Edited by Charlotte Malterre-Barthes

From the office to the construction site – what is the value of work?
Why is architecture so remote from labour struggles, with poorly negotiated labour contracts and barely any self-management models? What possibilities emerge when we acknowledge the glaring class divide between the architectural firm and the construction site? What insights do the stories of workers provide about the construction industry? How do different design practices emerge if designers and construction workers unite?

On Architecture and Work: The Political Economy of Space Vol. 3 is a collection of essays on the relationship between construction, architecture, work, and labour. From complaints over gruelling working conditions on construction sites to demands for better benefits in design offices, asking candidly “who can afford to be radical?”, this is the third publication in the series The Political Economy of Space, after On Architecture and the Greenfield (2024) and On Architecture and Greenwashing (2024).

Edited by Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, head of the RIOT laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology—EPFL in Lausanne, On Architecture and Work updates the discussion on architecture and work by giving answers from construction workers, scholars, and design practitioners.

Texts by Marisa Cortright and (non-)Swiss Architects, Namita Vijay Dharia, construction workers’ voices (collected by Lalie Porteret and Carolina Pichler), and USINA-CTAH with Pedro Fiori Arantes.