E Pluribus Unum

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Interschool Design Competition at the National Building Museum
Interschool Design Competition at the National Building Museum

Imagine being the statue that crowns the U.S. Capitol.  Yikes, it’s high up!  Looking down, the houses of Congress appear unified.  Looking out and around, the geometry of L’Enfant’s plan is evident and reflects the beauty of the Golden Section.  From this vantage point, you can see great buildings where diverse voices come together – the White House, the National Building Museum, the National AIA Headquarters and so many more.  Connected by majestic bridges in the distance is Virginia — a symbol of the unity to the West and all the states in our democracy.

We know that at ground level things don’t measure up to this utopia.  Unity in Congress is harder to achieve as our mounting multi-trillion dollar debt seems to have no end in sight.  Similarly, the AIA finds itself divided into fiercely independent and competitive chapters and state components.  I often hear that the National Institute is out of touch with its members.  Within each chapter we create events that primarily focus on architects and don’t make clients and allied professionals feel welcome.  Most professors of architecture are not members of the AIA and downplay the role of the AIA in our profession.  Many young and emerging professionals view the AIA as an exclusive club for seasoned architects.  Sometimes, we don’t connect.

Ah, but magic happens when we do connect.  We can move mountains!  Consider these examples from around Virginia:

Front Porch
AIA Richmond's Front Porch

The AIA Richmond hosts an event called Front Porch to engage similar minded individuals, outside of our profession to become partners in championing the causes promoted by the AIA such as sustainable communities and the power of thoughtful design.  The guest list includes the entire creative class of Richmond…artists, photographers, actors, graphic designers, ad agency executives, chefs, hair dressers, modeling agencies, etc… Ed Gillikin, AIA says that “the chapter members forge a connection with these unique individuals while being surrounded by good food and live music.”

Through School Connections, the AIA Northern Virginia Chapter fosters collaboration between practicing architects, students and professors.  Current committee chair, David Prevette, AIA, says that mentorship experiences abound through amazing programs.  Students, as well as young and emerging architects, are encouraged to participate in competitions, design awards, portfolio reviews, emerging leadership programs, IDP programs, forums, seminars, tours and more.

architectural bike tour
Participants enjoyed an architectural bike tour arranged by AIA Central Virginia.

Throughout Virginia, Architecture Week is a way to connect to the community through various architectural programs that strive to empower and educate.  For example, Elizabeth Rhodes from AIA Central Virginia says that “Architecture Week gives us a reason to bring accomplished guests to Charlottesville showcasing our industry and our talented group of community design members.”

AIA Hampton Roads is interested in creating stronger links with allied professionals and the community. Director Rob Reis, AIA says that the Chapter accomplishes this through an array of interesting, informative, or entertaining events such as narrated historic walking tours, hard hat tours, the Annual Speaker Meeting and Pecha Kucha Night.  These are promoted through various arts groups, community associations and professional organizations to engage diverse and enthusiastic participants.

Bill White, AIA from the AIA Blue Ridge describes with enthusiasm how his chapter links to Allied Professionals through joint meetings.  This year they had 15 organizations participate including contractors, interior designers, engineers, planners and landscape architects and the USGBC of southwest Virginia.  This led to the founding of the “RATPAC” – Roanoke Area Task-force of Presidents and Chairs.

As many of you already know, the Virginia Society AIA has been promoting public and professional collaboration by implementing the new, vibrant, Long Range Plan.   This plan encourages interaction between us all… young and old, individual designers, chapters of the AIA, students, professors, allied professionals, communities and more.   In the last couple of months we have focused on connecting to allied professionals that we know from our daily, professional lives.  Board members have reached into their address books, and they have made hundreds of contacts with the hope that we can become a far more diverse membership and reap the rich rewards of these connections.  Would you be able to send the VSAIA a few names of professionals that you work with that should be allied members?  Just think, if every member brought in just one allied member to the AIA, we would be one of the largest components in America!

Now, again, imagine being the statue at the top of the capitol.  You are balancing on a globe (yippee … yikes!) that is inscribed with the words “E Pluribus Unum.”  That motto should also be our institute’s goal – “out of many, one.”

