Rather than focusing simply on how design can make spaces safer for women, architecture should turn the mirror on itself, writes Kate Fleming.
While on my lunch break one day, I went to a public square across the road from my office to have a phone call with a friend. It was a rare sunny day in London and the square was filled with workers getting some vitamin D.
On paper, the square was perfectly designed to be a safe space. It was spacious and flooded with daylight, surrounded by residential buildings with overlooking balconies. There was CCTV and porters, a restaurant in one corner, and even a little church in another.
I’d spent many lunch breaks there with colleagues, but on that particular day, I was sitting by myself, talking on the phone, when a man came near with a wry smile on his face and flashed me.
I never felt comfortable in that square again
It happened so quickly that it took me a few moments to comprehend it. No one else seemed to notice, and social chatter continued uninterrupted. In shock, I went back to my office. I never felt comfortable in that square again.
The conversation around how design can address the safety needs of women and girls tends to focus on four key areas: lighting, visibility, space activation (or busyness) and maintenance. On that day in the square, it was lunchtime in broad daylight in central London, the square was clean, manicured and busy, with plenty of so-called activation, but none of that prevented what happened.
Because violence against women and girls (VAWG) – and gender inequality more broadly – isn’t just a design problem, it’s a cultural problem.
When we reduce the issue to the confines of design, the architecture community can easily overlook its own impact on ingrained inequality, as well as the change it could create in its own ranks. This leads to the industry missing key opportunities to use its platform to support women and girls – both within architecture and more broadly.
A year or so later, I went to a panel event launching a new handbook on creating safer spaces for women and girls. Lighting was a hot topic, as was the importance of local consultation with women and girls. I noticed that the cover of the handbook featured a utopian illustration of diverse women enjoying themselves in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park with no men in the picture – but make of that what you will.
While the guidelines did address the multi-faceted complexity of VAWG and gender inequality, the event failed to acknowledge the complicity of the architecture industry itself in perpetuating a culture where women are continually undervalued, underpaid and disrespected.
Listening to the panel pat themselves on the back for delivering the handbook, I felt deflated
In 2021, over half the students starting architecture undergraduate courses in the UK were women, with the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service reporting 2,900 enrolments from women and 2,750 from men. However, in 2023, only 31 per of architects in that same year were women, despite them making up almost 50 per cent of those entering the profession.
This imbalance is compounded by the gender pay gap. Ongoing studies from the RIBA and the Fawcett Society estimate a 16 per cent gap between men’s and women’s median hourly pay in UK architecture – well above the economy-wide average.
It’s widely agreed that the reason for both representation and remuneration inequality is due to the lack of career progression for women, with the vast majority employed in junior, low-paid jobs, while 80 per cent of leadership positions in 2022 were held by men.
The issue isn’t limited to the UK either. The Australian Workplace Gender Equity Agency published gender pay gap data for private employers with over 100 workers for the first time in 2024, including 22 of the country’s largest architecture, interior design and landscape design firms.
Sadly, not a single design firm included in the report met the national target pay gap range of -5 to 5 per cent, with the worst performer having a staggering 26.9 per cent pay gap. In the US, it’s estimated that it will take until 2088 before the pay gap is closed for American architects at the current rate of change.
While sitting in the audience, listening to the panel pat themselves on the back for delivering the handbook, I felt deflated at what seemed like yet another attempt to solve a systemic issue with design solutions.
What if clients requested gender diversity across levels of seniority?
I’m not saying design interventions aren’t needed. Of course good lighting, passive surveillance and ground-level activation all help not just women, but everyone, feel safer in public spaces, and I’m sure they help to deter acts of VAWG too. But they don’t address the root of the problem.
While working in communications at an architecture studio, I sat in meetings with 15 or so team leaders where the only women in the room were support staff. I saw many of my female colleagues be the only woman in a design team meeting. And flippant sexist jokes weren’t infrequent. These are all typical symptoms of the same attitudes and conditions that lead to VAWG.
In contrast, I also saw aspirational design competitions and bids come through the door with heavily weighted criteria focused on rigorous social value commitments, extremely ambitious embodied and operational carbon targets, and ethnically diverse representation within design teams – all great initiatives that consider the wider impact of developments and design.
Clients and local governments alike are already changing the way architects approach projects, making corporate, environmental and social responsibility not just a priority but a requirement. Given the gender pay gap in architecture has barely shifted in six years, it needs a push, and clients (both public and private) could provide that kickstart, catalysing momentum by enforcing a business case for architects to empower women and foster their career growth alongside male colleagues.
For example, what if clients and governments requested that architects take on equal numbers of girls and boys for work experience on a project? What if they requested gender diversity across levels of seniority within design teams? Or for architecture firms to have robust gender equality policies and career pathways, provide equal paternity and maternity leave, meet minimum gender pay gap targets, and run unconscious bias training?
What if all these actions had been in that handbook, alongside recommendations for lighting and consultations? Maybe we’d start to see an architecture industry that truly creates a safe and empowering environment for women.
Kate Fleming is an Australian writer and editor based in London focused on sustainability and ethics in design.
The photo is by Marc Pell via Unsplash.
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