|
To read the constitution click on the right.
1. 2009 Presidential Election Information 2. Reciprocity New 3. James Karl Fischer now serves on the RIBA Council 4. Past Presidential Election Information 1. 2009 Presidential Election Information (Back to top) a. General Election News b. Election Statments c. Voting Forms a. General Election News (Back to top) We have received only one election statement! b. Election Statments (Back to top) Election Statement from Jonathan B Wimpenny AIA RIBA  Candidate for Presiding Chair RIBA-USA Nominated by: Nial Saunders James Karl Fischer AIA RIBA and John Steigerwald AIA RIBA I have steered the RIBA NY Chapter these past years and my record can be reviewed through the past years of diary events on www.riba-usa.org. From Exhibitions, Symposiums, lectures, field trips, meetings and events, RIBA-USA has ensured a strong voice in the US. Our delegation to China broadened that voice worldwide. Our links and alliances with the AIA has helped and I believe we must continue and encourage this dialogue with Portland Place. The British Consulate and the DTI have also been of enormous help these past years and I would like to take this opportunity of thanking them. With my professional experience of over 20 years now of practice in the United States, I understand the issues confronting British architects working in the US -- Students too, a vital and enthusiastic section in the NY Chapter, which I have always encouraged; promoting participation, guiding visiting interns through visa requirements, arranging portfolio peer reviews and interviews with those NY practices seeking interns. Our US Region of chapters is growing (as I write this, members in the Pacific North West are rallying to form a chapter based in San Francisco). If elected, I will encourage this. Now is NOT the time to neither rest on our laurels nor leave it to others to let chapters drift rudderless without direction. Now the time to grow our membership and look to a future where RIBA membership dues will channeled into the RIBA-USA region. I ask at this time for your vote. Let’s build on our foundation and grow. Jonathan Wimpenny AIA RIBA Chair NY Chapter RIBA USA, Founder & Principal of Lee / Wimpenny NY Member American Institute of Architects, Member International Committee AIA NY Chapter, Executive Committee – St George’s Society NY, China Delegate RIBA-USA 2004, London Delegate RIBA-USA 2005, London Delegate RIBA-USA 2009 To download in pdf format click here c. Voting Forms (Back to top) Note that although there has only been one nomination we ask that members still vote. Click here to download the ballot form 2. Reciprocity News (Back to top) Good News On Reciprocity Between The USA and Europe There was good news from the recent NCARB Annual General Meeting as well as evidence of encouraging noises emanating from the EU-US summit held in Vienna this week. First the news on the EU-USA Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA).Ian Pritchard, VP for International Realtions at the RIBA, reports the following: "At the NCARB Annual General Meeting the draft Mutual Recognition Agreement put forward by the Architects Council of Europe was approved by a 50 to 1 positive vote. The following day, a Progress Report was received from the EU-US Economic Initiative (part of the EU-US summit which took place in Vienna earlier this week), an extract of which, relating to Services, reads as follows: "European and American architectural professional organisations signed a joint recommendation for a Mutual Recognition Agreement for Architects in November 2005. The European Commission and the US Government, in close co-operation with relevant regulators and professional associations, will consider options to promote progress towards such an agreement in accordance with each sides legal advice". The agreement secured at professional level now requires to be underpinned at political level. The ACE Secretary General is seeking a meeting with Commission officials in July for a fuller de-brief on the Vienna summit, and to consider the political, technical and practical elements of a business plan to advance the agreement to the next level." I know that this sublect is of critical concern to many RIBA members who live and work here in the USA. RIBA-USA has been actively monitoring the progress of negotiations and will continue to keep you informed as the agreement moves towards a positive conclusion. Derek Bradford, AIA ARIBA ASLA Presiding Chair RIBA-USA 3. RIBA-USA's James Karl Fischer Now Serves on RIBA Council (Back to top)  James Karl Fischer AIA RIBA PhD now serves on the RIBA Council, after being elected in 2008. RIBA Council currently has provision for two overseas-elected Councilors drawn from members who reside or practice outside the UK. As an RIBA Region, RIBA-USA has a direct means of affecting decisions at Portland Place and a way to consolidate our position and status. Dr. Fischer is committed to bringing RIBA services, exhibitions and other membership benefits to RIBA-USA practitioners in a meaningful way, and welcomes comments and advice as to Regional needs or specific member challenges. 