Awards recognise New Zealands women architects

Media release: 30 September

Awards recognise New Zealands women architects

Three architects have been acknowledged in the inaugural Architecture+Women:NZ Awards, a programme set up to celebrate the oft-overlooked contribution of women to the New Zealand building industry.

Wellington architect Cecile Bonnifait won the Wirihana Emerging Leadership Award, Australian-based New Zealand architectural researchers Justine Clark and Gill Matthewson won the Munro Diversity Award, and Auckland architect Julie Stout won the Chrystall Excellence Award.

The Awards are an initiative of Architecture+Women: NZ, a 500-strong organisation established in 2011 to raise the visibility of women in the architecture profession.

Women architects have struggled to achieve professional recognition, says A+W:NZ Awards organiser Megan Rule. It has been difficult for women to reconcile family commitments and career advancement within the traditional hierarchical structure of the architectural firm.

This means that women architects have often had unorthodox or interrupted careers, and their contributions have been insufficiently acknowledged.

Rule says the career progress of women is still a big challenge to the architecture profession.

Half of the graduates at New Zealands architecture schools are women, but very few of the large New Zealand architecture firms have any women partners. Establishing career paths for talented young women is one of the biggest challenges for architecture in New Zealand.

One of the main goals of Architecture + Women and progammes like the new A+W:NZ Awards is to achieve inclusive and equitable work environments.

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Awards recognise New Zealands women architects