March 30, 2011 – Vignette Seminar

The IAC committee will be offering a free study session for Intern Architects who are preparing for the ARE Exams. This seminars emphasis will placed on approaches for working through the vignette portions for PPP and SPD, focusing on problem-solving and time management strategies.

This seminar will run from 6:00PM to 7:30PM at the AIBC Architecture Centre. The seminar will provide strategies and other tips for each exam, and are not intended to cover specific exam content. It would be helpful to have some familiarity with the exam materials and some experience with the graphic practice program prior to attending the respective seminars.

Introductory material and resources can be located at Intern Architect Exam Process and Resources,

To reserve a spot for this seminar, or if you have any questions, you can contact Emily Tyler, Registration & Licensing Administration Assistant, at 604 683 8588 ext. 324 or etyler@aibc.ca.

Programming, Planning + Practice (PPP)

This exam has one graphic vignette– Site Zoning.

Site Planning + Design (SPD)

This exam has two graphic vignettes – Site Grading and Site Design

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: View from the Edge Exhibit

Deadline Extended: Noon on Monday, March 25, 2011 at AIBC Offices

The Architectural Institute of British Columbia invites submissions for its upcoming View from the Edge exhibit. This is an open call; any AIBC registrant may enter materials for display. Given the nature of this exhibit, all AIBC registrant categories are encouraged to take part, including Intern Architects and Students. Projects do not have to be actualized. They can be completed, or purely idea-based representations.

The exhibit will explore concepts and ideas related to the 2011 Festival of Architecture – an AIBC / Architecture | RAIC Partnership. The festival theme, Architecture on the Edge, acknowledges the many ways in which west coast architects continue to extend the boundaries in such areas as form and design, sustainability, community development and social awareness.

For more information, please visit View from the Edge.

ARE Resources NOW AVAILABLE

There are a vast amount of existing resources to prepare Intern Architects for the ARE, many at no cost. The AIBC has complied an extensive list and this is now available for review. The information covers everything from obtaining your Authorization to Test letter, booking an exam, the exam location rules and conduct, to available study resources.

IA Exam Process and Resources

Annual Intern Event!

Please join us in an enthusiastic celebration of mentorship!

The AIBC and the Intern Architect Committee invite you and your mentor to attend the upcoming Mentor – Mentee Event. This event is an informal and social evening dedicated to building mentor relationships across all levels of the profession, from students and architectural graduates to Intern Architects and fully-registered members.

Thursday, November 4
5:30 – 8:30 p.m.
AIBC Gallery (#100 – 440 Cambie Street at Pender)
Vancouver, BC V6B 2N5

Complimentary refreshments, entertainment and prizes.

While mentorship is a required part of the Intern Architect Program, it happens more informally throughout one’s career as an architect. Mentors enhance education, offer advice and direction for professional experience, and help build professional networks. They are teachers, counselors and friends.

No matter how far you are through the IA program, chances are your mentor has been a large and positive part of your internship experience. This gathering is the perfect opportunity to not only thank your mentor, but to also connect with other IAs and members of the profession.

To confirm you attendance, please r.s.v.p. to Courtney Healey IA.AIBC (courtney.healey@gmail.com) or Registration and Licensing Administration Assistant Emily Tyler (etyler@aibc.ca).

We look forward to seeing you there.

Intern Survey Part 1: Summary and Response

The first in a series of Intern Surveys was concluded in 2009. The results of that survey reveal interesting information which will be considered by not only the Intern Architect Committee, but also the Registration and Licensing Board and, ultimately, Council itself.

If you would like to see the summary results of the survey, they are available at the Survey Monkey site.

First of all, we were gratified that 84 interns chose to respond to the survey (about 20% of the intern group). Thank you to all who responded. This survey covered background information such as route of entry to internship, employment situations and compensation. Future surveys will drill down into more specific areas and issues of concern for interns and the profession.

Some of the interesting “learnings” from this survey include:

• The most important factor for interns’ choice of firm appears to be the level of responsibility granted. This is overwhelmingly so, with over 90 percent of responses in the somewhat to very important range. Compensation, reputation of firm, firm practice emphasis, and commitment to interns fall in a roughly equal band at 72-78 percent somewhat to very important. Surprisingly, benefits and personal/family considerations, rank relatively low on the scale.

