Dear Young Architects

ONQ,

Honestly I’m not sure about your proposal in post 132. I’d have to think about it a bit more. I think in practice it might cause difficulties and be pretty confusing for all involved with the overlap of responsibilities and liabilities amongst the different grades and the lack of clear demarcation. But that’s just a first reaction. I have to say though aswell that it seems if someone gives an opinion to you and you don’t agree with it that that person has become ‘entrenched’. I give an opinion that I feel a piece of legislation is deficient and I’m showing a ‘shocking disregard for the law’. By this logic unless you wholeheartedly agree with every law out there you have a shocking disregard for the law. & I certainly don’t think I’m better than you. Your comment about the building regs and certification is more that a little dramatic. I’ll respect and work to the law, it’s a different thing entirely not agreeing with it (you do encourage me to think independently don’t you…) This opinion has nothing to do with my conditioning by the Institute. It is MY opinion. My position, entrenched as you may feel it is, is that a qualified architect with their part 3 will in the MAJORITY of cases be more likely to be more competent than an architect who hasn’t completed their part 3. This to me is obvious and this is why I think the piece of legislation you refer to is deficient for the profession and for the public. I’m not disputing your individual competence as an architect, you might just very well be the most competent architect in the world. The point is I don’t really know what it is but, as a graduate until it is properly assessed, I feel it is difficult to really comment on it. Of course the Part 3 doesn’t guarantee competence but then again nothing can.

@BenK wrote:

ONQ,

Honestly I’m not sure about your proposal in post 132. I’d have to think about it a bit more. I think in practice it might cause difficulties and be pretty confusing for all involved with the overlap of responsibilities and liabilities amongst the different grades and the lack of clear demarcation. But that’s just a first reaction. I have to say though aswell that it seems if someone gives an opinion to you and you don’t agree with it that that person has become ‘entrenched’. I give an opinion that I feel a piece of legislation is deficient and I’m showing a ‘shocking disregard for the law’. By this logic unless you wholeheartedly agree with every law out there you have a shocking disregard for the law. & I certainly don’t think I’m better than you. Your comment about the building regs and certification is more that a little dramatic. I’ll respect and work to the law, it’s a different thing entirely not agreeing with it (you do encourage me to think independently don’t you…) This opinion has nothing to do with my conditioning by the Institute. It is MY opinion. My position, entrenched as you may feel it is, is that a qualified architect with their part 3 will in the MAJORITY of cases be more likely to be more competent than an architect who hasn’t completed their part 3. This to me is obvious and this is why I think the piece of legislation you refer to is deficient for the profession and for the public. I’m not disputing your individual competence as an architect, you might just very well be the most competent architect in the world. The point is I don’t really know what it is but, as a graduate until it is properly assessed, I feel it is difficult to really comment on it. Of course the Part 3 doesn’t guarantee competence but then again nothing can.

Thanks BenK.

Your last comment says it all.

My “knocking” of the RIAI boils down to jsut that.

To suggest that the Part III guarantees competence is to overstate.
To suggest that being self-taught automatically implies incompetence is to defame.

This is the substance of the Broadcasting Complaints Authority’s decision against the recent disingenuous RIAI advertisement.

Now please use the benefit of your five years in a full time course and two years of law and read the Directives and Statutory Instrument.
Because as matters stand now, despite the Building Control Act forbidding your use of the title, you ARE an architect under the law and will be judged as such if you err.

By the RIAI not underlining this fact to Graduates, they are unaware of their responsibilities in legal terms.
This is not in my opinion an equitable or useful way to manage a profession or manage the risk associated with being in practice.

If my interpretation of the law is correct – and no-one has legally rebutted it so far despite my comments to the RIAI, the Oireachtas and the President of Ireland – then Graduates should be taking steps to cover themselves to the same degree as Architects / MRIAIs and with great urgency.

I already know and accept my liability under the law – you seem to be labouring under a serious misapprehension.
I had hoped you would be able to see through to this consequence for yourself.
NOW do you see why I’m taking the time to talk to you BenK?
Read the Directives and the Statutory Instrument.
It dosn’t matter what you think of the law.
You must understand it and abide by it.

ONQ.

@PVC King wrote:

This thread took direction from you feeling aggreived that you couldn’t call yourself an architect anymore. It is merely pointed out to you that all other professions require membership of the relevant professional body to call themselves solicitors, bankers, auditors, planners etc.

Translation: no, I haven’t read the relevant legislation and I have no clue what I’m talking about.

