Riding the Vortex is a collective of Black women architects who provide professional development resources and support to women of color. Riding the Vortex fosters networking and collaboration well beyond its target audience. The nucleus of the collective includes Kathryn Tyler Prigmore, FAIA; Kathy Denise Dixon, FAIA; Katherine Williams, AIA; Melissa Daniel, Assoc. AIA, and Barbara G. Laurie, AIA, who passed away in 2013. Riding the Vortex launched in 2007, and most recently, the group was awarded AIA’s 2022 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award, named after the late civil rights hero and director of the National Urban League. We talked to Prigmore, Dixon, Williams, and Daniel about the impact of their work.
Prigmore: My mother was active in the civil rights movement. Names from the forefront such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Andrew Young, Shirley Chisholm, and Whitney M. Young Jr. loomed large in our household. As early as middle school, I knew that if I was going to pursue architecture—primarily a profession of the privileged—I had to find a way to contribute to the movement.
Dixon: Mr. Young was a role model and a conscience for our society. His 1968 speech at the AIA conference kept the social aspect of architecture alive, and the idea that fairness and equity need to be involved in everything we do. It’s certainly been important to the profession. It’s an honor to be awarded, an honor to be associated with his name and legacy. We were all ecstatic when we found out. We knew there was going to be some tough competition, but we know what we’ve been doing—a lot of good work and contributing as much as we can to the cause. Vortex aims to extend beyond its original mission, into all communities disenfranchised by the profession.
Prigmore: Riding the Vortex uses the power of storytelling to engage the profession in open and safe dialogue and to resolve difficult issues facing our profession. Vortex recognizes African American women architects. That’s first. Vortex programming gets licensed women at different levels in the profession out in front of the architecture world, so others in the profession can see our contributions. Second, we make connections. Our huge, diverse networking community continues to evolve. Third, we include a young woman— either a student or a recent graduate—as a panelist in each typical program. Their contributions are inspiring for everyone pursuing architecture.
Williams: Vortex provides a safe space for Black women architects to speak about their professional and personal lives without being ridiculed or being dismissed. We don’t always get that. Initially, we highlighted our stories because there weren’t magazine articles and websites telling our stories. Even for us here in the Washington, D.C., area, even though there’s a large concentration of Black women in architecture, so many of us work in places where we may be the only Black woman, and we don’t always see other Black women in our day-to-day work.
Dixon: Vortex is a labor of love because it’s all volunteer work. We also provide mentorship and encouragement for older professionals who may be stuck and not licensed yet. These are the realities of our society in a field that mostly doesn’t look like African American women. We’re providing a crucial resource in helping people move along in their careers in architecture.
At the time Vortex was founded in 2007, 175 Black women were registered in the Directory of African American Architects. As of 2022, that number ballooned to more than 539 currently licensed out of a total of 2,445 members. Vortex has been a major catalyst in the 254% growth in African American women architects.
Dixon: Membership organizations in architecture should take note of what organizations in medicine and law did to increase their numbers of minorities. Architecture is way behind in that regard.
Daniel: What makes Vortex so great is that Black women see themselves being celebrated, while uplifting other Black women. We share strategies in surviving architecture school; how to navigate professors, colleagues, and clients who are using microaggressions and who are exhibiting implicit bias towards us. The space also goes into schools sharing advice in design as well as in applying to the first job at a firm.
Daniel: I went to the School Without Walls high school [in Washington, D.C.], which allowed me to explore whatever I wanted to be. Through the Marion Barry Summer Youth Empowerment Program, I attended an architecture program at Howard University. That’s where I met Barbara Laurie. She worked at a Black-owned firm—Devrouax + Purnell ArchitectsPlanners, PC—where I interned in high school. Both Paul Devrouax, FAIA, and Marshall Purnell, FAIA, were presidents of the National Organization of Minority Architects. Later, Purnell became AIA president.
I was living in two different worlds: being the majority and being the minority. Growing up in public housing, the main reason why I wanted to become an architect is so other kids didn’t experience the living conditions I experienced. Being exposed to Black architects and how we shaped D.C. was inspirational. There’s been a disappearance of the black firm. Thankfully, Devrouax + Purnell, now known as DP+Partners LLC, is still around.
Williams: Architects need to be aware of and equipped to tackle the systematic barriers within the built world. It goes beyond architecture and involves financing and government as far as municipal zoning and approvals. This includes serving on boards and commissions in your municipality or being aware of how people are treated and speaking up when you can. It goes back to providing good design for all of your clients. Recognize that your client, your direct client who’s paying, may not be the end user. Make sure that not only are you listening to the client who’s paying you, but also thinking about the people who are actually going to use the building, the space. Howard University College of Engineering and Architecture has been the epicenter for each collaborator in some capacity.
Dixon: Being a Howard graduate, they teach you early on: “Give back to the community.” That’s something that’s been ingrained in my career.
Williams: Howard was a place where my architecture career was nurtured. The professors cared about what I was doing. They cared about my career. Many of them have remained in contact. They’re people that I can call to this day. Howard professors emphasized how our work was shaping the communities around us. And it wasn’t always some random design at some random location. We had some of those as well, but we also had projects where we were directed to “Think about the community that’s around it and how your project is going to affect [them].” I learned that there and carried that forward. The students that were there with me, even though we were competitive, we all supported each other and wanted the best for each other. I think it fostered the passion that I already had in me for service.
[The following observations were in answer to a question about how former colleague Barbara G. Laurie, who laid much of the groundwork for the collective, would have responded to the award.]
Daniel: She was a mentor and she knew how the game works in this industry. She made sacrifices. Humble in nature, she didn’t walk around saying, “Hey, I walked 20 miles to school.” She was never that person. How do you describe a person who has carved a trajectory for your career? It’s hard.
Dixon: She was an architect’s architect. She was very highly regarded, just a wonderful person and mentor. She and Kathryn Prigmore are pretty much the reason I’m a part of Vortex because they came to me to join them as they started this effort in the beginning. She was always at the forefront of anything related to mentoring or helping other people’s careers. She was a very good architect herself, and she’s just one of those people you would want to be proud of you. Vortex continues her passion and her striving for excellence, and we should all continue to do that in her honor.
Prigmore: Barbara would be elated. She was an amazing person. I met her when she was a student. She put 100% of herself into everything she did. She was an amazing architect. She was an educator. She was one of the founders of OBD, Organization of Black Designers. She was an astounding individual and it’s so sad that she passed so early. I was one of her mentors and we were working on her fellowship application when she passed. All of the Vortex collaborators share Barbara’s desire to break down all barriers to people of color and women in our profession. — As told to Stephen Hicks
