Architecture is a site of violence. The profession and discipline are rife with sexism, ableism, racism, classism. Power is abused and workers are exploited. Meanwhile, the fruits of architectural labor are primarily deployed in the service of capital and at the expense of life — human and otherwise. This violence feeds off the silence of workers who are too precarious to risk raising their voices.

refus.al is a multi-stage project that collects voices of dissent, gathers histories of refusal, and develops alternatives to the status quo. The first stage comprises a website for publicly filing grievances about the architectural profession and discipline. Through collective venting, the silence that enables the perpetuation of violence and abuse can be broken. These accounts will be accompanied by an archive of historic acts of refusal that can serve as models for resistance today. The materials collected will then be disseminated through publications, exhibitions, and other media.