011: How Banning Architecture Might Mean more Buildings for Your Brain

Somewhere, in a Trump administration office, someone decided that architects aren’t all that and now they’re being de-professionalised and removed from public debate. At the same time, more and more research is telling us that architecture happens inside your head and we need to design that way. 

But what does this have to do with World War 2 battleships and the state of education? Radha thinks that the banning of architects from public discourse gives us an opportunity to reimagine what ways, for who and how the built environment is imagined and designed. 

Links

• Architecture no longer considered a "professional degree" in US, Dezeen: https://www.dezeen.com/2025/11/24/architecture-degree-not-professional-usa/
• Making Federal Architecture Great Again, Whitehouse.gov: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/making-federal-architecture-beautiful-again/ 
• Could bad buildings damage your mental health? The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/sep/16/bad-buildings-damage-mental-health-research-anxiety-depression
• Why Ugly Architecture Is Bad for Your Health, The Architectural Uprising: https://www.architecturaluprising.com/studies/why-ugly-architecture-is-bad-for-your-health/
• Cleo Valentine: We now know architecture can cause stress, Venetian Letter: https://venetianletter.com/2023/09/07/cleo-valentine-we-now-know-architecture-can-cause-stress/
• Trump doubles down on classical capital with "Arc de Trump" proposal, Dezeen: https://www.dezeen.com/2025/10/16/trump-triumphal-arch-proposal/
• Dazzle Camouflage, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage
• CV Dazzle, Adam Harvey: https://adam.harvey.studio/cvdazzle