Just one year ago, it seemed impossible. When workers at New York’s SHoP Architects pulled their petition to unionize on February 3, 2022, the future of architecture’s nascent labour movement was ambiguous at best. Largely seen as a failure — a warning to workers who dared challenge the profession’s egregious labour practices — SHoP’s union drive may have gone out with a whimper and not a bang. But it also sent a ripple through the industry, galvanizing the younger generation to fight for change. Behind the scenes, architectural workers were reaching out to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), which led SHoP’s campaign, for support. In September of 2022, their efforts finally began to bear fruit, if on a relatively modest tree: Bernheimer Architecture, a boutique practice based in Brooklyn, announced that it had organized the first private-sector architecture union in decades under a voluntary recognition agreement.

Prior to being hired at Bernheimer, where she is a project architect, Je Siqueira was a key organizer at SHoP. She was laid off in November 2021, two weeks before their campaign went public. In the weeks that followed, she watched as her former co-workers faced an anti-union campaign from management and an outpouring of support from industry colleagues. Newly unemployed, Siqueira reached out to owner Andy Bernheimer to see if a position was available at his firm, having heard positive testimonies about its work culture from friends. Andy was aware of Siqueira’s involvement with organizing. “It was kind of the elephant in the room, but it didn’t seem like it was an issue,” she says. Unionization was a major topic of conversation during her interview — and a large part of what drove her to accept the position. “Some of the things we talked about were pretty eye-opening. I teared up in the meeting, because it was a complete change from where I was coming from to where I could potentially land,” she says.

The staff at Bernheimer expressed curiosity about Siqueira’s role in the SHoP campaign, and she openly shared her experiences. Within three months, she referred them to David DiMaria, an organizer at IAMAW. A few weeks later, the bargaining unit of fifteen* employees already had majority support within the office.

When Andy received a letter in May 2022 outlining his employees’ intention to unionize, it came as no surprise. Suspecting he might be amenable to the idea, and hoping to avoid the outcome at SHoP, the bargaining unit opted to pursue voluntary recognition rather than a vote. “We wanted a new approach; we wanted to come out in unity with management,” Siqueira explained.

For Andrew Daley, an associate organizer at IAMAW, Bernheimer’s success is a counterpoint to architects’ skepticism around unions. “People said this will never happen — not at a small firm, not at a firm with good working conditions and not with voluntary recognition. And yet they did it with all three,” he says.

Indeed, many wonder why a firm of 22 employees, known to already have a healthy culture, would need a union. Daley raises an important point: “If you have all these good things, why wouldn’t you want it in writing so that it can’t change without your approval?”

Having doubled in size since 2019, Bernheimer’s staff was having conversations about how to improve the office, especially as the pandemic changed the parameters of working. “There was desire for a process through which those decisions could be made and implemented,” Siqueira explained. “We wanted to establish a baseline, not only for the office but also for the profession, so that it’s very clear what the norms and expectations are. There are a lot of things that aren’t written in a handbook that are left ambiguous, not because of any mal-intent but because they haven’t been thought through. Some people will inevitably take advantage of grey areas.”

For Andy, unionizing seemed like a natural way forward. “Any environment can stand for improvement, so I think that, like any firm, we probably have some issues that the legacy of architecture engenders,” he says. The union is currently in the process of finalizing its contract, a potentially year-long exercise in part due to the unorthodox route they have chosen: interest-based bargaining.

In this method, a mediator from the federal government leads negotiations, rather than workers presenting a proposal that management approves or not. In IBB, everyone, including the owner, brings their issues to the table and decides collectively how to move forward. In choosing this option, Bernheimer is challenging the notion that unionization is an inherently adversarial act.

As the first architecture firm to unionize in decades, Bernheimer is working without a road map. “It’s a little scary; we’re all learning as we go. There’s some degree of excitement because we can help define how it gets done,” Andy says. “That means that we’ll probably make mistakes that other people will learn from.” Through trial and error, Daley believes, Bernheimer will technically set a new standard, serving as a case study for future organizers and the industry at large.

