Female architects have produced a range of stimulating, ergonomically pragmatic, energyefficient, environmentally sensitive, client-satisfying, and aesthetically pleasing

highereducation projects. As female architects, landscape architects, and interior designers have
struggled to achieve professional recognition, their work has transcended the Modernist
banalities that too often characterize design practices today. The perception prevails that
female designers are careful listeners, collaborative designers and managers, and empathetic
to socially or economically needy clients, as men have taken major awards for signature
designs that brand corporate or commercial venues.
Stereotypically, women in small firms often designed primarily private residences and
interiors, and in large firms worked on "human service" projects for educational, commercialresidential, historic-preservation, hospitality, and health-care projects. Men took on higherprofile, award-generating, corporate, cultural, and public facilities. Women won few awards
for such highly visible projects, while developing particular specialties for more varied
clients, including families and youth, educators, poor communities, the aged, and the
mobility-impaired