Tuesday, July 21, 2009

CHOP (Second Edition) Now Available Online

The Canadian Handbook of Practice (CHOP), Second Edition PDF download can now be purchased online at RAIC’s CHOP Order Centre.

The cost to architecture students, intern architects, and licensed architects is $75.
This new edition contains over 50 checklists, many of them new, updated references and current practice advice. A CD-ROM and printed version will become available for sale later this summer.

This handbook is of particular use to interns who are interested in how practices are structured and run, as well as interns who will be taking the oral exams.

Interns at the BC Home + Garden Show

by Abdel Munem Amin

Ask any intern and they will tell you that the registration process can be difficult and overwhelming, especially when the rewards seem so distant and intangible. Interns are attracted to the profession for various reasons, but it is easy to lose sight of those reasons when you are confined in front of a computer trying to make sense of all the RFIs that just came through.

One of the reasons that attracted this intern to architecture was the romance of designing customized spaces and the satisfaction of successfully completing a project. However, I spend most of my time adjusting plans to conform to code rather than the needs of an end user. Not to mention the fact that the end user for commercial applications is the hypothetical public rather than an individual with explicit characteristics.

One venue that affords interns the opportunity to talk to prospective end users is at the BC Home + Garden Show. The Ask an Architect booth at the show is one of several AIBC community outreach programs. This year the Home + Garden show took place at BC place from February 18–22. Several interns volunteered their time at this event and felt that their participation was worthwhile.

Ariane Truong, a volunteer intern, noted that the booth helped raise awareness about the role of architects. Truong felt “it was great to have exposure for the profession and show that we are a necessary service, even for residential projects. I got the impression a lot of people think architects mainly do big, commercial or institutional projects and aren't aware of the benefits an architect can bring, even to small residential projects.” As a direct result of the booth at the Home + Garden Show, there was a noticeable increase in attendance at the AIBC’s Saturday morning Ask an Architect drop-in sessions, as more people became aware of the benefits of hiring an architect for their projects.

The Home + Garden show is a great way to meet the people that could eventually inhabit our designs and have informal chats about their dream projects. This sort of experience complements the skills learned within an office environment on the road to licensing. Furthermore, the hours spent volunteering can be logged as community work in your CERB, which can otherwise be difficult to obtain.

The AIBC encourages interns to take part in the event and pairs an intern with a registered architect during their shift so the intern always has someone experienced to help with the tougher questions. Varouj Gumuchian, another volunteer intern, recommends this experience to other interns and advises that as long as interns are thoughtful and take an active role at the booth, they can get a lot out of the event.

The next BC Home + Garden Show is scheduled for April 15–18, 2010 and interns who are interested in taking part should contact the AIBC communications department at communications@aibc.ca.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

AIBC Intern Architect Survey Results (Part 1)

Thank you to those who participated in the survey. The survey results will be used by the AIBC’s Registration and Licensing Board as well as the National Intern Architect Program Task Force to drive changes to the Intern Architect Program (IAP). To view the results of the first survey, click here. Please stay tuned, as we will have a second survey posted soon. The following is a summary of the results written by Johnnie Kuo IA.AIBC, a member of the Intern Architect Committee:

The survey has drawn its result from 59 responses. Most respondents (over 84%) have never been registered as intern architects outside of Canada or BC. There is a small percentage (15%) of respondents who are registered architects outside of Canada. Nearly 73% of respondent interns are employed full time, while 12% are unemployed.

Highlights from the survey results:
  • When choosing firms, level of responsibility granted is rated “Very Important’ for 63% of respondents, size of firm and benefits are rated “Somewhat Important” by 42% of respondents; identity of firm principals seems to be least important.
  • Over 60% of interns feel they are sufficiently exposed to a range of work that allow them to fulfill CERB requirement; among the remaining 37%, most often identified issues are lack of contract administration, construction and site related experience.
  • Two-thirds of respondents are paid annual salary, compensated for overtime pay that is either straight time banked as holiday time or time-and-a-half paid out/towards holidays. The same percentage reported that they do not supplement income with outside work.
  • 25% of respondents are paid 60K or more; about 56% are paid between 45K and 60K annually. The same percentage of respondents feel their compensation package is fair. Two-thirds of respondents reported that their compensation package insufficient to meet their living needs.
  • Most commonly provided benefits are full payment of AIBC annual dues, cost shared dental, and AIBC PD courses.
  • Most concerning is the fact that nearly 60% of respondents do not find the time and effort spend towards getting registered as an architect worth it from a professional or personal perspective. They also do not feel that they have been adequately compensated financially for the time and effort already spent towards getting registered.
Future survey topics and pertinent comments include:
  • Employment standards and compensation
  • Ethics
  • AIBC improved monitoring or regulation of the current system to ensure interns are getting appropriate experience
  • NCARB
  • Support and respect for interns in their professional development, work environment, and finances
  • Intern resources and peer support (juggling demands from work, exams, and courses while maintaining a healthy life style)
  • Internship process here in BC vs. elsewhere
  • CERB and exams, NCARB exams vs. EXAC
  • Young firms and design culture
  • Registration requirements
  • Perspectives from self-employed or contract-base interns
  • Unemployment