The built environment professions are often described as lacking diversity, but could it be that the issue is not simply a lack of diversity, but a lack of visibility?
Tarek Merlin
As a queer Palestinian architect running a queer-led architecture studio, diversity and inclusion are at the forefront of what we do. Over the years, we have been fortunate enough to work alongside visionary clients and collaborate with incredibly diverse talent across the industry.
At the same time, I have come to realise that many of these incredibly diverse individuals and practices can remain overlooked – not because of a lack of talent, but because opportunities for visibility, access and recognition within the industry are not always equally available. Across architecture, interiors, planning, branding, engineering, development and construction, there is excellence everywhere; we just need to find it, celebrate it and commission it.
This is partly what led me to begin developing the idea of the Diversity Directory, a cross-disciplinary platform intended to celebrate and connect the diversity that already exists within the built environment industries – not as a box-ticking exercise, but as a practical tool to help clients, collaborators and institutions broaden who they work with and discover voices they may otherwise never encounter.
Visibility matters: if we broaden who gets to shape our cities, we broaden the ideas that shape them
The Diversity Directory is being developed following discussions involving representatives from organisations including RIBA, the Greater London Authority and a range of other institutions and practitioners from across the built environment. The ambition is simple: to make it easier for clients, consultants and employers to discover and connect with the talent already shaping our towns and cities.
Greater visibility can also inspire the next generation, helping young people from all backgrounds to see a place for themselves within the professions that shape our built environment. As the project evolves, we welcome conversations with others who share the belief that visibility matters and who would like to be part of the journey. If we broaden who gets to shape our cities, we broaden the ideas that shape them.
Credit: Shutterstock / PeopleImages
I’ve seen this directly through my own work exploring housing design through a queer lens. I’ve written about ‘queering housing standards’, examining how many of our housing models continue to assume a very narrow definition of domestic life, typically centred on the heteronormative nuclear family.
The standard two-bed, four-person flat has become so normalised within the UK housing market that we rarely stop to question the assumptions embedded within it. Contemporary life is far more complex. Multi-generational households, blended families, chosen families, shared living arrangements and non-traditional domestic structures are increasingly common, but our housing models often struggle to accommodate them.
Exposing blind spots
Looking at housing from different lived experiences can expose blind spots within the system and open new possibilities. Recently, this thinking developed further into ideas around multi-generational queer co-housing, exploring how chosen-family living models could help address both LGBTQ+ youth homelessness and isolation among older queer people.
A more diverse industry generates different points of view and spatial outcomes, which is why diversity in the built environment is important. It directly affects innovation, creativity and the quality of the places we build.
The property industry is entering a moment of enormous change. Questions around housing delivery, affordability, retrofit, climate resilience and social value increasingly demand new ways of thinking. Innovation is needed to help answer these questions, which can be difficult if the same voices continue to shape the conversation in the same ways.
The Diversity Directory is intended as one small intervention within that wider challenge: a mechanism to help make visible the breadth of talent, experience and perspectives already present across the built environment professions.
Just as you can’t be what you can’t see, you can’t commission what you can’t see.
Tarek Merlin is co-founder of Feix&Merlin Architects