• A considerable number of respondents (35%) that they do not get sufficient exposure to the necessary range of work to complete their CERB hours. The detailed responses reveal that contract and construction administration are the areas of most concern. This is borne out by results of oral review exams where these areas are the most common ones in which candidates fall short.
• On the brighter side, perhaps, is that almost half of the respondents report salaries of $55,000 or more. This is tempered by the comments received on the survey that it was not sufficiently granular at the $60,000 or more level and by the fact that 30% of interns report that they are not being compensated for overtime as is required by employment legislation in BC.
• Most telling of all are the responses to questions 16 through 19 which reveal general dissatisfaction with the way in which interns are valued and compensated. A large majority (over 70 percent) of respondents feel that they have not been adequately compensated and almost 60 percent of respondents report that they do not feel that the time and energy spent towards getting registered has not been worthwhile. The detailed responses to this question reveal a range of issues ranging from educational experience, length and difficulty of the registration process, compensation and work-life issues, and direction of the profession itself as contributing factors. Future surveys will look at some of these issues in more detail.
• Closing out on this theme, question 20 asked for ideas and suggestions about intern surveys. There were a number of useful responses/themes which will help improve how we do surveys and provide topics for future surveys. Stay tuned.

AIBC Council Nominations

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2010/11 AIBC Council. One of the positions available is the Intern Architect Liaison. This is your opportunity to help shape the body responsible for the governance of the profession in this province and represent the intern architects of the AIBC. Your respective nomination form will soon arriving in the mail. They are also available online, on the AIBC Council page. All nominations must be received at the AIBC offices no later than 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 18, 2010. The election closes at the Annual Meeting on May 8, 2010.

Your IAC encourages anyone who is interested in getting involved to apply!

2010 ARE Preparation Seminars

The Intern Architect Committee will be holding a series of free ARE preparation seminars over the coming weeks and months to help interns prepare for the exams. The seminars will be held approximately every two weeks, and will generally run from 6:00pm to 7:00pm at the AIBC Architecture Centre in Vancouver. Dates below are still subject to change. Please check back regularly to confirm that the seminar schedule is accurate.

These seminars are designed to provide strategies and other tips for each exam, and are not intended to cover specific exam content. It would be helpful to have some familiarity with the exam materials and some experience with the graphic practice program prior to attending the respective seminars, except of course for the introductory seminar.

Introduction to the AREs Wed Mar 10
Programming Planning and Practice Mon Mar 15
Site Planning and Design Mon Mar 22
Schematic Design Wed Apr 07 **
Building Design and Construction Systems Mon Apr 19**
Structural Systems Mon May 17
Building Systems Mon May 31
Construction Documents and Services Mon Jun 14

** Please note these two sessions have swapped dates.

ARE 4.0 Exam Seminar Presenters

The Intern Architect Committee would like to invite interns who have written (and passed) some of the ARE 4.0 exams to serve as volunteer presenters for this year's exam preparation seminars. The 30 to 45-minute seminars are designed to provide topical exam-taking advice to interns who are about to write each exam, and thus will focus more on strategy than on specific content. Please contact us if you are interested in volunteering for any of these positions. Thanks!

Intern Architect Event 2009: 20x20

With summer now officially over, it is time to announce the upcoming annual Intern Architect event. The Intern Architect Committee (IAC) has been discussing this issue, and has chosen to revisit the 20x20 event organized last year. Our intent is to use this Pecha Kucha inspired event as an ongoing and continuing event that would be organized at regular intervals in the future.

As a refresher to those unaware of the origins of this type of event, Pecha Kucha originated in Japan in the late 1990s as a method devised by graphic artists to present their work while minimizing the amount of constraints and requirements. Each presenter prepares an audio visual based piece, consisting of 20 images, with each being shown for 20 seconds. This ensures the presentations do not last more than six minutes, allowing many presenters to speak during one event. Today the Pecha Kucha formula has been replicated throughout the world and these types of events are a common occurrence in numerous cities.

This year’s event will take place on Thursday, November 12th at the Architecture Gallery (AIBC). The event will start at 17:30 and refreshments, as always, will be provided.

We are looking for between five and eight speakers for this event. Preference will be given to Intern Architects and architecture students. Presenters will have the opportunity to showcase their work, ideas, or other interests. An honorarium will be presented to all of the speakers. Please contact us if you are interested in being a presenter at this year's event.

