Ideas Forum: Labour in Architecture

Hazel York is an architect, behavioural scientist, and managing partner at Hawkins\Brown. Having joined when it was a start-up, she has been instrumental in the growth of the practice, shaping the creative culture and its recent transition to employee ownership. Based in London, UK, she has led the design and delivery of a range of public and private sector projects seeking ways to create social value through good design.

Je Siqueira – a registered architect with over 15 years of experience – was one of the leaders in the unionizing efforts at both SHoP Architects and at Bernheimer Architecture, helping establish the first private-sector architectural union in the U.S. since the 1930s at the latter practice. As a practitioner, her current interests lie at the junction where fair labor and architectural practices come together. Je has undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture from UC Berkeley, and has worked at various award-winning architecture firms in San Francisco, Miami, and New York, working on projects of various typologies and sizes, ranging from high-end single-family homes in Miami, affordable multi-family housing in New York City, to the US Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand.

Johanna Hurme is an architect and co-founder of 5468796 Architecture. Her practice has been awarded numerous national and international awards. She is also a design activist and a housing and urban design advocate. She is the President Elect of RAIC I Architecture Canada, a past Chair of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, and has taught architecture at Cornell University, IIT in Chicago, and at universities across Canada. Johanna lectures extensively and is co-author of ‘Innovative Solutions for Creating Sustainable Cities’ (2018), and ‘platform:MIDDLE’, Architecture for Housing the 99% (2023).

Reza Nik is the founding director of SHEEEP, a licensed architect, artist and educator based in Toronto. Reza has a background in art history and he is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. Reza is also one of the founding members and co-steward of the Toronto chapter of the Architecture Lobby, an organization advocating for labour rights for architectural workers and encouraging more critical discourse within the profession.

Hong Kong born and Vancouver raised, Yvonne Ip (OAA, MArch, BFA, BA) now makes Kitchener, Ontario home. In preparation for architecture, she studied sociology and visual arts, and worked as a construction labourer. Yvonne has been immersed in architecture for over two decades. She is the past chair of the Grand Valley Society of Architects and a founder of Ontario’s first architectural worker co-operative, Arise Architects Co-operative.