Remote Architects Club
John Hill
6. April 2020
Screenshot from remotearchitects.club
With architecture among the many "non-essential" professions required to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic, a new website invites architects to post information about their remote-working experiences.
Launched about a week ago, the Remote Architects Club is run by Daniel da Rocha, a Brazilian architect based in Berlin, Germany, who believes that while "COVID-19 pandemic will eventually go away????, but remote working is here to stay????." He believes that "working remotely builds organizational resiliency" and set up the website as an experiment in determining the success of remote working for architects.
The "club" invites employers to add their company information and employees to detail their remote working experiences, the tools they use, and how well the company responded to the pandemic. There are emojis galore to give a quick impression of a company's success in making work-at-home a productive and pleasurable experience. Unfortunately, the status and commentary sometimes contradict each other, as this one account indicates:
Screenshot from remotearchitects.club
Nevertheless, the website provides some occasionally good advice, lets architects see how their experiences fare compared to others in the profession, and gives architects an outlet to express (anonymously, if they wish) their likes and frustrations about working from home.
Only 39 companies have posted as of today, but with enough contributions — and a weeding out of unhelpful or promotional posts — Daniel's "experiment" may yield enough data to give firms usable information on how they can incorporate remote working in times that are normal, not just extraordinary.