Black people encounter obstacles in their professional lives of a kind unimagined by their white counterparts. Kunle Barker shares a personal testimony illustrating an insidious problem that blights the construction industry
Carbon offsetting is becoming an excuse to build huge concrete buildings
Offsetting is not even close to being sustainable and is allowing lazy, ego-driven designs to be accepted, says Kunle Barker
Give smaller practices a fighting chance to show their talent in competitions
Architecture competition organisers should encourage smaller practices to enter, making a practice’s size and diversity key criteria for entry, writes Kunle Barker
Why has the government declared war on the creative industries?
Plans for new minimum university entry requirements seem based on the perverse idea that the purpose of education is to raise your earning potential, writes Kunle Barker
Our planning system is over-complex and under-funded
We have removed the common sense factor in determining planning decisions, says Kunle Barker
‘Let’s make 2022 a year of action’
Kunle Barker suggests some new year’s resolutions the industry might do well to adopt for 2022
Blame the game, not the player – it’s the planning system that’s broken
There needs to be a radical change in the way planning submissions are assessed to reflect how we quantify, measure and value sustainability within developments, says Kunle Barker
Architects can help avert climate disaster – kilogram by kilogram of CO2
The profession is ideally placed to guide clients through the maze of sustainable retrofit, says Kunle Barker
Apprenticeships are vital to a strong profession
The ethos of more experienced peers training the less experienced has been of great credit to architecture – we mustn’t sacrifice this to commercial pressures, says Kunle Barker
We need to get back to the office to avoid a lost cohort of architectural talent
Just because we have discovered the joys of home-working, we mustn’t overlook the significant benefits of being face-to-face in an office, says Kunle Barker