JIM

James P. Clark, AIA
VSAIA President

 

AIA Documents Free Through My NCARB for the ARE

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In cooperation with the AIA, NCARB is able to offer ARE candidates free access to key AIA documents for the purpose of preparing for the Construction Documents & Services division of the ARE. This is another great resource to help you prepare for the ARE.

Interns may download the following sample documents through their NCARB Record:

Conventional Family

A101-2007           Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Contractor Where the basis of payment is a Stipulated Sum

A201-2007           General Conditions of the Contract for Construction

A701-1997           Instructions to Bidders

B101-2007           Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Architect

B101-2007A        Document B101-2007 Exhibit A

C401-2007           Standard Form of Agreement Between Architect and Consultant

Contract Administration and Project Management Forms

A305-1986           Contractor’s Qualification Statement

G701-2001           Change Order

G702-1992           Application and Certificate for Payment

G703-1992           Continuation Sheet

G704-2000           Certificate of Substantial Completion

To access documents:

  1. Log into “My NCARB”
  2. Click “Go” to access your NCARB Record
  3. Follow link for ARE Candidates: Construction Documents & Services Resources visible in the lower left of your Record.

Reprinted with permission from NCARB’s ARE e-News

Dunay Collaborates on Women in Architecture Exhibition

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When Virginia member Donna Dunay, FAIA, visited Japan in February, it seemed like a standard trip abroad for a busy academician. A professor and chair of the International Archive of Women in Architecture Center at Virginia Tech, she met with her counterparts with the Union of Women Architects Japan to finalize plans for summer exhibition and symposium in Tokyo highlighting the contributions of women architects to their field. The exhibit would celebrate the center’s 25 years of the work and signify the cross-border collaborations that are becoming more common in the 21st century.

Within a month, however, Japan would be hit with an unprecedentedly destructive earthquake and an associated tsunami and nuclear crisis. Soon it became clear that nothing in Japan would be routine for a long time, if ever.

Yet after temporarily putting their plans on hold, the exhibition’s organizers decided to move forward with their plans. “Though there is much rebuilding to accomplish,” says Dunay, who teaches architecture in the School of Architecture + Design in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies.  “Our Japanese colleagues decided to have the exhibition on the original schedule to restore a degree of normalcy and take this opportunity to showcase important history with the benefits that knowledge can bestow.”

The exhibition, entitled For the Future: The Pioneering Women in Architecture From Japan and Beyond, features the work of women architects from Japan, the United States and beyond, highlighting their accomplishments and, Dunay says, reveal their contributions to the built environment by giving this unacknowledged segment of the architecture profession a voice rarely heard. Dunay and architecture professor Kay Edge were featured speakers at a symposium associated with the exhibition, which opened last month at the Architectural Institute of Japan in Tokyo. The exhibition will later become one of the featured venues of the International Union of Architects meeting in Tokyo this fall.

Established in 1985, the International Archive of Women in Architecture Center is a joint program of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies and the University Libraries at Virginia Tech. The purpose of the Archive is to document the history of women’s contributions to the built environment by collecting, preserving, storing, and making available to researchers the professional papers of women architects, landscape architects, designers, architectural historians, urban planners and critics, as well as the archives of women’s architectural organizations.

Dunay says that before the earthquake, the exhibition in Japan offered a chance to highlight the work of women in architecture. Now, she says, the exhibition will also “promote the solidarity of our two countries looking into the future through the juxtaposition of work from Japan and the United States in an international partnership,” at a time when Japan needs help recovering from an unprecedented disaster.

Commercial Sector Expected to Lead Industry Recovery

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By Kermit Baker, Hon. AIA, AIA Chief Economist

An uneven economic recovery, hesitancy on the part of lenders to finance construction projects, the weak financial position of governments at all levels, and rising costs of key building material commodities are all conspiring to restrain a recovery in the nonresidential construction sector. The AIA Consensus Construction Forecast panel is projecting a decline of 5.6 percent this year in nonresidential spending for buildings, followed by a modest recovery of 6.4 percent in 2012. Because these predictions come on the heels of a more than 20 percent downturn in the overall nonresidential building sector last year, and a more than 30 percent drop in spending on commercial buildings, this year’s and next year’s expected declines are quite modest in comparison.

