English language version
Monday 28th
February 2005
INTRODUCTION
ACE POLICY
ISSUES
NEWS FROM THE
ACE NETWORK
OTHER MATTERS
PUBLICATIONS
EVENTS
COMPETITIONS
USEFUL LINKS
EDITOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Welcome to the second
issue in 2005 of ACE Info, the monthly update from the Architects'
Council of Europe that will give you, at a glance, information on current
issues, highlighting emerging areas of activity and informing you of matters of
interest in the field of architectural policy.
This issue
is also available in French.
COMMISSION CANCELS
ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING
The Commission has
unilaterally cancelled the announced meeting of the Advisory Committee on
Education and Training in Architecture that was scheduled for the 4th
March 2005. The Committee, which was set up under the provisions of the
Architects Directive (85/384EC), was due to consider the recommendation of its
Working Party on Diplomas, which has issued a negative opinion in relation to
an Austrian qualification that the Austrian Government had notified to the
Commission in July 2004. This is a serious development as the
qualification in question is a Masters of two-years duration that has been
devised in the context of the ‘Bologna” reforms to third-level education.
The ACE is considering the matter carefully and is consulting its Members on
the issue.
SERVICES IN THE INTERNAL
MARKET
The proposal of the
Commission to introduce a framework directive on Services in the Internal
Market has recently hit the headlines in Europe’s mass media as a result of the
opposition to the proposal expressed by, among others, the French Prime
Minister, Jacques Chirac, and the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder. In
response the Commission has admitted that there was not enough reflection on
the proposal prior to its release and President Barroso has said that the
Commission is open to finding the “right approach”, although it is not willing
to re-write or withdraw the current proposal. Similar indications were
given to the Member States in the context of the Expert Group on
Competitiveness and Growth>
Work in the European
Parliament is proceeding with an expectation that the rapporteurs report will
be available during the month of March. The PES Group recently devoted a
week to the subject of the proposal to which it invited representatives of its
political family from national parliaments to Brussels to debate the
issue. Its objective was to define a “social democrat” response to the
challenges raised by the directive. It became clear that there is a split
within the group on the issues raised – a clear indication of the gravity and
complexity of the issues that the directive addresses.
Others have commented
favourably on the furore, stating that it is the first time that an EU
legislative proposal has been so widely debated and therefore praising its
effect as a true demonstration of European democracy at work.
The European Economic
and Social Committee (EESC) adopted its opinion on the proposal at its plenary
session of the 11th January 2005. In the opinion the EESC sets
down a critical appraisal of the proposed directive and it highlights, in
particular, that the introduction of the Country of Origin principle is
pre-mature and will remain so until there is further significant harmonisation
of legislation and systems across the EU. The text of the opinion, which
lists a number of actions that should be undertaken, can be downloaded from:
ACCORD ON CO-OPERATION
AND PROFESSIONALISM IN ARCHITECTURE
The ACE, representing
the profession of architecture in the Member States of the EU has signed an
Accord on co-operation and professionalism in architecture with the Committee
of Canadian Architectural Councils (CCAC) and the Royal Architectural Institute
of Canada (RAIC). The CCAC represents the provincial/territorial
registration/licensing authorities in Canada and the RAIC represents the
profession of architecture in Canada. The purpose of the Accord is to set
down the intention of the three organisations to develop a Mutual Recognition
Agreement(MRA) containing criteria, procedures and measures for the mutual
recognition of diplomas, certificates and practice experience that will result
in the enrichment of the architectural profession internationally through the
full portability of qualifications within both political and economic
entities. It is expected that the MRA will be concluded within one year.
FP6 BROKERAGE AND
PARTNERING EVENT FOR THE CONSTRUCTION SECTOR
On the 17th
January 2005, the European Council for Construction Research, Development and
Innovation (ECCREDI), held a brokerage for the construction sector on the 6th
Framework Programme of the Commission for Research. The ACE was represented
at the event by Jean-Marie Fauconnier, architect, Belgum. He reports that
the event provided a valuable opportunity for exchange and presentation of many
project proposals and that it was particularly valuable for Small and
Medium-sized Enterprises to be informed of opportunities to be involved in
Research. Of particular note was a high attendance of companies from the
EU-10 and Turkey. Several presentations were made at the event, including
one on the European Construction Technology Platform and one on the E-CORE
Strategy. The ACE has been closely involved in the development of both of
these initiatives.
ACE-UMAR COLLABORATION
The Architects’ Council
of Europe (ACE) and the Mediterranean Union of Architects (UMAR) have agreed to
engage in exploratory talks on possible collaboration on matters of mutual
interest. This follows the address of the UMAR President, Patrick Genet,
to the ACE General Assembly in Milan in May 2004. A working group of the
UMAR will be established with an observer member from the ACE to explore the
issue in more depth before deciding on what form of collaboration is possible
given that the two organisations has several Members in common.
