This year for the first time Hanna found herself participating in activism in a leadership role. In March when all architects were sent home for lockdown Hanna waited for the construction sites to close shortly after. Unlike Scotland in England and Wales this did not happen. The construction industry was tasked with propping up the economy during a global pandemic.
This Hanna found astonishing, unsafe and unfair. Together with other Architecture Foundation Young Trustees, Hanna led the ‘Shut Sites Down’ campaign to lobby government to close all nonessential building site during lockdown. We collected over 15k signatures for a petition, we had an article published in the Architects Journal, we lobbied local government, we interviewed construction workers, we wrote press releases, we built a website, we engaged site managers, developers, building control, we spoke to Health and Safety England and Hanna was invited to debate with the CEO of build UK on the BBC.
We learnt a huge amount from this experience. Did we manage to shut sites down? No. But we gave voice to the issue that otherwise would not have had one.
