At our 11th expo, kicking off 2021 in style, we were delighted to host Sofie van Brunschot – one of the founders of Urbanistas RDAM and architect at De Kort Van Schaik. The (digital) room was packed out with women eager to hear about Sofie’s idea to increase the visibility of projects by female spatial designers: a platform going by the name ‘Gebouwen door Vrouwen’.
Despite some great initiatives (such as WikiD and, yes, Urbanistas!) Sofie had noticed how hard it is to find out about projects by women. Her proposal was to use Instagram to build a simple and visual page to highlight this work, as well as becoming a repository for past and present. With loads of enthusiasm for the idea, the group quickly entered a deep discussion around the tension arising when attributing a design to any one person in a collaborative field such as architecture. Could Gebouwen door Vrouwen build a new narrative around ‘authorship’? Or is a strong focus on the female role exactly what we need to counter years of dominance by the singular (male) ego?
Deep discussion for a Tuesday night! And plenty of inspiration and input for Sofie to develop the idea further. We're excited to say that she launched the page on International Women's Day - check it out here! If you want to get in touch with Sofie about this project, you can contact her at: info@sofievanbrunschot.nl