Commercial facilities—office, retail, and hotel—are expected to see a more significant decline ( 6.5 percent) this year, but also a stronger recovery (almost 12 percent) next year. Spending on the construction of manufacturing facilities is expected to see a steep decline this year of almost 16 percent, followed by a relatively modest rebound of 8 percent. The traditionally more stable institutional sector is expected to fall just over 3 percent this year, and then offset this decline with a 4 percent increase in 2012.

The economic recovery continues to disappoint

While the 2008–2009 economic downturn was certainly severe, this recovery has still been unusually weak. In prior post-WWII recoveries, the U.S. economy averaged more than 6 percent growth (inflation adjusted) in the first year of a recovery, and more than 4 percent in the second. In the first year of this recovery, growth was only 3 percent, and when figures for the second quarter of this year are released, it’s likely that the second year gains will be below the first year. This modest level of growth is not too surprising given that the economy lost an additional half million jobs during the first year of the recovery, and gained just over one million during year two. At present, there are almost seven million fewer payroll positions in our economy than when the recession began in early 2008.

With such slow growth, most businesses and institutions do not feel the need to expand their facilities, although spending on renovations to existing facilities has remained quite strong. For example, McGraw-Hill Construction reports that nonresidential construction awards for new buildings and additions declined 43 percent between 2008 and 2010, while awards for building alterations declined less than 2 percent over this period.

Unstable home prices, unusually severe weather conditions, rising energy costs, concern over growing debt, and the rising national unemployment rate (up from 8.8 percent in March to 9.2 percent in June) have made consumers extremely nervous. Both the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index and Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index have fallen since the beginning of the year. Business confidence has not fared much better. Moody’s Economy.com reports that business confidence has fallen significantly from March, as the recent slowdown in the economy has many businesses worried that 2011 will generate significantly slower growth than anticipated.

Falling business confidence is becoming more of an issue internationally, which could impact construction levels and demand for design services in regions that have seen rapid growth in recent years. Moody’s Economy.com survey of global business confidence shows a dramatic decline since the beginning of the year in the Asia/Pacific index, largely due to the continuing problems from the Japanese earthquakes. But even the fast-growing Chinese economy seems to have stalled a bit recently. In contrast, the business confidence index for South America has been trending up this year, and the European index is holding its own, in spite ongoing government debt issues in Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal. Solid business confidence in Germany, the largest European economy, has largely offset concerns in other areas.

Regional patterns emerging

As the construction markets begin to recover, some areas of the country are performing better than others. Though national construction employment is at almost exactly the same level as a year ago, 23 states have reported increases in construction payrolls over this period. Somewhat surprisingly, Michigan leads the pack with a 5.2 percent increase in construction payrolls over the past 12 months. Seven other states–Hawaii, Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kansas, North Dakota, and Illinois—and the District of Columbia have seen gains of 3 percent or more. At the other end of the spectrum, Nevada and Rhode Island have each lost 10 percent or more of their construction payrolls over the past year, with Georgia not far behind.

The Federal Reserve Board monitors economic conditions for each of its 12 districts, and its report from early June was that nonresidential markets were beginning to show some improvement, in contrast to the still-stalled residential sector. From the report: “Nonresidential real estate leasing markets have been generally stable, while construction activity has remained very subdued. Loan demand was steady to stronger in most districts, especially in the commercial and industrial sector, and widespread improvement was reported in credit quality.”

In terms of conditions in specific districts: “Commercial leasing markets showed modest signs of improvement in the Richmond and San Francisco districts. Boston and Dallas noted some firming in property sales markets, but Kansas City reported declines in prices for office buildings. Nonresidential construction, though widely reported to be at very low levels, rose modestly in the Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Dallas districts, though Chicago noted that public sector projects are becoming smaller. Cleveland observed a pickup in industrial and high-end commercial development, but [also saw] a pullback in healthcare-related projects. Richmond reported some pockets of strength in the retail market. More broadly, contacts in a number of districts expressed a general sense of optimism about the outlook for the second half of 2011.”

