Excellence in Design Awards Gala 2017

April 20, 2017Fiona Mckay

The AIA UK Chapter hosted Excellence in Design Awards Gala 2017 on the 19th April at the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) in London. The Grade-I listed building designed by Denys Lasdun, itself considered an architectural treasure, provided an exceptional backdrop to celebrate design excellence and welcome the guests who arrived from different parts of the world to celebrate creativity, design and architecture.

The AIA UK sets an open awards platform in order to minimise restrictions and provide more opportunities for architects and designers to submit their projects. This year the AIA UK set two key categories : Professional and Young Architect. The Young Architect category is aimed at encouraging and rewarding younger architects and emerging practices with design principals under the age of 40.

The AIA UK is delighted to announce the 2017 winners in each category:

Professional: Foster + Partners for the Maggie’s at the Robert Parfett Building
Young Architect: Spheron Architects for the Belarusian Memorial Chapel
The jury also awarded three Commendations to the following projects in the Professional category:
Peter Salter Associates for Walmer Yard
Stanton Williams for the Berrow Foundation Building and the New Garden Building
Zaha Hadid Architects – Maritime Terminal, Salerno

The jury’s review process involved a day-long, debate over the anonymous submissions, clearly indicating the high quality of the submissions received. The jury members presented the commendations and awards at the Gala evening.

The members of the jury included: Stephen Hodder, Jessica Mairs, Sophy Twohig, Patrick Lynch, Ben Derbyshire, and Fatos Peja.

See HERE for full details of the winners.

Beale & Company Article: Early warning obligations in Consultancy Appointments

April 10, 2017Fiona Mckay

The ACE Professional Services Agreement 2017 ("ACE PSA") is the latest standard form contract to include an "early warning" regime, as highlighted in our summary of key points in our recent note on ACE PSA.

Tom Pemberton and Andrew Croft discuss early warning regimes and how they aim to "flush out" issues at an early stage before they escalate. However, they are not without their risks and need to be managed carefully.

Click here to read the full article.

Beale & Company Article: Reports from the Courts

April 10, 2017Fiona Mckay

Our regular round up of court decisions of most interest to construction comes from Andrew Croft and Simii Sivapalan and focuses on two disputes over oral contracts; one with major implications for 'smash and grab' adjudications; and the other highlighting the importance of agreeing costs and the basis of their calculation at the start of any construction contract.

Click here to read the full article.

Beale & Company Article: The future of PFI - Summary of key points made during a panel discussion on 26 January 2017

April 10, 2017Fiona Mckay

Beale & Company and Atkin Chambers hosted a panel-led discussion earlier this year entitled 'Making PFI Work'. We were honoured to have Sir Antony Edwards-Stuart (Judge in Charge of the Technology and Construction Court until his retirement in November 2016) chair the panel of speakers. They consisted of Andrew Goddard QC and Stephanie Barwise QC of Atkin Chambers, and Tom Pemberton of Beale & Company.

Here we provide a summary of the key points made during the panel discussion.

2017 Annual General Meeting Review

April 04, 2017Fiona Mckay

The AIA UK Chapter Annual General Meeting is a unique mixture of social evening, continuing education event and business meeting all in one. Following a long tradition from the 1990’s, this year’s AGM - held on Wednesday, 18 January 2017 - was hosted by our long term sponsor, Herman Miller.

Herman Miller’s showroom provided an ideal background for socialising, including copious refreshments. Mark Catchlove, Director of Herman Miller’s Knowledge & Insight Group, gave a presentation entitled “Fundamental Human Needs” that both amused and informed, while providing a welcome CEU for members.

The 2016 President, Fred Grier, moved back to Chicago late in the year, but maintained his leadership role via internet links until the AGM. His presentation of “2016 Year in Review” highlighted over 30 AIA UK events with nearly 60 Continuing Education Credits. See the full review HERE.

The slate of proposed 2017 Board of Directors was announced along with the encouragement – as always – for further nominations to be presented from the floor. Voting was unanimous for the following.

President: Fatos Peja, Int’l Assoc.
Vice President: Alex Miller, AIA
Secretary: Lorraine King, AIA
Treasurer: Anna Foden, AIA

Directors:
Etain Fitzpatrick, AIA (also IR Representative)
Michael Lischer FAIA
Chris Musangi, AIA
Deborah Bartlett, Int'l Assoc. AIA
Lutz Barndt AIA
Amrita Raja, AIA
Yevgeniy Beylkin Int'l Assoc. AIA ARB RIBA
Robert Rhodes, AIA
Ecehan Esra Top, Int'l Assoc. AIA
Bea Sennewald, AIA RIBA
Lester Korziliius, AIA RIBA
Benjamin Lee, AIA
Katharine Storr, AIA
Fariba Shirdel, AIA

AIA Board Correspondents:
A non-voting Board Correspondent is a full, part-time or temporary attendee at Board Meetings. Any unassigned member; allied and affiliate member; honorary member or other professional with an interest in this Chapter can become a Correspondent at any time during the year. The position of Board Correspondents was formalised this year for three new participants.

