Architect Taylor Staten faces more than a responsibility to help build structures. The 30-year-old Chicago native and resident feels a deep responsibility to build an awareness of her profession especially among minority youngsters and students.
Part of the reason: Only 2.5 percent of all licensed architects in the country are Black, according to the directory of African American Architects. Furthermore, Black women make up only three-tenths of a percent of designers nationally.
As one way to help the cause, Staten will be the first speaker Dec. 10 in a new, three-part series “Women Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs — Working & Living in Full Color,” presented by the Columbus Area Arts Council in collaboration with the African American Fund of Bartholomew County and the IUPUC Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program.
“There still are a lot of Black people who are not very aware of architecture as a career path,” Staten said, speaking by phone from her TnS Studio, the architectural firm she launched in 2018, primarily serving communities on the South Side of Chicago while working to save abandoned buildings. “We know things like art and math. But we don’t always realize that architecture is kind of the marriage of those two things.”
She herself credits her mom for encouraging her at age 12 to find a career that would be a good fit for her. So Staten Googled careers with art and math, and up popped design work in the top spot on the screen.
But she quickly acknowledged her path hardly was easy or simple.
“I didn’t know any architects, white or Black,” she said. “It’s probably always hard to break into a mostly all-white profession, and then be immersed in a career where there are so few Black people. There was definitely a sense of culture shock.”
Using a virtual platform, organizers say the series will connect Black female professionals to graduate students from IU’s J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program and undergraduate students from IUPUC’s Women’s, Gender, Sexuality Studies Program and Ivy Tech’s Visual Communications Department. As part of the fall 2020/Spring 2021 curriculum, students will have the opportunity to meet virtually with all of the selected speakers prior to the public talks.
Staten understands that her youth especially can be effective in getting students’ attention. But she is doing far more than relying on mere visibility. TnS will host an architecture camp for students in sixth through 12th grades in the summer of 2021, and currently provides mentorship to architecture students and recent graduates. The firm is also developing a scholarship to support education for young Black architects.
“Part of the problem is in how architecture often is taught,” she said. “Generally, we praise white men who have designed buildings. We don’t say a lot about women or any Black people who have designed buildings.
“I’ve been out of school for almost 10 years and I’m still finding out about great buildings designed by Black architects.”
Locally, Exhibit Columbus’ planned 2021 exhibition includes two Black designers who are part of the five-entries of Miller Prize winners that are the event’s top-tier designers.
Staten, who attended all-black schools throughout her education, mentioned that that element alone can work against a Black design student seeking a position with an architectural firm, especially if no leaders at a particular firm are familiar with Black universities.
“You may be dismissed just from that,” Staten said.
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Who: Chicago architect Taylor Staten, telling part of her professional story of being a minority architect in a field with few of them nationwide. The presentation is part of the series "Women Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs – Working & Living in Full Color."
About the series: Focusing on women of color whose work is centered around creativity and social justice
When: 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Dec. 10
Where: Zoom, with signup at change-by-design-taylor-staten.eventbrite.com
Information: Columbus Area Arts Council at artsincolumbus.org
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