Construction commodity prices remain volatile

In spite of a still-depressed construction sector, material prices remain unusually volatile, with some recent increases. Overall, prices for construction commodities have increased 7.5 percent over the past year, just slightly higher than the 7.3 percent overall increase in wholesale prices. In the overall wholesale price index, energy costs have been the main culprit. Without food and energy prices factored in, the overall index rose by just over 2 percent. However, price volatility in the construction sector certainly extends beyond energy costs. Steel, copper, and aluminum prices have all increased 10 percent or more over the past year, offsetting price declines for lumber and many concrete products. Some analysts feel that price pressures for construction commodities are shifting. According to Ken Simonson, chief economist of the Associated General Contractors of America, “The noise has died down over diesel, steel, and copper prices. Now the attention has shifted to asphalt, plastic, roofing, and insulation.”

Momentum is beginning to shift in the nonresidential construction sector, but even after the markets begin to recover, there is a long climb to get back to the levels enjoyed before the recession. Home building generally creates demand for nonresidential facilities, so the extremely weak housing recovery is not generating much demand for new projects. Job growth also is a key factor in creating need for new buildings, and, like home building, an employment recovery has not gotten underway to any significant degree. All of this points to a fairly modest expansion in the nonresidential building sector once growth resumes in late 2011 or early 2012.

*With the release of this update of the AIA Consensus Construction Forecast, all construction spending figures are presented in current (non-inflation adjusted dollars). Prior reports were presented in real (inflation-adjusted) terms.

The Life and Times of an IDEA

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Congressman Jim Moran Introduces “Melting Pot Museum” Bill
Photo courtesy of the Office of Congressman Jim Moran.

Time is the test of a strong idea.  We like to pretend that we own an idea, but the best ideas are elusive.  They thrive on those who nourish them, and they are like healthy cells that grow and spread with speed and ease.  Architects often find themselves as the holders of ideas, and we take on the responsibility of fertilizing the idea – often clothing the idea in shape and form.  When it matures enough, the idea wiggles out of the architect’s hands and goes to other hosts.  An architect’s responsibility is to keep a great idea pure and alive as long as possible.

I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when I was invited to Congressman Jim Moran’s press conference about a national Museum of the American People.  I was in the middle of a crowd under the scorching, hot sun of summer that was reflecting the white glare of the Capitol building in Washington DC.   I was wilting, but the idea was alive and kicking!  The idea of creating a place where all our ethnic groups could display and celebrate the great American melting pot caught my attention when I read a small article earlier this year.  I had called the director of the organization to get more information about his idea, and, one thing led to another, my firm was asked to do a preliminary design of the museum in order to promote the idea.

Preliminary design for a Museum of the American People
Image courtesy of MTFA Architecture.

Talent in my office generated inspiring forms to house the idea.  The images were sent out to the press, and, instantly, the museum was nominated as “Best Unbuilt Museum Gets Best Aspirational Plan” by the Washington City Paper.  We were heroes for a short time, but the idea had to move on.  At the press conference, I was no longer the star of the show.  The idea had taken another host.  If successful in Congress, the idea will continue its journey to the President for the creation of a Presidential Commission to study the feasibility of the idea.  The test of time will tell whether this idea grows, but I was proud that architectural talents had been used to give strength to the idea.

At about the same time as Jim Moran’s press conference, the National Ideas Competition for the Grounds of the Washington Monument had its second stage jury.  This competition’s intention is that notable ideas will promote awareness, education and thoughtful development of the Monument grounds.  Lead juror Gregory Hunt explained that “We worked hard to get a diversity of approaches. We could not limit ourselves to five because the six winners were more demonstrative of the range of ideas.”