You seem to feel that because the law at a point in time granted a right that is totally at odds with all other professions that you have been somehow hard done by.

Translation: no, I won’t pretend to understand that your point relates solely to the right to use the title conferred by DIR 85/384/EEC and DIR 2005/36/EC

A consistent position has now been applied to the architectural profession; that is the extent of my argument and a very welcome piece of reforming legislation that very few people I know would disagree with.

Translation: I’ll keep battering away at a position you haven’t claimed and haven’t defended just to see my name in print – again.

A graduate degree is just that; every other profession requires both a degree and a regulatory regime imposed by the relevant industry body. You have failed to make a special case for the architecture profession to deviate in such a fundamental way.

Translation: no, I still won’t read or otherwise inform myself about the contents of DIR 85/384/EEC and DIR 2005/36/EC or their implications.

That said you can conveyance your house with a product sold by Tesco or sell your house through daft.

Translation: when I get tired of throwing in red herrings I’ll happily resort to irrelevant non sequiturs just to prove I’m a witty fellow.

(absence of requested confirmation of professional qualification noted)

(absence of requested comment on the proposed resolution in Post # 132 noted)

ONQ.

@BenK wrote:

ONQ, that’s a fair enough point in relation to the law and graduates understanding their liabilities under it. I’ve absolutely no problem with that and it is crucially important, as you say, graduates are aware of them. I’ll add that I haven’t been labouring under any misapprehension either. I understand your point about the law and respect your right to call yourself an architect under it. However, my opinion on the matter is, and I think always has been really (apologies for repeating myself…), that for an architect to be fully qualified his/her competence should have to be formally assessed both academically and professionally. The Part 3 does that. Simple as.

Thank you for taking that point.
No need to apologise for repetition of a sound point, one I agree with, as it happens – see below.

As you say it is crucially important, expecially in relation to an office obtaining adequate PI Cover.
How can an office explain its position currently, where people who may be taken to courts as architects cannot call themselves by that title, despite entitlement to do so under Irish and EU law?
I believe it cannot, and the post-graduate acting as an architect [providing architectural services] who may be singled out and under an “individually and severally” case in the High Court could find himself or herself without protection.

This is not far-fetched scare mongering – most senior architects are out winning the work, not running the jobs, and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that where a post-graduate has been signing all the letters and the drawings he will be held to account.

On the matter of the Part III’s part from the fact that I believe that practising for 7 years under the guidance of MRIAI’s confers a similar level of ability, we are as one.
In terms of evidence of my current abilities, have you seen anyone else teasing out the consequence for post-Graduates we’ve discussed above?
Nope, and most likely you won’t – as I noted in a previous post, I’m told I’m good at this.

And modest. 🙂

ONQ.

@PVC King wrote:

Where does the directive prevent the government from regulating as it sees fit?

Firstly, well done for reading the Directive.

I refer to this part of the text you quote:

Member States should retain the right to lay down the minimum level of qualification required to ensure the quality of the services provided on their territory.

I refer to S.I. 15 which wrote the Architect’s Directive into law:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1989/en/si/0015.html

I refer to the following sections of the Qualifications Directive, 2005/36/EC

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2005:255:0022:0142:en:PDF

Nothing in the Directive allows the Member State to take away a Graduates right to call themselves an Architect [Article 49 above is specific to me].

They can add additional requirements until the cows come home – for example, Registration, which I support and CPD, which I have been engaged in since I qualified – but they cannot unmake a graduate so that he enjoys the same standing as the man in the street.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some proposals to put to the Oireactas based on Post # 132 above in order to try and defuse and – dare I say it – Regulate (!) the impending war with the Architects Alliance.

ONQ.

onq,

I think that you mistake in relation to the EU legislation.

The EU legislation is only about architects traveling and working in Europe. The EU did not impose registration. The EU Directive is a non sense in itself as regulations, legislations, climates and other factors require a vernacular knowledge and if one has the skills to design a building in Norway, he may not have the skills to design one in Portugal.

The registration of the title is a globalization tool. It is not related to consumers’ protection, it is about what I call a global technocracy.

I am fighting with Architects Alliance for being able to register without paying more than the others and being subject to a fair examination and not an elitist non sense as it is now. We are lobbying and denunciating how the RIAI is discriminating me and many others in a very similar situation.

However, we are not fighting registration because even if we do not agree with it, it is a lost cause to fight against it. I am not sure what you are trying to prove when arguing that you can continue using the title without being registered, because anyway you are mistaking on this subject. I know that you were told by the RIAI admission Director that you could continue calling yourself a qualified architect, but as I already told you, do not believe all what the RIAI says, specially on the phone and even less on radio or other media.

