What’s your ‘why’?
Q&A with Denise Harper
We recently caught up with Associate Denise Harper from our Brisbane studio who shares her passion for social justice and her role in advocating for everybody to access safe and inclusive spaces.
Diversity
Hames Sharley is committed to a future coloured with increasing cultural and social diversity as well as constant economic and environmental change.
Good architecture leaves no one behind
Accessibility is a common theme when talking about design. This article states unequivocally that designers have an obligation to raise awareness of accessible design. Diversity in our community is an increasingly relevant factor in design matters in our centres.
Are we really designing for inclusion?
‘How can we better design to advance inclusion and equity’ and ‘How do we encourage staff and clients to challenge cognitive bias and employ compassion and understanding?’ Our strategic goal is to challenge and ultimately break barriers, understand our unconscious biases, and deliver on inclusive and equitable design in our communities.
Inclusivity in the design and planning of change facilities
Discussions around gender inequality are commonplace. From closing the gender pay gap and promoting more women into senior management positions, to supporting female athletes, historical gender imbalances are being rectified by addressing largely unconscious bias.
A changeroom of their own: the importance of designing for women in sport
Hames Sharley, like the AFL is taking steps in the right direction to make significant improvements in this area and become more gender-inclusive; not just adding female teams, but by creating spaces which accommodate for women too.
Inclusivity in design: Re-imagining Hames Sharley’s Perth Studio
In her book, Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez cites numerous examples of how women have been forgotten in a world designed by men, for men. From speech recognition software not trained to detect female voices to office air-con which is generally around five degrees too cold for women because it’s designed for male bodies; there are countless examples which demonstrate the ways in which women have been simply forgotten when it comes to designing the world they also live in.
Designing for all genders: How Casuarina Shopping Centre is leading the way
For parents, getting out and about with little kids can be a challenging experience. From feeding ever-hungry newborns to dealing with toddler meltdowns and the sudden need for nappy changes - or head-to-toe outfit changes! - the parents’ room is a welcome respite for any parent in need of a break.
How urban design can help reduce homelessness
With homelessness affecting hundreds of thousands of Australians, this is no longer a situation we can ignore. It is time for Australia to follow the footsteps of countries such as France, Finland and Greece, to determine how we can implement urban planning tools to help alleviate homelessness.
How Mentoring is Helping Gender Equality
When it comes to gender equity in the workplace, considerable effort has been made by employers in the last decade to level the playing field. Even so, research shows women are still disproportionately underrepresented in upper management – without discriminatory intent, a very subtle ‘second generation’ form of gender bias still exists that can block women’s bids for more elevated positions.
Empowerment Through Education and a Love of Knowledge
Ann-Maree discusses the power of education and a love of learning as a foundation to success, regardless of gender, where a positive mindset is key. “It could be argued that, in focusing on difficulties related to gender equity, mindsets detrimental to success are deployed. Regardless of gender and one’s experienced difficulties at the time, thinking patterns of blame, self-doubt, envy and comparison are distractions to success.”
Embracing Age Diversity in the Workplace
Almost a third of Australians perceived some form of age-related discrimination while employed or looking for work. Urban Designer, Master Planner and Graduate Landscape Architect, Hayley Edwards is raising awareness on age discrimination in the workplace. Check out Hayley’s article: Embracing Age Diversity in the Workplace and see how supporting policies will assist to create an equal and enabled world.
Advancing Equality Though Economic Empowerment
“Economic empowerment, in my opinion, is important to diversity because it enables the ability to act on a person’s authority, making financial decisions based on individual preferences.” Today we talk economic empowerment with Elise Miles Simonovski, a Principal at our Melbourne office. Elise believes women stand to benefit more from economic empowerment because they remain disproportionately restricted by discrimination and exploitation.
Sport for All
Today we talk sport with Madeleine Steele from our Adelaide office. Madeleine believes that sport has been an invaluable part of her progression as a young professional and would love to see women given more opportunities to flourish in both fields. Read her story today and help forge a gender-equal world. Read her story today and help form a gender-equal society.
The Future of My Career and Growing a Family
International Women’s Day is an opportunistic time for Grace to reflect on how growing a family and her career ambitions can coexist. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the expectant mother to be. Read how Grace is raising awareness, providing forward-thinking ideas and calling out the prejudice for women of childbearing ages in the workplace.
Next Generation of Innovators
Dubai Design Week 2019, the Global Grad Show brought together the world’s top Graduates to showcase a diverse range of innovative design projects between 12-16th November. Hames Sharley’s WA Studio Project Assistant Georgina Spooner attended the event and presented her Honours thesis project in the ‘Planet’ category of the exhibition.
Designing for Humanity
While conditions in refugee camps are often insufferable, is it time to start thinking outside these boxes? Hames Sharley Project Assistant and Member of the National Sustainability Forum (NSF) Georgina Spooner looks at how architects and designers can help the displaced to feel like they belong in our communities.
Celebrating NAIDOC Week through design
NAIDOC Week is a week for Australia to come together to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This year, it runs from the 4th to the 17th of
A design for inclusion
With this week marking the twentieth anniversary of Harmony Day in Australia, we turned our thoughts towards the part cultural diversity plays in the design industry: why inclusivity is not just desirable in the workplace but essential, bringing a whole host of advantages that are lost in a less multicultural environment.
Marion Mahony Griffin - The heroine that shaped our capital
A spotlight on the ‘woman behind the man’
Many know Marion Mahony Griffin in relation to her work undertaken for Frank Lloyd Wright, and with her husband and business partner Walter Burley Griffin, but she was an incredible architect in her own right.
Building cultural diversity through the language we speak
It is proven that cultural diversity adds to the bottom line. The benefits of cultural diversity are many: improved decision-making, increased collaboration, better problem-solving, enhanced well-being and knowledge sharing, to name a few. But what does it look like in a real workplace?
The perils of periphrastic pontification
Why do people resort to jargon as a means to look knowledgeable and authoritative when a simple answer would have done the job. These days, few people are fooled by five-dollar words when ten-cent ones will do, and jargon is all about big spending for slight return.
