Hot Corner

Hot Corner #70
by Michael Ernest MAIBC,

AIBC Executive Director

For questions or comments, he can be reached at mernest@aibc.ca or (604) 683-8588, #304.

Dividends

My dad bought his architectural student son a simple, wooden drafting table for about $25, in part so the lad could work at home instead of spending all-nighters at McGill. Sure. He’d look at the thing wistfully whenever I picked him up (with his own car) at breakfast for the return trip downtown.

That table remains in his basement to this day. I have no idea how often (or if) he was able to write that table off against his own graphic enterprise (being decades ahead of his time, his was a home-based business) but it has withstood the test of time … as has Dad, who turned 91 last month with both his wit(s) and investment(s) intact.

Executive Director Ship

So you know (and a number have asked), I’m enjoying the E.D. challenge, appreciative of AIBC Council’s confidence and the support of colleagues within our membership, on staff and across our industry. Council’s mandate regarding the executive director’s roles and responsibilities is complete and unfettered; neither Council nor I would have it any other way. To quote jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, “If it ain’t in your heart, it ain’t in your horn.”

New Directions and Growth

The AIBC has re-aligned its staffing structure to better serve its mandate and membership. Jerome Marburg has assumed the duties of Deputy Executive Director in addition to an increased role as the institute’s General Counsel. This move will see Jerome focusing his energies more on policy and bylaw development, organizational strategy, national imperatives, and competency-based evaluation, Simultaneously, Roisin O’Neill has become Manager of Registration & Licensing, making her your front-line point of R&L contact with support from Kim Underwood.

You can also look forward to a greater integration of the AIBC’s Professional Practice and Professional Development wings under Maura Gatensby MAIBC, now that she has returned from her annual Iron Butt Association transcontinental motorcycle sojourn (http://www.ironbutt.com/about/about.cfm) and is with us full-time. We also anticipate greater success in eradicating the illegal practice of architecture as well as more effective handling of disciplinary cases as a result of greater access to time and insights from Thom Lutes LLB, our director of both those portfolios.

Evolving staff growth and deployment is designed to improve how we connect with you and conduct business, both internally and in relation to external partners including government.

Architectural Selection: Process and Progress

Let’s cut to the chase: despite the best efforts of many thoughtful practitioners, AIBC volunteers, staff and counsel, this topic continues to be the bane of architectural practice, even while Quality-Based Selection (QBS) is far and away the expressly preferred method of both ours and the engineering profession. (News flash: QBS is statute law in Quebec, government policy in other provinces, and mandatory in most states of the union south of our common border.)

The AIBC and the Consulting Engineers of BC have corresponding publications and presentations available to owners, many of whom understand and appreciate that professional services are not commodities. Notwithstanding our well-received efforts to date in outreach workshops with industry representatives, and occasional success-by-intervention in turning around unfortunate Requests for Proposals, some owners (and, more to the point, their legal and/or risk management advisors or purchasing agents) persist with inequitable, inappropriate selection processes and tilted, unethical and/or uninsurable terms of engagement. The volume of this nonsense is more than the AIBC can reasonably handle.

There are three remedies available, the first being under the practitioner’s control:

1. Architects need to (a) be familiar with relevant bylaws, the Code of Ethics, Bulletin 64 and Bulletin 67 regarding proposal calls and terms of engagement, and industry publications concerning QBS and standard contracts; (b) consult with their legal, business and insurance advisors before responding to a selection request of any kind; and (c) resist compliance with unfortunate or dangerous terms within a request, as would any mature consultant.

2. The AIBC needs to develop more and better pro-active tools and strategies for delivery to clients and architects alike that encourage awareness, understanding and implementation of mutually beneficial approaches. Watch for a call for interested members, architectural firms’ business/marketing staff, and client representatives to form a new working group to those ends.

3. The provincial government, which has a reasonably enlightened and industry-supported set of published guidelines for its Capital Asset Management Framework, needs to enforce them as standards conditional to a project gaining approval and getting public funds.

One can take some comfort in knowing that any notice or advertisement seeking architectural services, posted by the AIBC, is expected to have been pre-screened for acceptability.

