Renée Cheng on agency and equity in the built environment

Design the Future

Renée Cheng is an architect and dean of the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. She pioneered research surrounding the intersection of design and emerging technologies and is a leader in the American Institute of Architects around equity in the profession and practice. She led the research effort for AIA guides for equitable practice. She sees students as partners, and notes that the practice environment they face is radically different from the one their teachers experienced.

“We need to be teaching more about collaborating across disciplines,” she says. “And we need to help our students think about agency and knowing their roles. Many architects don’t feel well trained for the ‘conductor’ roles that we need to address complex issues. For a project today, a design team might need to talk to an oceanographer and a native community that is relocating.”

Of her work on the AIA practice guides, Renée says that she now understands why some things are slow to change and that she has more respect for the role of culture and the importance of alignment and trust. And of evolving practice within conventional economics, she says: “We are a values-based movement and we are also a capitalism-based industry. But there are different ways to think about ROI -- in terms of prosperity or wellness or life expectancy or collective benefit.”