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“People are scared to death,” says a human resources director at a large architecture firm based in New York State. What...
06/03/2026

“People are scared to death,” says a human resources director at a large architecture firm based in New York State. What she’s referring to are the effects of the Trump Administration’s anti-immigrant policies. “We had somebody at an airport getting ready to leave the country to go visit family, and he wondered, ‘Should I get on this plane or not?’ And the answer is, ‘We don’t know,’ ” she continues. Another source, Zarith Pineda, the founder of the design collective Territorial Empathy, hasn’t been able to reach one of her most trusted subcontractors, who is an immigrant, for months. “It’s already difficult to be a practitioner,” Pineda says. “But when your coworkers and your collaborators disappear, it brings another level of complexity.”

Between travel bans, expanded ICE activity, and new and constantly evolving visa restrictions, U.S. immigration policy has become increasingly inscrutable since President Trump began his second term. And architecture is suffering consequences. It’s too early to ascertain the full effects of these policies, but the immediate impacts have included more precariousness for architects and architecture students who are foreign nationals, significantly higher immigration-related administrative expenses for firms, and a culture of fear that is changing the way offices, institutions, and jobsites operate.

Read more: https://brnw.ch/21x34rk

Words by Diana Budds
Illustration by Anna Gibb

Serpentine season is once again upon us. Set to make its debut this weekend on June 6 at London’s Kensington Gardens is ...
06/03/2026

Serpentine season is once again upon us. Set to make its debut this weekend on June 6 at London’s Kensington Gardens is a serpentine, a fittingly snaking clay-brick structure realized by Mexico City–based studio Lanza Atelier as the 25th-annual Serpentine Pavilion. The ephemeral structure, inspired by the curving form of the traditional English garden feature known as the crinkle-crackle wall, will remain on view through October 25.

“We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to share our work with a wider public and to contribute to the Pavilion’s ongoing legacy of spatial experimentation and collective encounter,” said Lanza Atelier co-founders Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo in a statement. “Set within a garden, an evocation of the natural world, the project takes the form of a serpentine wall, conceived as a device that both reveals and withholds; shaping movement, modulating rhythm, and framing thresholds of proximity, orientation, and pause.”

Read more about this year's Serpentine Pavilion: https://brnw.ch/21x34k9

Words by Matt Hickman
Photos © Lanza Atelier, by Iwan Baan, courtesy Serpentine Galleries

Some 43 million people—about one-fifth of the country’s population—together owe an estimated $1.75 trillion in student l...
06/03/2026

Some 43 million people—about one-fifth of the country’s population—together owe an estimated $1.75 trillion in student loan debt. The average amount per borrower is about $40,000; for many, it stretches into six figures.

That is a lot of money going toward monthly payments that could stimulate the economy, compound in a retirement-savings account, or fund a down payment, but doesn’t. The situation is even more dire for architects. Surveys conducted by the American Institute of Architecture Students consistently show higher-than-average indebtedness. Popular five-year professional degrees require two additional semesters of tuition, and non-architecture majors must pursue a lengthy master’s. On top of this, software, model-making tools, supplies, and printing costs can run up an expensive tab. Once in the workforce, based on research by Yale’s Tobin Center for Economic Policy, graduates can expect a 4 percent return on their investment—a far cry from the 173 percent in medicine, the 41 percent in law, or even the 19 percent in civil engineering.

Continue reading: https://brnw.ch/21x3415

Words by Leopoldo Villardi
Illustration by Anna Gibb

When it comes to project delivery, the adage “success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan” often holds true. An...
06/02/2026

When it comes to project delivery, the adage “success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan” often holds true. An incorrect detail or ill-conceived element can easily lead to cost and schedule overruns, with plenty of blame tossed around. But what if there were a different course of action that brought specialty engineers and fabricators, or contractors, into the design phase to lend their expertise? This collaborative approach is loosely denoted as “design assist,” and the method’s potential to provide constructability guidance and budget and timeline certainty, while meeting the demands of increasingly sophisticated building systems, is driving its growing popularity.

In a typical design-bid-build schedule, architects and engineers (of varied stripes) work in relative isolation from fabricators and contractors through the construction-documents phase. Project components—curtain-wall systems, structural steel, and more—are then bid to subcontractors. While this framework clearly delineates responsibilities among the parties involved, lack of early collaboration can lead to expensive change orders down the line, among other issues.

Read more: https://brnw.ch/21x32pa

Words by Matthew Marani
Pictured: Buffalo AKG Art Museum; Photo © Marco Cappelletti

According to the most widely cited sources, there are roughly 120,000 architects in the United States today—about the po...
06/02/2026

According to the most widely cited sources, there are roughly 120,000 architects in the United States today—about the population of Hartford, Connecticut. All of America’s architects could fit into the single Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick (120,747). Compare this to the number of physicians and surgeons (839,000), lawyers (864,800), or software developers (1,895,500), as estimated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and one begins to realize that, in the grand scheme of things, there aren’t that many architects in America. Consider the European Union, which has a total population only 32 percent greater than the U.S., but—according to estimates published by the Architects’ Council of Europe—has 380 percent more architects than America (Italy alone, with a population one-fifth the size of the U.S., has 152,000 architects). So how many do we need?

The BLS projects 4 percent growth in the number of architecture jobs from 2024–34, meaning that it views architecture as a relatively stable occupation, growing at roughly the same rate as the overall U.S. labor market. Let’s consider how many architects we have. That 120,000 figure is based on three primary sources. The BLS reports that in 2024 there were 123,600 jobs classified as “architect.” The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) reports roughly 116,000 licensed architects. Mean­while, economists at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) estimate between 120,000 and 130,000 architectural staff working in private practice.

Learn more: https://brnw.ch/21x320C

Words by Jacob Reidel
Illustration by Anna Gibb

As Smiljan Radić receives his Pritzker Award, and the AIA Conference gets underway, we reflect on the art—and business—o...
06/01/2026

As Smiljan Radić receives his Pritzker Award, and the AIA Conference gets underway, we reflect on the art—and business—of architecture.

Read the June 2026 Editor's Letter: https://brnw.ch/21x30Fp

Photo © Jillian Nelson

One bright morning this past March, exactly 10 years after the unexpected death of Zaha Hadid, guests gathered for the u...
06/01/2026

One bright morning this past March, exactly 10 years after the unexpected death of Zaha Hadid, guests gathered for the unveiling of a stone-carved signpost at a Milan street renamed in her honor. Tributes were paid by trustees of the charitable Zaha Hadid Foundation (ZHF), which she established in 2013 to conserve her work. The anniversary was also marked by a grand fête for her friends at London’s Serpentine Gallery, where a heartfelt speech on how she continues to inspire was given by Patrik Schumacher, principal of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA). Though these commemorations illustrate their complementary spirit, there has been no friendly coordination between Hadid’s firm and her foundation, which have been in bitter and near-constant dispute for the past decade.

It’s a situation that carries lessons for practices planning leadership succession. Multiple court cases pitting ZHA against ZHF have aired sensitive issues many firms grapple with internally: what long-term obligations founders feel toward their staff; the nature of architectural authorship; and the ways reputations are safeguarded, or exploited.

Continue reading: https://brnw.ch/21x30gR

Words by Chris Foges
Illustration by Anna Gibb

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