Registration is about protecting a group of people. If you are not part of the group you have to fight to get in. I have not stopped fighting and I will not. But you must be careful not to fight a lost cause.

@PVC King wrote:

Article 46 merely sets out the components of the course in clause 1 and in clause 2 clarifies that this article is not to be construed as having any relationship with regulation of the structure, training and access of and to the profession.

No.
They’re not just the “components of the course”.
They are the core competences an architect must master.

Clause 2 confirms the core competences can be updated to reflect scientific and technical advances, in accordance with Article 58 (2.
This in turn refers to 1999/468/EC which sets out how the bureaucracy should work:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:1999:184:0023:0023:EN:PDF
but it limits any such updates:

“Such updates must not entail, for any Member State, any
amendment of existing legislative principles relating to the
structure of professions as regards training and the conditions
of access by natural persons.”

This paves the way for required CPD but forbids Member States from restricting persons with the required qualification from practising as an Architect.

Introductory paragraph 34 confirms this:

“(34) Administering the various systems of recognition set up
by the sectoral directives and the general system has
proved cumbersome and complex. There is therefore a
need to simplify the administration and updating of this
Directive to take account of scientific and technical
progress, in particular where the minimum conditions of
training are coordinated with a view to automatic recognition
of qualifications. A single committee for the
recognition of professional qualifications should be set
up for this purpose, and suitable involvement of representatives
of the professional organisations, also at European
level, should be ensured.”

Read before you post (1)

The qualification gets you in the door providing access to and pursuit of professional activities in the same manner as if you had an equivelent qualification from the host member state. However all if this is caveated by both Article 48 below and the preamble that clearly permits member states to regulate their own regimes as they see fit.

No.
The formal qualifications listed in the Annex noted above entitle holders to provide architectural services and practice as an Architect.
Section 48 appears to be written to allow people WITHOUT QUALIFICATIONS but who are “especially distinguished by the quality of their work in the field of architecture” to be recognised as architects throughout the EU providing their home member state issues them with a certificate.

In other words, these guys don’t necessarily have any paper qualifications, just experience and talent as proven by their buildings.
All this bullshit about Part III’s falls by the wayside – you see the proof of any architect’s competence in their built work.

That’s the thing with architecture that paper-pusher’s just don’t get PVC King – building sites are the last wild frontier.
Creating something out of all that chaos is an experience that drawings on paper or exams cannot encompass.

That’s why the work of people without formal qualifications litter our great cities like jewels.
You’ve heard of Le Corbusier, haven’t you – In this day and age he’d be unemployable.

Read before you post (2)

Do you now understand the difference between qualified and professional?

Do you now understand how irrelevant this is to anyone with talent?
Do you understand its about bureaucrats and control freaks?
Talent, properly applied, achieves miracles of design.
See- this Directive doesn’t refer to Part III’s at all.
How shocking is that PVC King?

ONQ.

@onq wrote:

“Such updates must not entail, for any Member State, any
amendment of existing legislative principles relating to the
structure of professions as regards training and the conditions
of access by natural persons.”

This paves the way for required CPD but forbids Member States from restricting persons with the required qualification from practising as an Architect. .

If you are qualified on graduation what relevance has CPD? Clearly the intention was to seperate course content and regulation; which you claim to be exempt from.

@onq wrote:

Introductory paragraph 34 confirms this:

“(34) Administering the various systems of recognition set up
by the sectoral directives and the general system has
proved cumbersome and complex. There is therefore a
need to simplify the administration and updating of this
Directive to take account of scientific and technical
progress, in particular where the minimum conditions of
training are coordinated with a view to automatic recognition
of qualifications. A single committee for the
recognition of professional qualifications should be set
up for this purpose, and suitable involvement of representatives
of the professional organisations, also at European
level, should be ensured.”

Read before you post (1).

That link does not mention the word architect in it; it does mention the common fisheries and agricultural policies. In any event it is a 1999 document so would be superceded by the 2005 directive. You have been on a fishing trip from the off on this; all of these directives relate to the free movement of labour across borders.

@onq wrote:

No.
The formal qualifications listed in the Annex noted above entitle holders to provide architectural services and practice as an Architect.
Section 48 appears to be written to allow people WITHOUT QUALIFICATIONS but who are “especially distinguished by the quality of their work in the field of architecture” to be recognised as architects throughout the EU providing their home member state issues them with a certificate. .