Lulu Yang
Fred Grier
Nicolas Kehagias.

Chapter Executive: Fiona McKay

The business side of the AGM was kept as succinct as possible, but the AGM remains as always the critical focus for the Chapter’s governance. In addition to the essential approval of the Accounts, membership report and election of the new Board of Directors, this year’s business also included a motion to approve the revised Chapter Bylaws.

According to the new procedures, the Bylaws were sent out by email to the full AIA UK Chapter membership for any final comments in February. As no comments were received, the Minutes are now deemed to have been approved.

READ THE FULL MINUTES OF MEETING HERE

By Lorraine King, Secretary UK Chapter

ARE Workshop

April 02, 2017Fiona Mckay

On 15 February 2017, Desso hosted the AIA UK's ARE Workshop 2017. The coordinators, Ben Lee and Katharine Storr, as well as president Fatos Peja, began the evening by welcoming the group of professionals interested in learning about the path to American licensure, first for snacks and drinks in the Desso showroom and then for a presentation downstairs in the conference area. The AIA UK Chapter was pleased to see so many faces and to be able to facilitate a lively discussion about the participants’ expectations and experiences. The self-directed nature of the exams and the difficulty of completing them internationally when local firms often do not fully understand or support the undertaking means it is even more important to foster a community of candidates who can help guide each other through the process.

London, Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong are the three locations outside of the United States where it is possible to take the NCARB's Architect Registration Examinations. As such the AIA UK chapter is committed to helping international members and others interested in pursuing licensure in the US to make use of the opportunity here in London.

In 2016 NCARB introduced ARE version 5.0 which will replace the 4.0 version launched in 2008. Currently, if candidates have already registered to take the 4.0 exams they can choose to continue with 4.0 or to transition to version 5.0. However, if a candidate is registering for the first time, they will be obliged to take the new 5.0 version.

There are two primary differences between 4.0 and 5.0. The first is a difference in the division of exam categories:

Version 4.0 is comprised of 7 divisions:

Schematic Design

Programming, Planning and Practice

Site Planning & Design

Building Systems

Construction Documents & Services

Building Design & Construction Systems

Structural Systems

Version 5.0 is comprised of 6 divisions:

Practice Management

Project Management

Programming & Analysis

Project Planning & Design

Project Development & Documentation

Construction & Evaluation

(For a full comparison of the two versions see NCARB's diagram here. http://www.ncarb.org/News-and-Events/News/2014/~/media/Files/PDF/Brochure/ARE5_CreditModel.ashx )

The second major change is that 5.0 will include 3 new types of questions integrated into the multiple choice format: hot spots, drag and place items and case study questions. These new types will replace the separate design vignettes used in version 4.0.

(For links to videos on the new question types
http://blog.ncarb.org/2016/September/ARE5-Testing-Strategies.aspx)

There are many printed and online study resources available (see the list below). A majority of the existing resources were written for version 4.0, but the content will still be relevant and many older practice questions and exams are still valuable resources for demonstrating understanding of the topics and guiding study. To help candidates parse through which new division a given question will fit into, a valuable exercise is to sort questions based on topic with the help of the NCARB study guides and 5.0 handbook available here, http://www.ncarb.org/ARE/~/media/Files/PDF/ARE-Exam-Guides/ARE5-Handbook.pdf. As the transition from 4.0 to 5.0 continues there will be additional support, specifically for ARE versions 5.0.

Textbooks

- Kaplan/Brightwood ARE Study Guides for ARE 4 & 5 (https://www.brightwoodarchitecture.com/are-exam)

- PPI ARE Study Manual by Kent Ballast, for ARE 4 & 5 (https://ppi2pass.com/)

- ARE Mock Exams by Gang Chen (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gang-Chen/e/B001JS00RK)

- NALSA - for ArchiFlash flashcards and Norman Dorf's ARE 4.0 Vignette Videos (https://www.nalsa.com/)

Online Resources and Forums

- ARE Coach (http://arecoach.com/coachforum/index.php)

- ARE Endurance (https://arendurance.wordpress.com/study-guides/)

- Caroline's / Jenny's Notes (mainly for CDS/PPP, they are scattered in different places so please do a Google search for them)

- Youtube

NCARB Resources

- ARE 4.0 Community: https://plus.google.com/communities/116031021237378921174