UBC Architecture Co-op Program

The UBC Architecture Co-operative Education Program integrates a student’s academic studies with work experience. Students engage in an eight-month long (two continuous school sessions) work-term in a professional architectural firm or an office in related fields of design or construction. The program is offered to students who have completed their second year courses.

Architecture firms are encouraged to consider offering such a work opportunity to get to know a mature, motivated individual (and potential future architect) while making a valuable contribution to the profession. It is expected that the students will be engaged at a salary commensurate with their skill level.

For further information contact:
Co-op Coordinator: Greg Johnson gjohnson@sala.ubc.ca

Bylaw Review: Information Sessions

In November 2014, AIBC Council supported the Bylaw Review Committee’s recommendations to advance three “administrative” bylaws for electronic member vote in the spring of 2015. Read the three proposed bylaw amendments along with supporting rationales posted on the AIBC web site.

AIBC Council invites your participation at information sessions, which will address the proposed bylaw amendments. For your convenience, two sessions will be offered; both sessions will cover the same content. The sessions will open with a presentation, followed by a question and answer period. The first session will take place at the AIBC offices and the second session is offered online as a webinar.

Please RSVP your attendance for either of these sessions:

Bylaw Review Information Session:
Date: Thursday, February 12, 2015
Time: 5:00 – 6:30 pm
Location: Architectural Institute of BC
RSVP: http://bylawreviewinformationsession.splashthat.com/

Bylaw Review Information Session (Webinar):
Date: Thursday, February 19, 2015
Time: 7:00 – 8:00 pm
Location: Online
RSVP: http://bylawreviewinformationsessionw.splashthat.com/

The webinar will be available to a maximum of 25 participants on a first come, first serve basis.

For more information about the bylaw amendments, please visit the AIBC website. Members are encouraged to provide feedback and comments on bylaw amendments at any time, or ask questions, by contacting the Bylaw Review Committee at bylawfeedback@aibc.ca.

AIBC Vancouver Island Chapter

RDH Building Engineering Ltd.: Building Enclosures for the Future – Building Tomorrow’s Buildings Today

This educational session will cover the latest in building enclosure technology and design for more energy efficient and durable buildings within a Vancouver Island context. Presenter Graeme Finch Architect AIBC, RDH Building Engineering, will review the key building and energy code changes in BC made in December, 2014 that affect building enclosure designs, followed by guidance on how to construct more highly insulated wall and roof assemblies with minimal thermal bridging. Several case studies will illustrate how these emerging technologies have been utilized in new and existing buildings. Finally, cutting edge building science research and field monitoring information will be presented, demonstrating how insulation materials perform under different climatic conditions and how this affects insulation strategies for roofs and walls.

Date: March 5, 2015, 12:00pm-2:00pm
Location: Harbour Towers Hotel, 345 Quebec St, Victoria, BC
Cost: No cost to attend.
Learning Units (LUs): 1.5 Core LUs
To register: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/roxul-presentation-building-enclosures-for-the-future-building-tomorrows-buildingstoday-a-tickets-15587237848

Illuminating Engineering Society, Vancouver Section

Light Pollution: New Directions In Outdoor Lighting

The Illuminating Engineering Society of BC (IESBC) presents: “Light Pollution: new directions in outdoor lighting” by Ian Ashdown, a consultant with nearly 40 years of experience in lighting design. The lecture will review the International Dark Sky Association and LEED V4 light pollution requirements and identify how intelligent roadway lighting and innovative lighting design can increase visibility and reduce urban light pollution while saving energy.

Date: Thursday, February 12, 2015
Location: The Arbutus Club, 2001 Nanton Avenue, Vancouver, BC
Cost: $60 for AIBC, IESBC, BCSLA, APEGBC members; $70 for non-members
Learning Units (LUs): 1 Core LU
To register: http://www.iesbc.org/Calendar/Light%20Pollution:%20New%20Directions%20in%20Outdoor%20Lighting

Role Call: City of Maple Ridge Advisory Design Panel

The AIBC invites applications from architects interested in serving on the following design panel:

• City of Maple Ridge

The role of an advisory design panel member is to give impartial, professional advice directly on any proposal or policy affecting the community’s physical environment in the public interest.

To learn more about the procedures for serving on a panel, please refer to the following documents:

• AIBC Bulletin 65: Advisory Design Panels – Standards for Procedures and Conduct
• ADP Frequently Asked Questions

Please fill out an interactive application form and forward your submissions to the attention of Professional Services Coordinator Alexandra Kokol by email (akokol@aibc.ca).

Defining a More Purposeful Architecture: A Guide to Current Architectural Trends

Jan 9, 2015
By  Michael Wacht, ArchDaily

The current state of architectural design incorporates many contemporary ideas of what defines unique geometry. With the advent of strong computer software at the early 21st century, an expected level of experimentation has overtaken our profession and our academic realms to explore purposeful architecture through various techniques, delivering meaningful buildings that each exhibit a message of cultural relevancy.

These new movements are not distinct stylistic trends, but modes of approaching concept design. They often combine with each other, or with stylistic movements, to create complete designs. Outlined within this essay are five movements, each with varying degrees of success creating purposeful buildings: Diagramism, Neo-Brutalism, Revitism, Scriptism, and Subdivisionism.

It is understood that there are many other concurrent architectural movements not mentioned here, most of those attributable as stylistic in nature. Such movements contain either a decorative, minimalist, or sculptural approach to design, where design is applied manually through aesthetic decisions. Such styles do not have as their identifying focus to create an architecture that is more responsive or adaptive to the users, site, context, environment, etc. Read more…

6 Modern Pyramids that Show Timeless Geometry is Here to Stay

By  James Hinton
Jan 17, 2015, ArchDaily

If you were a Greek tourist in the 1st century BCE you would likely have had something in your hand that would be quite familiar here in the 21st century. A guide book. The most popular guide book of the Hellenic world listed seven wonders of the world that should be visited by any Greek traveler.

Of those seven wonders, six no longer exist. The Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus were lost to natural causes, the Temple of Artemis and Statue of Zues destroyed by human hands, and no one knows what happened to the Hanging Gardens. The remaining wonder is the Great Pyramid of Giza. This colossal Egyptian structure is so grand a work that even today, 4,500 years after its construction, it is still considered by some to be the most impressive civil engineering project in history, beating out feats like the Panama Canal, the Hoover Dam, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

The pyramid isn’t just an ancient wonder. Read more…

Architect Using 3D Tech To Preserve, Rebuild Historic Tulsa

By Emory Bryan,
Jan 19, 2015, News On 6

TULSA, Oklahoma – A downtown Tulsa architect, intent on saving what’s here, is using a new tool on the city’s oldest buildings. It’s helping a preservationist decide what can be preserved.

Chris Lilly is an architect who never really gets to start from scratch – and that’s the way he likes it. He works in places like old warehouses that are sturdy enough for preservation and renovation, where no blueprints exist.

That’s where a machine comes in – a 3-D scanner that Lilly believes is uniquely able to determine what’s there.

“If you come out with a tape measure and a piece of paper, you’re only going to capture a small segment of what actually exists on a jobsite,” said Chris Lilly, Lilly Architects.

In eight minutes – the scanner can measure everything in a room – millions of times. With cones as reference points – the scans of different rooms are digitally connected to measure buildings inside and out. Read more…