Concept: Female Architects

Public space is generally designed with white men in mind—not surprising, considering how three out of five new architects are men and four out of five are white. (The sex and race/ethnicity breakdowns for urban planners are roughly the same, too.) This explains why there are so many modern architectural features that utterly fail to account for the seemingly obvious fact of life that some people, a lot of them women, wear skirts and dresses.

So writes Los Angeles Times staff writer Carolina A. Miranda, who says that potentially upskirt-y stuff like transparent walkways and glass staircases, like those at the Apple Store, could be avoided if “all male architects” were “required to navigate their own buildings in a skirt.” This is an extremely sensible, thoroughly great idea, but why stop at forced feminization? Why not make all architects women? Take male architects’ titles and certifications away from them. Ban them from the field. Make them do somersaults in the mud for money and orange slices, instead. Just my two cents. One woman’s take.