See www.wamocompetition.com for more details about the winners.  The ideas will be kept alive with the final stage of the competition when the public will be invited to select the “People’s Choice.”  Next spring the Virginia Center for Architecture will host a comprehensive exhibit about the competition that will be designed by George Washington University’s school of museum design.

At this time, the Virginia Society AIA continues the work of keeping ideas alive.  The VSAIA has been prolific in generating ideas that serve the profession of architecture and our members.  The VSAIA worked hard at the beginning of the year to put the Virginia Center for Architecture on fertile ground, and I am pleased to report that under the new leadership of Executive Director Helene Dreiling, FAIA, the Center is already bubbling with creativity and greater financial stability.  The VSAIA Board is successfully implementing the ideas in the Long Range Plan while balancing the financial challenges that affect all our businesses.  We look forward to celebrating 100 years of great ideas in 2014.  Join us to support strong ideas!

JIM

James P. Clark, AIA

VSAIA President

Citizen Architect Guidebook Available

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Many of you have taken the time and expended the energy to be Citizen Architects.  For those of you who have wondered how to take this to another level, the AIA has developed the Citizen Architect Guidebook.

Within its 19 pages, it offers ideas on how to expand your individual influence by training or persuading or encouraging your colleagues to join you in influencing your communities’ futures.  I ask that you review this with your colleagues in your firm and your chapter.  You espouse important ideas on how your community can work better in the future.  If one architect advocating sound transportation, development, planning, and preservation ideas can affect the future, think what several of you could do. 

The Society has a file of current Citizen Architects throughout the state by city and county and, in some cases, by town.  These lists of boards, councils and commissions identify all members regardless of vocation.  In addition, they highlight AIA members and non-members, professional engineers, landscape architects and interior designers.  If this list could help you pull together a committee, please call or write Duncan Abernathy AIA (804-237-1776, daber@aiava.org).  If you have any questions, please call.  

Working together, architects can have a huge influence on shaping their communities’ future.

~ T. Duncan Abernathy, AIA

AIA Offers ArchEx Scholarship

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© 2006, The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.The 2011 AIA Knowledge Scholarship will fund a dedicated and knowledgeable person to attend a Knowledge Community fall conference in order to cover the event via social media, capture the content and deliver a variety of products to wider audiences during and after the conference. The Virginia Society AIA’s Architecture Exchange East is among those conferences included in the scholarship opportunity.

AIA Young Architects (licensed less than 10 years), Associate AIA members, and AIAS members are eligible to submit an application.

The AIA Knowledge Scholarship seeks to provide a dedicated and knowledgeable person on-site to capture the content from the conference and deliver a variety of products to wider audiences during and after the conference. Some existing products are listed below for reference and innovative methods are highly encouraged.

  • Project profiles by site on tours (text and images)
  • Real-time blogging on AIA KnowledgeNet
  • Audiocast with speaker/expert in the field
  • Videocast on topic
  • Transcript of panel discussion or interview for a KC Newsletter
  • Topical article related to conference theme for AIArchitect
  • Keynote/Session summaries
  • AIA Best Practice on topic

Scholarship funds will be awarded to compelling applications that address creativity, feasibility, impact and outcomes. Applications will be evaluated on: quality and quantity of knowledge products; innovation; demonstrated skill in area of knowledge delivery (for example writing or video editing experience); how the end product will interest the intended target audience; coverage of conference/knowledge topics in demand; thoroughness of application.

Applications must include: a complete application form, resume, two professional references, and a purposed budget including the cost of conference registration, travel expenses and supply expenses. The completed application must be submitted by August 15, 2011. Submit the application to knowledgecommunities@aia.org as a single letter-sized PDF document titled “2011kcscholarship_firstnamelastname.pdf.” The PDF should not exceed 5mb in size or 10 pages in length.

All applicants will receive an email confirmation of receipt of their application within two business days. If you do not receive an email confirmation, contact Tamzin Howerton at 202-626-7358. All applicants will receive notification of the jury’s decision by September 1, 2011.

