The NSW Chapter had our 2025 International Women’s Day Breakfast, a fantastic morning celebrating women in architecture.
With a Welcome to Country offered by Dr Shannon Foster, Bangawarra, we then heard from Annabel Lahz, whose insightful discussion illuminated the complex landscape facing women in architecture.
– Annabel Lahz, CEO and Director of lahznimmo architects.
I’m here addressing you as the recent recipient of the Marion Mahoney Griffin Prize from the NSW Chapter of the Institute of Architects – a prize established in 1998 to acknowledge the significant contribution of women to the architecture profession as well as the dual role of seeking to make the invisible visible.
“Thankfully today the number of women in architecture has grown significantly. However, there’s still room to grow, particularly in the higher levels of architectural practice. I cannot help but think a lack of visibility and recognition are significant factors in this.”
Sharing her professional journey, Annabel highlighted her gradual awakening to gender disparities within the profession.
“I have always perceived myself as just being an architect and rejected the term “woman” architect as an irrelevant label.”
“It was around 15 years ago that my oblivion or blinkers gave way to the dawning realisation that many of the challenges I was experiencing practicing architecture were perhaps gender based.”
“This system ultimately impacts all architects,” Annabel commented in support for the value of diverse perspectives in design, stressing that collaboration is key to navigating the evolving architectural landscape.
“The future of women in architecture is bound to the future of the profession itself. Architecture is in a constant state of flux, with various factors shifting the way we design buildings.
“To thrive in this environment, we need to be collaborators.”
For Annabel, practice has always centred around people, creating spaces that enhance lives through both grand gestures and subtle, thoughtful details of benefit to all.
“This idea of mutual benefit can only be achieved by collaboration. Architecture is a collective and broad endeavour. Buildings wouldn’t exist unless people needed them.”
“Within this collective it is to be hoped that women architects thrive, and our lack of visibility and recognition ceases to be an issue.”
A particularly engaging Q&A session with Monica Edwards, SJB, revealed Annabel’s candid insights on balancing career and family, navigating cultural expectations, and maintaining a vision of equitable, people-centered design.
Huge thanks to all our speakers, partners, and attendees for making this year’s International Women’s Day Breakfast an amazing and inspirational morning.
Thankyou to our event partners: AWS Australia, Lysaght, Pliteq, Richard Crookes Constructions. And thanks to Leif Products.
Photography by Vanjon Creative