Ballots By Law

Bolstered by a resounding and much appreciated voter response, the recent bylaws ballot expressed overwhelming member support. We now await the provincial government’s acceptance. Thank you to Eszter Csutkai MAIBC and Lynne Werker MAIBC who performed nobly as scrutineers.

The Social Impact of Architecture

“There is a gathering of lower-rise blocks, four storeys high, along with a few rows of terraced houses … built for pensioners … something to do with keeping them within the community. Nice dream. Their architects would have been so proud of the scale drawings and cardboard models. Nobody ever set out to design a ghetto, after all.”

(Fleshmarket Close by Ian Rankin, London, Orion Publishing, 2004.
Pg. 52)

Mark your calendars: the confirmed date and location for our annual confabulation is May 6-8. 2010, once again at the new Vancouver Convention Centre. The theme: “Building Community: The Social Impact of Architecture”. Watch for further eNews and web site announcements as to registration, highlights, and the opportunity to participate in shaping and delivering the conference program.

Ward of the Rings

The AIBC offices will remain open during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Olympics. However, given the Architecture Centre’s physical proximity to daily Olympic activities, access will be an issue. The shape and scope of our operation during that interval, as well as unique opportunities related to the games, are under active deliberation by staff.

Harmonic Convergence

The Harmonized Sales Tax, a governmental initiative at both the federal and provincial levels, is slated for implementation in B.C. and Ontario in July 2010. As might be expected, it is engendering much debate. A number of members have expressed their concerns, requested information as to how the HST might impact their practices, and urged the institute to take up a political cudgel in opposition. Meanwhile, the Vancouver Regional Construction Association has come out in favour. Rest assured that it is being monitored here, and that we will share relevant facts and advice at the earliest feasible opportunity and sufficiently in advance of the implementation date. This will likely take the form of an updated Practice Note 13, which currently deals with the GST.

Author and an Actor

We lost two giants this summer, contemporaries who lived full lives well into their ninth decades. There was a stirring eulogy for the first, shared on (where else, indeed) the Burnaby Mountain top setting he designed, that was delivered by the second, his long-standing friend and colleague. Much has been (and will continue to be) written and said about these two gentlemen, so I’ll keep my personal observations brief.

Arthur Erickson’s talents were prodigious and proclivities renowned, but his calculated “khutzpah” in dealing with prospective clients (as warmly recounted by Nick Milkovich) was another form of his genius. The tactic of telling the assembled titans of Tacoma that their city stank was not likely drawn from any handbook for obtaining commissions, but his Museum of Glass still stands as evidence to the contrary.

Abe Rogatnick’s dramatic teaching persona foretold his thespian emergence but only hinted at the power of his “tour de force” performance, borne of horrific personal wartime experience that shaped his beliefs. Culturally generous and graciously hospitable, as he was together with his partner Alvin, Abe never lost his sharp wit and the joy of mental jousting. To the last, he brandished a spiral-shafted cane with which, he would exclaim with a grin, he could screw anyone who got in his way. He never did, of course; he never could. I encourage you to join Abe’s extended community at the Law Courts on October 25 for a final, fond farewell. Perhaps someday you will be able to travel to his beloved Venezia and leave a personal note in his memory, as the AIBC's Gayle Roberts did recently.

Architectural Phrase of the Summer

Thanks to Brian Fisher MAIBC for his “mind-bogglingly simple” characterization of a hypothetical situation. With hockey season now upon us, this advice is even more pertinent: “When going into a corner, keep your wits about you, your head on a swivel, and your elbows prominent. If need be, check in with the zebra”.

Limits States Design

Is the AIBC working with limits? You bet it is, as to both mandate and resources. I also appreciate fully how much our success relies upon our membership’s good will, volunteer contributions and funding as a result. The reality of our tight margins becomes even clearer now, at budget time. There is a plus side to not having the luxury of open mandates and limitless resources. As the recently deceased Charles Gwathmey FAIA once wrote, “I have always believed that constraints are the seeds of invention.”

You can toy with how that relates to necessity’s being invention’s mother … on your own time. Laisse les bon temps rouler.

Michael A. Ernest MAIBC
Executive Director