Citizen Architect Profile: Canova Peterson, AIA

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Canova Peterson, AIA
Canova Peterson, AIA

Canova Peterson, AIA, wishes to streamline bureaucracy, which he believes can be burdensome even in bucolic Hanover County.  His goal is to parlay his nearly 40 years in Hanover County and nearly 45 years in architecture into a seat on the Hanover County Board of Supervisors.

“Basically,” he said, “in my years of working with community politics and bureaucracy and government, I’ve gotten to know quite a few of the things that shouldn’t be going on.  And now I have time to work on this.”

He allowed that there was no one thing that put him in the mood to stir the pot of politics.  “There was nothing that happened that made me really ticked off.  I think it’s pretty good now, otherwise I wouldn’t live here.  Hanover County has done a really good job in a lot of areas, but it needs to be a little more fiscally responsive.”

He said he wanted to see better transparency in budgeting, taxation, and growth.  As an architect, he sees activities that shouldn’t occur.  “My concern,” he said, “is that too often — not just in Hanover but in a lot of communities — the efforts to have positive approach to growth have people speaking out of both sides of their mouth.”

He believes the county’s administrative staff in charge of growth — the planning and zoning departments — need to understand how to “work with growth properly, without stepping on everyone’s personal property rights as well.“

He referred to some of the county’s growth policies as “meddlesome.”  As an architect, he said, he has continually been frustrated by requests for “a finished product before I have it designed.”  These requests are at the very early stages of a project when he is seeking to understand the specific boundaries or limits of a piece of property within the zoning and land use restrictions. 

Here is where he hopes his architecture background can have the greatest effect.  “We are in a situation where we have to look at things with a broad mind and look to the future as well.  Hanover has tried several different things to try to keep growth under control.” 

For example, he used one of the county’s goals of trying to maintain a rural character.  “When you develop six-acre subdivisions in the woods,” he said, “that’s not really rural character.”  He recommends working with developers to follow the county’s infrastructure:  roads, utilities, and services.  “If you don’t, you are automatically pushing growth into other areas.  We have to accommodate growth.  It is HOW we accommodate it that determines whether it is realistic.”

Streamlining the bureaucracy would be a good start, he said.  “All the things that attract people to cities we can’t do because the zoning doesn’t allow it.  We have zoned richness out of development.  We have to start looking at our regulations, remove the ‘nannying’ pieces, and get back to reasonable land-use regulations.”

Peterson believes Hanover can play a key role in central Virginia’s future.  It has the most room to grow of the four major localities with a mere 211 people per square mile, which is slightly more than the state’s average of 202 people per square mile.  While Hanover and Chesterfield County are fairly close in size, Chesterfield’s population density more than triples that of Hanover. 

Hanover has “great tourism opportunities,” Peterson said.  “It has great access to anywhere on the east coast.  It is a fantastic place to attract business and in a strong position to be a good generator for economic development.”

And he believes his education in architecture and planning added to his decades of experience in and around Hanover will be a benefit to the county.  “I believe architects have an innate feeling for service.  If they don’t have that they are not going to make it [as an architect].  You are not going to get rich at it.  Architects are particularly well trained in pulling varying things together into a more cohesive whole.” 

Peterson is campaigning for a seat on the Hanover County Board of Supervisors representing the Mechanicsville district.  The election will be in November.

Your Political Action Committee

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A rousing start to the election season was generated by contributions and pledges to the VSAIA political action committee campaign by long-time supporter Gauthier Alvarado & Associates in Falls Church and relative PAC newcomer HDR in Alexandria.

Rob Morris, III, AIA, PE, presented his firm’s traditional $1,000 check to the PAC in December.  Jim Draheim, AIA, announced his firm’s pledge of $2,000 in March.  Both have combined their firms’ support with personal efforts to increase the level of participation in the PAC.  They are sending letters to their peers in several firms encouraging them to join in supporting the PAC and asking that they also encourage their employees to do the same.

Ed Gillikin, AIA, VSAIA vice president for government advocacy, and the members of the government and industry affairs committee ask that individuals contribute the equivalent of one hour’s billable time to the PAC.  They request that firms contribute a like amount. 

