bikes and things

Earlier today I was followed on Twitter by someone calling themselves @ArchLeaks. I didn’t pay much attention to it until someone else retweeted them with the following Tweet.

Judging by their Twitter feed they appear to have been sending this message to anyone who seems to be in the Architecture industry in the UK. Bizarrely a large number of people seem to be retweeting it and trying to get more traffic to his or her site. I was going to mark as spam and block but thought I’d dig a little deeper.

Now the aim of the site seems to be to get people to write negative comments about their experiences of working at various high profile Architects offices. The name, and approach, seems to suggest a kind of Wikileaks type of site naming and shaming of offices. Their own strap line seems to be ‘We young Architects need this information pool here‘ as well as ‘Reveals the hidden beneath the studios‘.

I have to say I was completely aghast at seeing this. There’s so much wrong with it I don’t know where to start. There’s so many reasons someone might have a bad experience at an office – such as a clash of personalities, working under the wrong director or partner who has since moved on, the sheer pressure of the environment, wrong choice of office, the person is a bit up themselves and didn’t take direction or weren’t very good at their job etc etc. Of more concern are the chances for anonymous abuse as there is nothing to verify if anyone had actually worked there! Now if there was some journalistic integrity or a big story to break then maybe I would be interested but I don’t think this is what is in mind. Gossip and hearsay are not sound reasons to trash a firms reputation online.

Having said that I’ve had experiences in some offices that weren’t amazing, but I moved on and put it down to experience. They’re stories for the pub with close friends, not for broadcasting on the internet. These experiences are also probably entirely un-representative of those offices and I would say that others have really enjoyed working where I hadn’t. At the same time I do think that some students are cut a rough deal sometimes but this perpetuates the idea that Architecture is miserable and Architects are hard done by. It’s also playing up to every tiny bit of negativity in the industry. Instead of say engaging with the RIBA policy on pay and conditions or speaking to the ARB about setting minimum standards we have an anonymous source of info that amounts to online bitching.

I’d imagine that a few cease and desist letters will be on their way if this site ever gains any real momentum. Although where they address them to I don’t know as the owner seems to have spoofed their WHOIS information to a professional footballer in Turkey. Interesting.

Updated:
As if by magic I was alerted to this article on the Guardian today. Wonderful timing David, wonderful and thank you.