You can watch the forty-third Parlour LAB here!
Our two speakers were non-practicing architects researching architectural practice. Fascinating! Amanda van de Paverd is a mother, veteran, board member, co-owner of an architectural practice, and researcher with a PhD on human resources, leadership, organisational transformation, and maverickism — the role of deliberate disruption in driving cultural and institutional change. Jonathan Robberts is a lecturer in the Business School at Macquarie University. His PhD contributed to the Wellbeing of Architects study by exploring the enactment of professional identities in emerging architectural practices.
Here are some of the key things I learned:
The professional identity of an “architect” is strong and deeply fixed
The positives: authority, shared standards, sense of purpose
The negative: Push back on new ways of working, collaborating, or new ideas about what architectural practice could be (because they are threats to the professional identity) means people hold onto a professional identity that no longer maps cleanly onto the current field, which ultimately constrains the profession.
Another negative: When the identity of “architect” is so tightly defined, there is very little space for people who don’t share all the traditional characteristics to belong (which is perhaps why my winning the 2025 Emerging Architect Prize felt like a very big deal!). Given the extraordinary diversity of contemporary architectural practice, this is a major problem for us to address.
The tension in describing the architect as the core author of a project
Do architects really have singular creative authority over a project? This is a cherished identity, but is it always the most useful framing?
A profession with diversity of practice should enable different identities of architectural work to come through, rather than valorising one above all others. Jonathan warned that if we don’t, the profession risks being “eaten up” or ceded to others who are already doing parts of the work.
We need to embrace pluralism and disruption (with a purpose)
Amanda's research on maverickism brought a welcome nuance to the conversation, describing the difference between a jerk (someone who disrupts for the sake of disruption) versus a maverick (someone who disrupts because there is a need, with purpose and values behind the disruption).
Maverickism is contextual. You don't have to be, and shouldn’t be, a maverick all the time. When disruption connects to something meaningful (equity, sustainability, better outcomes, a more inclusive profession) it can build traction.
We all carry multiple identities, and the session made clear that the architecture profession can afford to embrace that plurality rather than flatten it.
Creating psychological safety in an organisation takes sustained effort
Running a practice, supporting a team, engaging with change and creating a psychologically safe environment takes care and the labour of creating psychological safety in an organisation is real and often invisible.
What's also underexplored is the asymmetry of safety: not everyone in a team or a profession feels equally safe to raise ideas, challenge norms, or claim a different kind of identity. The dynamics here are complex, and the session acknowledged they're not always well understood in architectural workplaces.
Often, what workplaces say they want to achieve, and how their systems are set up oppose each other (e.g. does the organisation say they are innovative but do not allow people to fail?).
Key takeaways from the speakers:
Amanda emphasised the value of approaching new ideas and change with curiosity and open-mindedness: you will gain so much from listening, understanding the challenges, being open to new ideas, and learning from other people’s perspectives. She recommended making friends, because social networks are what help you share hard-won lessons and get through difficult moments.
Jonathan pointed outward: engage with non-architects. Think about the architecture profession from outside of architecture. Bring new ideas into the profession, or bring architectural ideas to other spaces. A significant body of work has researched the architectural profession from sociology, organisational theory, and identity research and this is a useful resource. Sessions like LAB 43, he suggested, are where that starts to change.