Webinar | Women Shaping Spaces

How do women shape the spaces we inhabit, not only through design, but through leadership, advocacy, and the redefinition of architectural practice itself? This question framed the Architecture Hunter webinar Women Shaping Spaces, bringing together Linda Thiel, Partner and Architect at White Arkitekter, and Maria Loreto Flores, Associate Director at Zaha Hadid Architects and member of the Strategic Board of Women in Architecture UK, for a timely and deeply relevant conversation on design, gender, and structural change.

Opening the session, Linda Thiel reflected on how architecture can foster healthier, safer, and more inclusive communities when it is grounded in care, collaboration, and lived experience. Drawing from White Arkitekter’s Scandinavian ethos and her own perspective as an architect, woman, and mother, she explored the role of public space in shaping everyday life. Through housing and urban regeneration projects in London, Linda demonstrated how community-focused design can respond to complex social challenges, from safety and accessibility to dignity and belonging.

A particularly powerful part of her presentation centered on participatory workshops with teenage girls in Barking, East London. Their insights, often simple but profound, informed strategies around visibility, lighting, circulation, and the design of shared outdoor spaces. For Linda, these processes reveal an essential truth: cities become more equitable when they are shaped not only for communities, but with them. Her talk also expanded into the workplace itself, reflecting on female leadership, mentorship, and the importance of diverse teams in producing stronger, more responsive architecture.

Maria Loreto Flores continued the conversation from a different yet complementary perspective, tracing her journey from Chile to London and her long-standing experience at Zaha Hadid Architects. Through a wide range of international projects, she showed how design innovation emerges from collaboration across disciplines, technologies, and cultures. From parametric experimentation to large-scale masterplans, her presentation emphasized that complex architecture is never the result of isolated authorship, but of collective intelligence and sustained dialogue.

Alongside her professional work, Maria highlighted her commitment to advocacy through Women in Architecture UK. Sharing data, initiatives, and personal reflections, she addressed the persistent barriers women still face across the profession, including pay gaps, underrepresentation in leadership, and the challenges of balancing career progression with caregiving responsibilities. Her message was clear: awareness is no longer enough; meaningful structural action is needed.

Together, Linda and Maria offered more than two individual trajectories. They revealed architecture as a field shaped by many voices, and reminded us that creating better spaces also means creating more equitable conditions for those who design them.

_article written by Daniela Moreira da Silva
_speaker 01: Linda Thiel [Partner and Architect at White Arkitekter]
_speaker 02: Maria Loreto Flores [Associate Director at Zaha Hadid & Women in Architecture Strategic Board]