To celebrate International Women’s Day, Westminster Interior Architecture MA student Victoria Collins helped organise a Women in Architecture panel event alongside the charity Build Studios that explored the protest roots of the feminist movement and how this applies to today’s built environment.
Collins, along with Leia Monger and Helen Santer from Build Studios, organised the event titled Who’s Coming on the March on behalf of the Making Space for Women group, a networking group for women working or aspiring to work in the field of the built environment. The intergenerational panel saw three women at different stages in their built environment careers share their insights about what still needs to be fought for in today’s towns and cities.
One of the speakers was Deborah Nagan, the Director and Founder of Uncommon Land, now called Benoy Landscape Architecture, a landscape architecture and urban design practice which has studios in both London and Singapore. Nagan is a designer that specialises in sustainability, the public realm and development strategy.
The next panellist, Selasi Setufe MBE, is a Senior Architect and Innovative Sites Programme Manager at Be First Regeneration Limited and the Co-Founder and Director of Black Females in Architecture. She received an MBE for her services to diversity in Architecture in the Queen’s 2022 New Year’s Honours.
The pair were joined by Mary Holmes, an Architectural Assistant at nimtim architects. In 2020 she won the prestigious RIBA President’s Bronze Medal with her work titled Out of the Closet Into the Garden – An Almshouse for Queer Elders, where she repurposed everyday terraced housing to make a place for older queer people.
Making Space for Women is a networking group for women in the built environment and are open to all women in the sector. They aim to provide an informal opportunity for networking and a forum for fascinating debate in a part of London known for its activism and engagement.
The event contributed toward the Gender Equality (5), Reduced Inequalities (10) and Sustainable Cities and Communities (11) development goals of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Since 2019, the University of Westminster has used the SDGs holistically to frame strategic decisions to help students and colleagues fulfil their potential and contribute to a more sustainable, equitable and healthier society.
Find out more about the Architecture, Interiors and Urban Design courses at the University of Westminster.
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