The experience has changed the way Andy thinks about his business, from writing better proposals to learning how to set reasonable fees that reflect the value his team brings to a project. “Ripping off the band-aid of self-evaluation is hard,” he says. “When I go to a client with a fee proposal, I feel something of a nervous pang that I won’t get the job if I charge too much.” Andy is also an an associate professor at Parsons School of Design, and notes, “When my students are looking for jobs, I advise them to be a little bit more aggressive with salaries and I have to teach myself to do the same.”

Though many in the industry fear clients’ perception of unionization, especially around fees, Andy has confidence in Bernheimer’s existing relationships and believes they’ll still be in the running for new projects as long as they continue to provide the same level of service. He explains that, while there will be an impact, costs won’t go up overnight. “There’s an inclination to ask, ‘How does this negatively affect the firm?’ But I also think that there’s something to be said for how clients look at a stable, consolidated and cohesive group of people who want to work together,” he says. In an industry with high turnover, where firms often hire and fire on a project-by-project basis, this is one way employers might benefit from architecture’s labour movement.

Cynicism still holds many owners back from embracing unionization, but Andy attests that the process only works if the negotiation benefits all. “If the agreement is massively imbalanced and it puts the business at risk, that’s a problem for the workers. It’s also not good for me as an owner to have workers that are unhappy,” he says.

While Andy’s progressive attitude likely played a large role in the union’s success, Siqueira cites shifting values as another contributor. “When we first started having conversations at SHoP, we could barely use the word ‘union.’ That was so taboo and scary,” she explains. But when the New York Times broke the news of their campaign, sparking a barrage of social media attention, it seemed that the floodgates of the architecture labour movement opened. The AIA, which has historically been quiet on labour issues, hosted a sold-out panel on unionization (which included Daley and Bernheimer) at the Center for Architecture this past January. In the U.K., Muyiwa Oki became the first architectural worker (as opposed to a firm owner) to be elected RIBA president. He is also the first Black candidate to hold the position. Slowly but steadily, the tides are shifting.

There is still a long way to go. In October 2022, the Department for Professional Employees released the results of its survey on the state of the architectural industry. Two-thirds of respondents caution against joining the profession, 12 per cent have worked a 90-hour week at least once and 55 per cent fear retaliation from their employer for speaking out against labour issues. The bottom line, Architectural Workers United says, is that change is wanted and needed: Five in six people would approve of a union proposal in their workplace.

We can’t get there without upending entrenched assumptions about what a union is and why it’s worth having. While professional elitism is an attitudinal barrier that prevents architects from seeing themselves as workers in the first place, it is also critical to educate them about the customizability of union contracts. “Not everything in the contract needs to be assigned a dollar sign,” Siqueira says. Daley explains that each firm that has worked with IAMAW (there are currently between eight and 12 active campaigns) has brought different issues to the table, from benefits to protections like just cause and parental leave.

But even if pay did factor into the equation, it wouldn’t spell financial ruin. “If anybody thinks that increasing your rates one per cent is going to convince somebody to not build a building, they just don’t have a very good understanding of the way the business works,” explains Jay Pooley, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. “We’re talking about hundreds of thousands or tens of millions of dollars that stand to be made from the production of architecture.” Pooley looks to the construction industry as an example, in which most trades charge higher rates for overtime and clients happily pay up to keep projects running on schedule.

Bernheimer’s experience demonstrates that the results speak for themselves. “I feel so much more empowered to speak my mind because I know the only reason to be fired is for just cause,” says Siqueira. “It makes it easier to do my job and be more productive, rather than wasting all this mental energy to figure out if my job is on the line for what I said.”

What remains clear is that SHoP’s campaign was far from the failure it was painted to be. If anything, its outcome only motivated other firms to organize. It’s also evident that the conversation around architecture’s labour practices is here to stay. But as Daley explains, we won’t reach union density overnight. Rather, it’s about playing the long game and finding value in the collective rather than the individual. “Bernheimer didn’t start this movement; SHoP didn’t start this movement; I certainly didn’t. It’s been building on a lot of people’s effort for at least a decade,” he says. “Like a design problem, it’s an iterative process. You fail and then you move forward and learn from it. That kind of recursion is actually sort of poetic.”

In academia, which notoriously lags behind industry, students are expressing unprecedented interest in labour issues. Daley, who speaks at universities across the U.S. as part of Architectural Workers United, recognized a gap in the system when completing his own degrees. Labour studies were offered in a completely different school or college — which is common at most architecture schools — meaning that despite his interest, he left without any education on the subject. Now, he leads workshops for students about organizing so they have a vocabulary and frame of reference when they enter the workforce — or to leverage in their academic careers.

