Diversity in Architecture : Intersectionality, Affective Politics, and Creating Change

Diversity in Architecture: Intersectionality, Affective Politics, and Creating Change explores diversity in architecture through an intersectional lens. It examines how overlapping individual identities, cultural ideologies, and institutional practices shape the profession.

Divided into two parts, this book first explores how values, norms, and ideologies are constructed, circulated, and reinforced through media representations – both from without and from within. The second leans into voices from academics and architects within spaces of education and practice, who share their lived experiences navigating power structures and affective politics that marginalise diverse voices. Considering praxis and actions to create change where care is central, it asks: what happens if we bring intersectionality to the picture of diversity in architecture – through media, education, practice? How can affective solidarity and relationality foster change? What role does intersectional care play in dismantling systemic barriers and reimagining a more inclusive future?

Written in dialogue with, and for architectural academics, practitioners, students, as well as wider audiences invested in diversity, this book opens its readers to the importance of mobilising diversity in architecture through intersectionality and affect, towards lasting change.

Jan Smitheram is an academic at Victoria University of Wellington, where she teaches architecture design, communication, and theory. Her research and pedagogy aim to construct a creative and critical dialogue between architecture practice, intersectionality, indigeneity, and affect theory. Her work has been published in international journals, anthologies, and conference proceedings.

Akari Nakai Kidd is an architectural educator, writer, and researcher at Deakin University, Australia. She is committed to the socio-ethical responsibility of architecture practice and education, through care and affect, extending into intersectionality. She is the author of Affect, Architecture, and Practice (2021) and actively works with vulnerable communities to bring about co-designed futures together.