4. Past Presidential Election Information (Back to top) "The RIBA-USA posed three cruciall questions to the three Presidential candiates and asked them to respond. These questions are of critical imoprtance to the over 400 RIBA members who live and work in the USA. The answers from each candfidate reveals just how involved each candidate is in advancing the agenda of RIBA-USA. As voting members of the RIBA please read these responses carefully, visit the candiates web sites and learn as much about eaah of them as you can. The policy initiatives of any RIBA President can affect overseasa members tremendously. We have a significant stake in choosing the right candidate for this impotant poition and we have the responsibility to advance our own agenda through a sympathetic and understanding RIBA Presisdent. Remember, your vote counts. Watch for voting instructions from London and do not miss the deadline" Derek Bradford, AIA ARIBA ASLA Presiding Chair RIBA-USA "RIBA Presidential Candidates Responses" 1. Sunand Prasad Response www.sunandprasad.co.uk 1: How can the RIBA use its new commitment to “go international” in order to inform debate about the nature of architectural practice in the UK? At its best internationalism is about expanding horizons and learning from each other, for our problems and possibilities are as compellingly similar as they are fascinatingly different. Architects can be a cultural bridge between nations. Having come to the UK from India because my father was invited to join an international voluntary organisation, I am a dyed in the wool internationalist. I consider architectural practice and education to be closely related. In schools of architecture, in addition to building on diversity, internationalism should specifically include appreciating the tremendous value of setting some projects located remotely from the school’s location, and exposure to global architectural history and culture. Much of this value is in exposing and clarifying the relationship between architecture and culture anywhere- a modern version of Bannister Fletcher’s ‘comparative method’. Practice (in the broadest sense) in the UK has much to learn from international experience: how to deal with Planning and Construction regulations; what is the best way of ensuring standards of service; how to protect consumers. The debate inn the UK is often too parochial in all these respects. This debate can also help us all to deal with one of the biggest issues today: globalisation with its confounding mixture of negative, exploitative capacity and positive ‘one world’ promise.
I have no experience of working in the USA (As a student
I tried and failed in 1973 when there was a very little
work around, so I built stage sets for a puppet theatre
company in NY!). I believe that the RIBA can help competitiveness
through: providing advice and guidance to help architects
be rewarded properly for the value they add, and In much of my practice’s work in the UK, which increasingly involves public private partnerships (PPPs) and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), fees are under constant attack. At the same time increasing complexity of building construction and an ever greater bureaucratic burden mean that we produce much more on a project than a few years ago. We have had to learn to be more efficient in our production, with the great help, of course of IT. I support, and if elected will promote, greater business training for architects, and to include it as part of architectural training. A key outcome of architectural education is learning to be a problem-solver. So it is anomalous that constraints like gravity, human dimensions and the weather are included in student projects but never costs and resources which so condition practice. I would welcome suggestions from RIBA-USA members as to
what the RIBA can do to keep UK architects competitive with
overseas architects. Although aware of it, I have only recently briefed myself
on this issue. As I understand it, the attempted rebuilding
of mutual recognition that was suspended in 1990 has a chequered
history. Much of the current impasse appears to be culturally
based – in the US the self-governing rights of the States
trump federal imperatives, whereas the drive in the EU is
for harmonisation across member nations. Some RIBA –USA
members may not know that a bizarre anomaly exists in the
UK, whereby the Architects Registration Board has to recognise
a person with EU member state qualification achieved after
just 5 years of training whereas the UK system requires
a minimum of 7 years. I believe that the degree of difference
between the ACE and NCARB positions are surely less than
this, and must be resolved hopefully sooner rather than
later. 1. How can the RIBA use its new commitment to “go international” in order to inform debate about the nature of architectural practice in the UK? There are a number of established communications tools in place that should be used to significantly better effect in order to inform international architects about architectural practice in the UK, for example: RIBA Journal should include UK/Overseas Practice issues
in its monthly Practice Pages. 2. What are your priorities for keeping UK architects competitive
with overseas architects, such as those who practice in
the US, and what experience do you bring to address this
issue? Architects’ salaries are appallingly low given the value
