“The Architecture of Motherhood”: A Guide to Success as an Architect and a Mom

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If you were to name the hardest occupations in the world, being an architect would undoubtedly be up there — but being a mother might the most challenging job of all! It is understandable, then, that the prospect of being both an architect and a mom simultaneously might feel like an insurmountable task. Juggling parental duties with professional responsibilities is undeniably daunting for many, no matter how great your support network may be.

Thankfully, it’s possible not only to cope with this challenge, but to thrive — and Gloria Kloter is here to tell us how. Now available for pre-order, her book The Architecture of Motherhood: Your Blueprint to Glow as a Business Woman and Mom details a multitude of ways in which women can be both a top professional and a stellar mother, without the need for compromise.

Gloria Kloter is the founder and CEO of Glow Architects, a successful architecture and interior design firm based in Florida. She has been working in the architecture field since 2004 and is an inspirational keynote speaker advocating for subjects like leadership, women in architecture, foreign architects, and motherhood. She’s a multi-award-winning architect who has been featured in major publications, news, and architecture magazines in the United States, the Dominican Republic, and worldwide.

In her preface, Kloter highlights a key disparity in numbers: “In its 2020 annual report, the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) revealed that 50% of the 26,977 students enrolled in NAAB-accredited architecture programs – B. Arch, M. Arch, and D. Arch– were female. This is a number that has been improving since the 1970s, yet the percentage of women who obtained their architect license, achieve upper management positions, become partners and own architectural firms have not increased at the same rate as men have. To date, data from the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) 2021 NCARB by the Numbers report shows that only 24% of the 121,997 registered architects in the United States are female.”

Data like this risks planting seeds of doubt in the minds of women starting out in the profession, and Kloter was no different in this respect. “Based on these facts, I was worried that if I started to grow my family, then it would be the death of my career,” she writes. “On top of it – and like most women experience – I was continuously pressured with unsolicited advice and opinions on how I needed to start having kids early and how as a woman, I should have a family or a career, not both. Many conversations around me implied an unspoken shame and a sense of guilt in wanting to still have a professional career after having kids.”

“Why would you want to keep working?! Aren’t you planning to have kids?!” – Someone once asked me, horrified after hearing about my professional aspirations when I got married. I was also once told that if I would try to take these two roles at the same time, I was going to fail at one of the two, or at both. It was important to choose between one role and the other, and focus on being successful at that single one. Period. Yet, there was a part of me that couldn’t accept this theory entirely. There had to be a better way.”

Kloter’s book contains a wealth of practical advice to balance home and work life, as well as powerful motivational tools to instill belief in women, encouraging them to embrace their capabilities to be renowned architects and incredible mothers. The following quotes provide a teaser for the words of wisdom that you can find throughout the book:

1. “Architecture is an interdisciplinary, collaborative, and creative world. The same can be said for motherhood.”

2. “Your support system can make or break you. It’s an essential piece of the puzzle to find the balance between motherhood
and business.”

3. “When thinking of tools to ease your professional life and motherhood, the first thing that comes to my mind is delegate,
delegate, delegate.”

4. “A thriving environment is where your weaknesses are balanced out by others’ strengths. This can be said in business and motherhood as well.”

5. “Don’t let other people’s limitations limit you.”

For a complete guide to success as both an architect and a mother, pre-order Gloria’s book today by clicking here.

Send us a photo. Tell us a story. Win $2,500! Architizer’s 3rd Annual One Photo Challenge is underway with an Early Entry Deadline on May 27, 2022! Start your entry for architecture’s biggest photography competition here.