the end of the day, these are just my own personal experiences and I’m sure other women in architecture will have faced other challenges or maybe none of them, but after speaking to other female architects the one constant is having to prove yourself time and again. The feeling of having to work harder for others to listen to you and acknowledge that maybe we are just as capable. However, I’m not frightened of the challenge!
