Your 2015/2016 AIBC Council

Front row (left to right): S. Ross Rettie, P.Eng., Mona Jahedi Architect AIBC, Darryl J. Condon Architect AIBC (President), Catherine Nickerson Architect AIBC, Steven Simons
Back row (left to right): Gordon C. Richards Architect AIBC, Chris Macdonald FRAIC, Joan Hendriks Architect AIBC (Registrar), David Yustin Architect AIBC, Scott Kemp Architect AIBC (Immediate Past President), Sean Ruthen Architect AIBC, John Etcher Architect AIBC
Absent: Danica Djurkovic Architect AIBC (Vice President), David Dove Architect AIBC, Karl W. Gustavson Architect AIBC (Treasurer), David Toole, Dr. Mark Zacharias

We are pleased to announce the 2015/2016 AIBC Council. At the annual meeting held in Vancouver on May 2, five candidates (four returning and one former councilor) were elected by acclamation.

Following the adjournment of the annual meeting, council elected its slate of officers, appointed the registrar and invited guests to council for the 2015/2016 council year.

AIBC Officers
President: Darryl J. Condon Architect AIBC
Vice President: Danica Djurkovic Architect AIBC
Treasurer: Karl W. Gustavson Architect AIBC
Registrar: Joan Hendriks Architect AIBC

Newly Acclaimed AIBC Councilors:
Darryl J. Condon Architect AIBC (President)
Mona Jahedi Architect AIBC
Catherine Nickerson Architect AIBC
Sean Ruthen Architect AIBC
David Yustin Architect AIBC

AIBC Councilors completing their second year:
Danica Djurkovic Architect AIBC (Vice President)
David Dove Architect AIBC
John Etcher Architect AIBC
Karl W. Gustavson Architect AIBC (Treasurer)
Gordon C. Richards Architect AIBC

Returning Lieutenant Governor Appointees to AIBC Council:
S. Ross Rettie, P.Eng.
Steven Simons
David Toole
Dr. Mark Zacharias

Returning UBC SALA representative to AIBC Council:
Chris Macdonald FRAIC

Guests to AIBC Council (non-voting):
Immediate Past President: Scott Kemp Architect AIBC
Intern Architect AIBC*: name to follow
Architectural Technologist Liaison: Michael Currie Architectural Technologist AIBC
IDIBC Liaison: name to follow

*Please note that this year’s sole intern architect candidate withdrew their nomination prior to the annual meeting. A recommendation from staff will be put forward to council.

The 15-member AIBC Council is comprised of 10 architects (Architects AIBC) who are elected by their peers for two-year terms (five positions in each election year); four Lieutenant Governor Appointees who are non-architect public representatives appointed by the provincial government; and one representative of The University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

Under the Architects Act, one of the first duties of the new AIBC Council is the election of the officers and the appointment of the registrar. A non-voting officer on council, the registrar position must be held by an Architect AIBC. Over the recent past, the position was filled by a councilor although historically it was held by a member of the AIBC staff. This year Joan Hendriks Architect AIBC, who is also the institute’s Director of Registration and Licensing, is appointed as registrar.

The AIBC Council also extends an invitation to guests to sit in a non-voting capacity. The guest positions are: immediate Past-President, Intern Architect Liaison, Architectural Technologist Liaison and Interior Designers Institute of British Columbia (IDIBC) Liaison.

We welcome and look forward to working with the new 2015/2016 AIBC Council.

For a full listing of AIBC Council members as well as invited representatives, visit the AIBC web site.

Nepal earthquake destroys Kathmandu valley’s architectural treasures

By Mark Brown
The Guardian, Apr 27, 2015

Many of Kathmandu valley’s most historically important buildings have been destroyed in the earthquake that struck on Saturday, April 25, 2015, killing more than 4,000 people. But heritage experts say glimmers of hope remain.

The Dharahara, a 60-metre white minaret tower built in in 1832 has been destroyed, while the Kasthamandap, a three-storey wooden temple in Durbar Square, has also been reduced to piles of wood and rubble.

(Image: Volunteers remove debris at the historic Dharahara tower. Photograph: AP)

“It is not as famous as the tower, but historically it is perhaps the most significant building in Kathmandu that has gone,” Prof Michael Hutt, director of the South Asia Institute at Soas and author of a book on the art and architecture of Kathmandu valley, said of the Kasthamandap, which gives the city its name. Read more…

Bold buildings are sprouting in areas that have remained barren since World War II

By Dalia Fahmy
Bloomberg, Apr 30, 2015

On a dusty parking lot in central Berlin, where U.S. bombs leveled homes and offices in 1945, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas is planning a beehive-like digital media center for publisher Axel Springer. A 15-minute bike ride away, on the former site of an iron foundry, architect Daniel Libeskind is completing a titanium-wrapped apartment building crowned with a soaring penthouse. Across the Humboldthafen canal, a new neighborhood with a tree-lined boulevard flanked by shops, homes, and offices is rising where rail-switching yards stood before they were wiped out during World War II.

(Image: A rendering of Axel Springer’s digital center. Source: Courtesy Axel Springer/Oma)

Seventy years after the end of the war, Berlin is finally filling the last gaps left by Allied bombs, which destroyed more than two-thirds of the buildings in the city center. Architects say the construction boom offers Berlin a chance to make up for decades of bad planning and mediocre architecture. “This is a new time in Berlin,” says Libeskind, the Polish American architect who designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin and drew up the master plan for the new World Trade Center site in Manhattan. “It’s one of the great cities of the world, and we expect it to compete. We don’t expect it to be some backwater.” Read more…