we add and the skills and experience we provide. Step 1: Work towards breaking down the perceived ‘threat’ to UK practices of an invasion of major US firms entering the UK, and taking significant market share! For example, I would promulgate the message that good, robust UK architectural practices should be afraid of competition – businesses usually merge leaner, fitter and overall more competent to do effective business – having withstood the test from rivals. Simultaneously I would work to enhance the economic competitiveness of UK architects by appropriate training, all as described in question 2, bullet 3, above. Step 2: Openly welcome the concept of reciprocal licencing, and work towards delivering a commonality of approach across all the US states – particularly with regard to minimum standards in education CPD, insurance cover and general competency. (Similar to the European States approach currently administered by ARB). Please note another tenet of my Manifesto is social sustainability where, amongst other commitments I make a positive statement to ……..’look to our membership to make the RIBA stronger, and embrace allied professions - the profession needs to maximise the potential of its international stature and reach, by nurturing and widening our membership base – particularly overseas.’ Step 3: Work with colleagues in RIBA and AIA to develop a Licencing/accreditation system that is flexible and transferable, and which can be delivered by UK and US Schools of Architecture that have reciprocal accreditation and recognition from both RIBA and AIA. Valerie Owen OBE I wasn¹t aware that the RIBA had such a specific commitment. It would concern me greatly if it did because whereas you have the AIA to represent you in the USA (if you could join it of course - more of which later), and all other nations¹ institutes represent their respective members, we in Britain would be left with no-one to represent us here in Britain. And with our regulatory body, the Architects Registration Board, out of control and empire building, and the many other practical issues that face architects here now, we need a representative body that will do so. The RIBA hardly does this adequately now in my view, but if it ended up being an international institute (as it is now clear to me that some key figures want it to be) we would have no-one to represent us. In such circumstances I think a lot of UK architects would eventually withdraw their membership. 2. What are your priorities for keeping UK architects competitive
with overseas architects, such as those who practice in
the US,... 3. As President of the RIBA what steps would you take to advance the process of reciprocal licensing of architects between the UK and the US? In my four years as an RIBA councillor I alone have periodically raised the issue of reciprocity with the US, and the progress or otherwise on agreement. I have done so because the present situation has always struck me as being very unfair. Whereas US architects can come to Britain and after one year's professional experience can complete a short exam, pay a modest fee and then be registered here, the US offers no such reciprocity. The various federal and state licensing and accreditation bodies put up all sort of questionable obstacles to becoming licensed. Frankly some of their justifications just appear to be smokescreens for protectionism. What makes it worse is that not only is the title 'architect' protected in law in most US states, as in the UK, but so is the function of architectural practice, so UK or ex-UK architects in the USA are severely restricted in what they can do. Negotiations between the relevant US and EU bodies have been going on for years and getting nowhere because, as I understand it, the various US institutions refuse to budge. So what can the RIBA do? In truth, not a lot. It's not the RIBA who is in control of the negotiations, although we do have some input . It is an EU body called the Architects¹ Council of Europe (ACE). I tried to raise the issue at the last Council meeting in March, when the new RIBA-US Region's constitution was being discussed but I was swiftly told it was not relevant. I beg to differ though, as I suspect it is probably the principal raison d'être of your new region. Am I not right in assuming that the majority of your members are UK expatriate architects, or architects from other countries, who can¹t get licensed in the USA? So what could the RIBA do? Well lobbying is about all. Lobby for what and to whom? Well perhaps its time to retaliate. Sadly retaliation, or the threat of it, is what seems to resolve these sort of disputes as witnessed periodically in world trade arguments under the GAT agreements. As President I would seek advice from RIBA-USA amongst others, about lobbying for this as I wouldn't want to make life difficult for US architects coming to the UK, but maybe it is time to bring the thing to a head. Now, just suppose the USA did eventually agree to full
reciprocity, how many of your members would stay members
of the RIBA once they could join the AIA? Honestly? Not
many I suspect, and international membership would decline
still further. But then I don't see that as a problem -
it's just something I believe the RIBA should accept. Deliberately
turning the RIBA into an international institute however
is something that would concern me greatly, for the reasons
I have just given, and I would hope that most of your members
would understand why. Past Presiding Chair of RIBA-USA.
(Back to top) On Tuesday June 28th, after all the votes were counted,
Derek Bradford was declared the next Presiding Chair of
RIBA USA in a very strong vote with an unprecedented 30%
of US RIBA members participating. Full details of Derek
Click here. The votes certified by AIA LA were:- Zoka Zola 15 Tim Clark, current Presiding Chair, called Derek as soon
as the vote was confirmed, to convey the warm sentiments
of the membership at this time: “Our heartiest best wishes
and Congratulations go out to you, Derek – we all greatly
look forward to working with you” |