No those without educational qualification are dealt with under Article 47 which is titled
Derogations from the conditions for the training of architects

@onq wrote:

This Directive doesn’t refer to Part III’s at all.
How shocking is that PVC King?
ONQ.

They don’t have to

The general system for recognition, however, does not prevent a Member State from making any person pursuing a profession on its territory subject to specific requirements due to the application of professional rules justified by the general public interest. Rules of this kind relate, for example, to organisation of the profession, professional standards, including those concerning ethics, and supervision and liability. Lastly, this Directive is not intended to interfere with Member States’ legitimate interest in preventing any of their citizens from evading enforcement of the national law relating to professions.

What Article 49 actually does is make your position worse; read the clause again

1. Each Member State shall accept evidence of formal qualifications as an architect listed in Annex VI, point 6, awarded by the other Member States, and attesting a course of training which began no later than the reference academic year referred to in that Annex, even if they do not satisfy the minimum requirements laid down in Article 46, and shall, for the purposes of access to and pursuit of the professional activities of an architect, give such evidence the same effect on its territory as evidence of formal qualifications as an architect which it itself issues.

If you travel the rights in your own juristion can be applied in all other member states; what it does not do is grant rights in the country of qualification that do not otherwise exist. If the Irish system requires registration someone from abroad with a qualifying degree still needs to register; if an Irish architect travels to another member state they are bound by the same rules as the local practitioners.

@PVC King wrote:

The problem is that the person that qualified 15 years ago took time out of their lives to get qualified. I sense however that if you have 15 years of experience that you’d not have a problem getting qualified once the route was open through the proper channels. The biggest challenge to the industry has always come from non-architects i.e. engineers, cad-designers etc undercutting costs to get work; te RIAI should ensure that those that have a set number of years of experience and are prepared to go through the qualification process are allowed to and be assessed on the same basis as those that entered the industry by the graduate route.

You are skipping the point PVC,

I have spent 8 years in university and I have to pass an exam because my qualification is not listed in the EU directive. Then please do not bring on these poor RIAI who had the opportunity and the privilege to study.

I want the RIAI members of my age to pass the same exam than me because I believe that most of them would not be successful to it. The exam as explained in the ARAE prospectus is set up for academical knowledge and not to assess skills required as to work in a practice.

I understand that the technical assessment (for those who have 10 years experience in the ROI) do not consider applicants with experience in residential projects only. I know many RIAI who do not do anything else than residential, why is it forbidden to self-trained architects to do the same?

This is only the tip of the iceberg… WE WANT A FAIR PROCEDURE…

@PVC King wrote:

Its the desire to play by the rules that is most important in my opinion; the public need to have a profession working to a consistent set of rules.

??? The public needs quality and value that is all… It is you requesting the rules, specialy the rules that suit your interests…

Rules that see foreign architects practicing in the country without any knowledge of the Irish legislation… Rules that see people in my situation robbed of their profession.

@PVC King wrote:

The benefits of the larger membership organisations include arranging PI cover in block policies for groups of sole practitioners; an ombudsman scheme etc. The way that the legal profession remove bad solicitors has always ensured that the profession has held the trust of the people in as far as people will ever trust lawyers anywhere!!

I agree with the above… But I disagree when you think that I should pay E13,300 (non refundable) to be the subject of an exam that even an MRAI of my age could fail… In the US self-taught and qualified architects all pass the same exam…

@parka wrote:

CK you are starting to sound like a broken record, since I qualified 20 years ago I have furthered my knowledge by undertaking two Masters and two post grads, don’t think I would be capable of passing the exam?

As for the cost of you becoming an Architect, one of my masters cost nearly 20,000

Hi Parka,

I repeat things over and over because I want them to change… Because there are hundreds of people in my situation who are asking for change.

I have 2 children and a mortgage to pay.

My wife is helping in my practice. I have only one casual employee when I used to have 2 part times and 1 full time.

I do not know how you financed your studies, but personally I think about my children, and so far we do not have any savings to finance their studies… The eldest will hopefully reach university in the next 8 years and the youngest in the next 12 years.

The fact is that the ARAE or the Technical assessment are not studies. In the US the cost is $1,200 instead of E13, 300 in Ireland… I think that the comparison is more appropriate than the one you made.

The first stage of the Technical Assessment cost around E2,500 instead of E50 charged for the same assessment by the Institute of Engineers from Ireland.

I know that I have already said that… But you were probably not listening…