With all 140 seats in the Virginia General Assembly open this year, the campaign goal will be to top the PAC’s previous best year of $23,630 contributed in 2006. 

The PAC supports the campaigns of those candidates who have shown an understanding of what the profession does and of how architects affect the quality of life within their communities.  If a candidate is running for the first time, the VSAIA considers its members’ evaluations.  For incumbents, the VSAIA concentrates its support on those who serve in leadership positions and those who serve on the General Laws committees in the House and Senate.  This committee reviews nearly 90 percent of the bills affecting the profession.

A candidate’s party affiliation is not considered.  Historically, the VSAIA PAC’s contributions run just about 50-50 on supporting Democrats and Republicans.  Information on past activity can be obtained from the Virginia Public Access Project website http://www.vpap.org/committees/profile/home/600.  VAPA’s home site is www.VPAP.org. 

It takes time to build rapport and trust between the architects and elected officials.  This is done through individual meetings among the VSAIA legislative counsel, staff and members, and the legislators. Those in office depend on us for information about the possible impact of a bill.  We depend on them to weigh that information with other sources and to reach a reasonable conclusion when the votes are taken. 

To maintain the investment in these relationships, the VSAIA needs to support those candidates who supported restricting unlicensed practice, who supported limiting by contract an architect’s liability, and who support the concept of qualifications-based selection for public projects. 

In supporting the PAC, you are supporting your firm and your ability to practice your profession.  Please contribute to the PAC today by sending a check equal to one-hour’s billable time to the VSAIA PAC, 2501 Monument Avenue, Richmond, VA   23220.

APELSCIDLA Update: June-July

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Draft legislation concerning unlicensed practice and continuing education was shown to architects serving on the regulatory board at their May meeting.  The architects and board staff had no official comments, but offered some suggestions.

The first of the two proposed measures aims to add flexibility to the continuing education requirements that, if passed, would put Virginia in a good position to accommodate changes being discussed at the national level by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards.  The second aims to strengthen the laws identifying unlicensed practice.

Architects serving on the committee are J. Everette “Ebo” Fauber, AIA-E, James Boyd, AIA, and Michael LeMay, AIA.  Boyd was elected as section chairman for the 2011–2012 year.

In discussing continuing education, Fauber explained that the nation’s registration boards are all over the map with their requirements.  For example, Virginia requires 16 hours per biennium.  Fauber said 34 jurisdictions require 12 per year.  Most jurisdictions specifically require hours in health, safety, and welfare.  Virginia does not.  The more critical element to standardizing criteria nationally, he and Boyd agreed, was the reporting period end date. 

NCARB’s model law is being reviewed in an attempt to establish common criteria throughout the country including a single reporting date.  Currently in Virginia, the month an architect received his license is the reporting — or re-registration — date every other year.  In allowing the board to slide architects’ re-registration dates to a single date, those architects licensed in multiple jurisdictions would find it easier to manage their records.  

Delegates to NCARB’s national meeting in June will discuss and vote on the package of resolutions that includes revising its model law.

The proposals concerning unlicensed practice initially have been inserted into the list of unlawful acts that apply to any occupation requiring a license.  To the existing list of nine acts, the VSAIA is suggesting three.  These are:

  1. Entering into a contract to provide a professional or occupational regulated service or offering to provide a regulated service without holding a valid license to provide the regulated service.
  2. Advertising to provide services regulated by the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation when the individual or business entity is not certified or licensed to practice the regulated occupation including, but not limited to, telephone directory listings, Internet websites, and radio and television advertisements. 
  3. Including unlicensed persons or business entities in published rosters or lists of persons who offer a regulated service where the person or business entity is not certified or licensed to offer the regulated service, including telephone directories, Internet sites, newspapers and periodicals.   

Both of these proposals were viewed earlier by the Joint Legislative Committee (JLC), which will determine how to refine the drafts prior to the 2012 legislative session.  Along with the VSAIA, the JLC comprises the two statewide engineering societies:  the American Council of Engineering Companies and the Virginia Society of Professional Engineers.