Wednesday, July 7, 1993 ~ North Shore News - 24

ion ground

New alliances form as a result of Festival of Women in Architecture

AN LEGATE wallgs into the room and ber eyes light

up. Siting etound the table in front at her, enpaged

in-an animated lete-a-tete, are three protessional
women with whoo she has much in common,

Nancy Mackin, Karen Kathy ed
and Carole Atnston are all sel
employed North Shore architects
wad mothers who have been prac
fein an average ob DO years,

The surprising thing is they ee
never met betore, Aner quick in-
traductions, bow ever, they seem
to be hitting it ow dikes old pads.

This cosy quartet eormes as an ie
lustrative reminder of just how
isolated the female architectural
community is.

In fact there reaily wasn’t much
of a “community ’ until lust
month, when Acnston and a hand:
ful of others got together ta orga.
nize a month-long Festival of
Women in Architecture exhibit at
various Gastown locations.

Just over a year ago, when Arn-
ston put the call out for interested
exhibitors, she was expecting to
hear from maybe a dozen women,

When over 30 responded ~
some with award-winning fur-
niture installations and national
projects_of international stature —
she admits she felt a little over-
whelmed.

“We were swamped,’’ says
Arnston, whose focus has been in
urban design and planning.

“We received calls from peo-
ple all over the place saying how
excited they were that women in
B.C. — in Canada — were finally
going to have a presence and
show themselves to the world.”’

The response from their male
peers?

“A lot of them were saying, ‘t
wonder what they‘re voing to do,’
she chuckles,

“Some of them have been
scrutinizing the work to see if
women design differently than
men. Most of us think not. but
there are people who are adamant
that both the process and the pro-
duct can be different.

“Many say that women fisten
better, that they’ re able to in-
teprate ideas in a more holistic
way.”

Although women have made
great strides in the last 10 years,
they still make up anly 7% of all
repistered B.C. architects.

Many of them work in-
dependently of other women and
have historically maintained low
profiles.

“Few people know where we
are,” laments Arnston, “We're
all starting to find out about each
other and the tact that we share a
lot of common interests and con-
cerns.”

One obvious concern is the way
the education system deals with
female architects. Arnston believes
it was not designed to :ccommo-
date women.

An architectural degree requires
J seven-year commitment that typ-
ically falls smack in the middle of a
woman's childbearing years. Once
a degree is obtained, there's the
ongoing issue of childcare.

“So few of the women | went
to school with registered (as ar-
chitects), and still haven’t because
they had children,” says Mackin,
whose projects range fram the
West Vancouver Senior Centre
expansion to Nancy Greene's
Olympic Lodge at Whistler,

“Before | had a tamily | didn't
think there was an issue that
defined me as a woman architect,
and | resisted any idea that there
was,

“Now [find the issues forme
are time constraints and thinkiay
about childcare at the beginning
and end of each day."

”

Evelyn Jacob
SPOTLIGHT FEATURE

“Talked to ane woman who
Was a nursing mom, Inte gecs
Arnston, “who bad to sit through
a 12-hour exam. and they
wouldn't give her any dime off,
She postponed it tora year, and
now she's pregnant again.”

To achieve the dearly sought-
atter Dalanced life of career and
home fife, Arnstan, Kallweit and
Legate have all moved their offices
into their homes (Mackin has her
own practice in West Vancouver),

Kaflweit, who is mother toa
16-month-old infant, recently gave
up a high-paying job with a Van-
couver architectural firm to look
atter hee toddler,

For the past five years she had
been working on large institutional
projects, such as the Burnaby Cor-
rectional Centre for Women, but
now plans to get back to doing
more residential design,

“Now | don’t have to sitin the
car and commute everywhere,”

See Planners page 30

N ©

FOR THE

tS

SEVEN DAYS

WEEKEND!

NOW GOING

ek

we Ns
NEWS photo Mike Waketletd

NANCY MACKIN (left to riaht) Carole Arnston, Nan Legate and Kaven Kallweit are registered ar-
chitects trying to balance home life with their careers. All four women took part in last month’s
Festival of Women in Architecture exhibit, which they hope has helped to raise the profile of prac-
tising women architects,

MORE WAITING TI:O00 A.M. EVERYONE,

PLAYLAND YOUR ENGINES.

FULL TILT

A WEEK FROM