International Women’s Day
March 8, 2022Today we celebrate all the women past and present who have helped us develop into the design practice we are today.
Women have been at the heart of our team since we started over 30 years ago and we remain committed to supporting women from the start of their careers, through their personal challenges and ongoing professional development. We are also celebrating the female designers of the future through our work with the charity I Can Be.
Reflecting on her career to date as well as offering tips for young women in the industry, one of our senior architects Cristina Rubio Gonzalez says: “It is an exciting world which mixes the best of arts, sciences, culture and history. There will be hard times but don’t give up as this will help improve your life and your loved-one’s lives through helping shape the world we inhabit.”
On the importance of having women in practice, Architectural Technician Lorida Mamaj says: “By increasing the representation of women in the industry it not only enables us to demonstrate a wider range of ideas through the diversity of our profession, but we can also confidently illustrate different core skills that we would otherwise overlook if there were no equal representation of all genders. Giving women the platform to share their stories of both successes and challenges poses an opportunity to learn how to best support them, consequently creating a pipeline of empowered women in the built environment.”
To encourage women into the world of work, we are proud to be working with the charity I Can Be, to demonstrate career opportunities to 7- and 8-year-old girls that they may not otherwise have been exposed to, building their curiosity and confidence along the way. By showing them careers in architecture, technical architecture, interior and graphic design we hope to broaden their horizons and help them discover the breadth of opportunity around them.
Paula Minelgaite, our Graphic Designer, spent some time with girls from Rhyl Primary School and said: “The pupils were very engaged with the I Can Be initiative and asked me lots of very good questions about the intricacies of being a graphic designer: from ‘what’s the best thing about being a graphic designer’ to ‘it is possible to work with people across the world’.”
“The virtual visit concluded by asking them to draw their names in a way that says something about their personalities – this encouraged the girls to think like graphic designers, putting words and images together to create meaning.”
“I hope that girls such as the ones I met at Rhyl Primary School will have much better opportunities to become successful creative directors in the not-too-distant future”
Find out more about the work on I Can Be and how you can help here: https://www.icanbe.org.uk