In order to ensure the event is well attended and financed, the IAC will to launch a targeted advertising and sponsorship campaign. Emails and flyers will follow shortly. To encourage guests to come and participate in the event, a draw for numerous architecturally-themed prizes will also be organised.

Please mark your calendars, and we the hope to see many of you at this exciting event!

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.

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

Intern Representative Nominations Due

Just a reminder that nominations for the Intern rep on the AIBC Council for this coming year are due on March 19, 2009. More information on this position and the nomination form can be found at the AIBC Website.

New Legislation Workshop 2

Please join the AIBC for the second of three information sessions on the proposed new Architectural Act. Your intern committee strongly encourages you to participate in these sessions to better understand what is being proposed for the new Act and what impact it will have on your profession. These sessions are also the time to provide feedback to AIBC Council as it continues to work on this draft new legislation for government's consideration. The next two sessions are:

Monday, March 9, 2009
· Mandatory Insurance
· Specialization
· Role of the Registrar

Tuesday, April 14, 2009
· Proposed Framework for Bylaws
· Proposed Framework for Scope of Practice

4:00-6:00pm
AIBC Offices, #100 - 440 Cambie Street, Vancouver

New Legislation Workshops

Monday, February 9, 2009
· Why change our existing legislation?
· Why now?
· Why are we proposing that membership be expanded?

Monday, March 9, 2009
· Mandatory Insurance
· Specialization
· Role of the Registrar

Tuesday, April 14, 2009
· Proposed Framework for Bylaws
· Proposed Framework for Scope of Practice

4:00-6:00pm
AIBC Offices, #100 - 440 Cambie Street, Vancouver

Please join the AIBC for a series of information workshops for Interns and Architects on the proposed new Architectural Professions Act. Each of these progressive sessions will focus on specific aspects of the proposed new legislation. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions and share comments. All registrants are encouraged to attend each session in order to better understand what is being proposed and its impact on the profession as well as to provide feedback to AIBC Council as it continues to draft new legislation for government's consideration. If you are about to do the Oral Review this is an excellent opportunity to update yourself on this year's hot topic within the profession.

Please confirm your attendance for each of these workshops for planning purposes to communications@aibc.ca. We look forward to seeing you there!

February 2009 Oral Reviews

The application form for the next Oral Review session is available to download from the AIBC website. The Oral Review is open to those Intern Architects who have:

·completed and logged at least 2800 hours (preferably completed all of the required hours); and
·completed the required AIBC courses.

The Oral Review session will be held on February 18th and 19th, 2009. The Intern Architect Committee will be hosting an Oral Review Preparation Workshop on Wednesday, January, 28, 2009 at 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm at the AIBC offices. All those planning to sit an oral review this round are welcome to attend.

NCARB announces new IDP Supervisor Guidelines

The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has developed their version of IDP Supervisor Guidelines to assist supervisors in the role they play in interns' carreers. The guidelines are available for download from the NCARB website at:
http://www.ncarb.org/forms/superguide.pdf

The AIBC will review these guidelines to see what, if any, learnings can be taken from the doucment for discussion with the national regulators, which meet through the Canadian Architectural Licensing Authorities (CALA) discussion forum. The Canadian document is posed on the AIBC website at: http://www.aibc.ca/member_resources/intern_resources/pdf/2008_mentorguidelines.pdf

Intern Architect Focus Group - Expressions of Interest

The AIBC remains committed to making the internship experience as meaningful and fulfilling as possible. Part of this commitment is to remove unwarranted barriers to registration as a fully fledged architect. We remain concerned at the growing pool of interns and the relatively low conversion rate from intern to architect. While this phenomenon is not unique to the AIBC ­— it appears to be occurring across North America — we remain undeterred in our search for solutions.

The AIBC has surveyed the IA and MAIBC community on a range of possible contributing factors and has undertaken steps to address some of those factors. However, more work clearly needs to be done. We would like to host a series of dedicated focus group sessions to consider the full range of issues impacting internship (from education through to state of practice) as well as possible solutions for consideration by the AIBC Council and its national counterparts. If you are interested in representing the IA community as part of a focus group, please contact Jerome Marburg, Director of Registration & Licensing and General Counsel, with an expression of interest and your current CV. We hope to select a number of IAs representing the full spectrum of practice areas and conditions. Results from the focus groups will be posted on this blog for consideration and comment by all.