“Organizing is about finding a collective voice and coalescing around specific topics that are important to you, and recognizing that as collectives you have more power than you think,” he says. “We’re not saying that every time you don’t like something, don’t show up to studio. But, if you’ve written letters and you’ve tried to have conversations and you’re getting stonewalled on every single level and not seeing any kind of progress, then maybe that’s a tool.”

As an Associate Professor of Architecture at Parsons School of Design, Andy Bernheimer practices what he preaches in his own office. “The mindset that teaches students that it’s okay and expected to work 100-hour weeks to produce drawings for your teacher prepares students to go out into the workforce and expect to get paid shitty amounts of money for too much work,” he says. “We can’t just acknowledge labour within architecture practice, we also have to correct academic environments to set expectations properly.” To that end, Andy asks students to speak up if the workload feels too heavy and prioritizes teaching his students proper time management.

Jay Pooley has pioneered a similar approach at the University of Toronto. As a student, Pooley took issue with the onerous path to licensure. “I was staring down the barrel of years of internship and examinations — it just wasn’t adding up for me. I wouldn’t be able to afford my rent and student loans working for a high-caliber architect,” he recalls. When comparing the profession to others like law or engineering, he couldn’t understand why architects were made to work more hours for less pay.

It wasn’t until more recently, when talk of unions became more commonplace, that Pooley was inspired to speak up. Not being a licensed or practicing architect himself, the best avenue was in his classroom. Pooley has preached the benefits of self-care to his students for nearly a decade. “I brought yoga classes into the Daniels faculty early on as a sessional instructor, which was met with reply all-style heckling from esteemed and privileged senior faculty members,” he says. Thankfully, the school has since become much more receptive to conversations surrounding mental health.

From day one, Pooley sets the tone for a positive studio culture, rewriting the narrative that architectural education must be oppressive to be effective. Though, Kamran Hemani, a first-year student in Pooley’s studio course, was under no illusion that architecture school would be a cakewalk. “I definitely had expectations that the workload would be quite heavy. In terms of academic culture, I knew it was a competitive program,” he says. The transition to the rigorous post-secondary environment was challenging, but Hemani attests that the school is supportive of its students. Still, he says Pooley’s is the only class that foregrounds mental health.

To foster better time management skills, Pooley ensures deadlines are scheduled the night before the review, allowing students time to rest and recharge. He also builds in dedicated production time to ensure students, especially those early in their academic career, don’t get wrapped up in an endlessly iterative design process — and advocates against faculty quietly suggesting additional drawings on top of course requirements. These strategies go hand-in-hand with his “no all-nighters policy.”

As a result, Hemani has managed to achieve a satisfactory work-life balance. “I’m not willing to sacrifice my mental health and well-being to get a certain grade. Pulling the all-nighter is actually more detrimental as I won’t be as awake and present in the review the following day,” he says. Unfortunately, not all share his perspective, and many of his peers still burn the midnight oil despite being encouraged not to.

Reviews, or critiques, often a nerve-wracking prospect for incoming students, are a key facet of architectural education. As a designer himself, it is only natural that Pooley thinks about pedagogy spatially, as well as philosophically. “We always frame reviews as a conversation. But when you sit two critics dressed in black head to toe in the front row and then everybody else sits behind, the spatial dynamic suggests otherwise,” he explains. “The critique is students’ first exposure to quiet gatekeeping — they understand very clearly and very quickly what the hierarchy is and who’s encouraged to speak.” Pooley envisions a new arrangement for end-of-year reviews: a circular setup that seeks to dismantle this power imbalance, and thereby encourage dialogue from all.

He believes that this pedagogical overhaul is long overdue. “The favoured circle of architecture is on its way out. It’s just not sustainable anymore. The practice has proven that honouring architectural royalty in the academy does not equal a fair and just profession,” he says. “The majority of our students simply do not identify with the sort of privilege that has been endemic to our professional leaders for generations. They’re not interested in kissing the ring and they’re hungry for change.”

*The print version of this story incorrectly stated that the bargaining unit comprised five people.