The AIA|LA Women in Architecture Committee is excited to present our annual conference, POWERFUL XIII: OUT LOUD.

“Out Loud” is not subtle – and that’s the point.

At a time when women’s voices are challenged, minimized, and pushed to the margins, POWERFUL XIII asks what it means to move from presence to power, from influence to authorship, and from quiet resilience to collective force.

Architecture informs how people live, learn, gather, heal, and belong. Yet the profession is still shaped by systems that determine who leads, who is credited, and whose work is amplified. Those systems are under pressure, and so is architecture itself. Recent federal policy shifts, including the reclassification of architecture as a non-professional degree, signal a broader devaluation of the discipline’s rigor, responsibility, and public impact. For women architects, that pressure is accompanied by persistent inequities in recognition, compensation, leadership, and authorship. But none of this is inevitable. These systems can be named, challenged, redesigned, and rebuilt.

POWERFUL XIII: OUT LOUD brings together women in architecture and the allies who stand with them to speak plainly, challenge directly, and shape what comes next. It is a space for hard truths, clear voices, and forward movement to create a profession defined by greater visibility, opportunity, authorship, accountability, and impact.

Together, we will ask:

• What does it take to be visible in a profession that still too often overlooks women’s leadership?

• How do we strengthen our voices in design, business, advocacy, and education?

• What systems must be challenged, and what better ones are we ready to build?

• How do we claim authorship, authority, and agency with clarity and courage?

• How do we support one another in shaping a profession with more opportunity, accountability, and collective power?

OUT LOUD is both provocation and invitation. It asks us to name what must change, amplify the voices already reshaping practice, and leave ready to build a future for architecture that is more courageous, more equitable, and more powerful because we shaped it together.

Please join us October 2nd at the Colburn School for an inspiring day of speakers, panelists and workshops as we amplify the voices women bring to the field of architecture, design, and the whole AEC Community.