UNSFA – 36TH
CONGRESS
The Union des Syndicates
Francais des Architectes has announced that it will hold its 36th
Congress on the 6th, 7th and 8th October 2005
at the “Cirque D’Hiver” in La Villette, Paris. The theme of the Congress
will be Social Cohesion and Architecture
NEW PREMISES FOR THE
IRISH ARCHITECTURAL ARCHIVE
A new building to house
the Irish Architectural Archive has been inaugurated in Dublin. It is
located at 45 Merrion Square and is the largest of the Georgian houses on the
Square. One of the other houses, number 8, is home to the Royal Institute
of the Architects of Ireland – a Member of the ACE. The collections
housed by the Archive comprise the largest body of historic architectural
records in Ireland and as such constitute a vital national cultural
resource. They include the most significant body of historic Irish
architectural drawings in the world, with in excess of 250,000 drawings ranging
in date from the late seventeenth to the late twentieth centuries. Also
housed in the Archive are over 400,000 photographs, making this one of the largest
collections of photographs in Ireland, and an extensive reference library, with
more than 15,000 items of printed matter. Further information can be
found at:
http://www.iarc.ie/45merrion/index.html
THE ARB LAUNCHES AN
ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER
The Architects
Registration Board (ARB) of the UK has launched an electronic newsletter.
It will be published on a regular basis and it aims to provide registrants with
factual reports of the Boards meetings and other information of relevance to
architects and users of their work and services. The first issue appeared
in February 2005 and it can be read at:
SOLAR THERMAL COLLECTORS
– PORTUGAL
On the 27th
January 2005, the Portuguese government approved new building regulations
whereby new buildings and those undergoing renovation will have to fit solar
thermal collectors. The rules are designed to boost an earlier solar hot
water initiative that has not achieved its targets. The new regulations
will apply to buildings above 1,000m2 and will permit the
substitution of solar thermal by other renewable energies of equal
capacity. The Spanish government has also announced a similar drive in
November 2004. Further information from the Portuguese solar industry
association at:
INTER-MINISTERIAL
MISSION ON THE QUALITY OF PUBLIC WORKS
This is an initiative of
the French government that tracks developments across the EU in relation to
public procurement of buildings. It has a good website (in French only)
on which it gathers information from across the EU. Notably it has
information on Public Procurement, Architectural Competitions and Public
Private Partnerships. It can be consulted at:
COMMISSION PREPARES AIR
POLLUTION ACTION PLAN
The European Commission
will present, before mid-2005, a new action plan to reduce air pollution.
It conducted an internet consultation inviting stakeholder input to its future
policy measures that ended in January 2005. It is estimated that about
310,000 people from the EU die pre-maturely because of air pollution and sick
leave attributable to air pollution is estimated to cost 20 billion euro per
year. For more information see:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/air/cafe/index.htm
LISBON STRATEGY:
COMMISSION COMMUNICATION AT SPRING EUROPEAN COUNCIL
On the 3rd
February 2005, the European Commission approved the communication from
President Barroso, in agreement with Vice-president Verheugen, addressed to the
Spring European Council of the 22nd and 23rd March, which
will take stock of the mid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy. The
communication can be accessed at:
http://europa.eu.int/prelex/detail_dossier_real.cfm?CL=en&DosId=192503
PUBLIC PROCUREMENT –
AUTHORITIES CAN PROMOTE GREEN LOCAL PRODUCTS
European public
authorities can legally promote regional products with environmental benefits
according to a study carried out for the German environment agency. The
results of the study were discussed at a workshop in November 2004 with
officials from the European Commission. The press release on the report
can be accessed at:
http://www.umweltbundesamt.de/uba-info-presse-e/2004/pe04-106.htm
EUROPE’S CAPITALS OF
CULTURE ANNOUNCED
The European
Parliament’s Culture Committee has approved, without amendment, the Council’s
common position listing the countries that will be asked to put forward a
candidate for the period 2005 to 2019. The ten new Member states are
included as from 2009 and the Council has agreed to guarantee sufficient
Community funding for two capitals per year from that date. Here is the
new list of countries designated for 2005-2019. In 2007 and 2008, two
cities currently outside the EU will take part under an option that allows
towns not in the EU to be involved:
2005 Ireland (Cork) www.cork2005.ie/home/default.asp
2006 Greece (Patras)
2007 Luxembourg
(Luxembourg City) and Romania (Sibiu)
2008 United Kingdom
(Liverpool) and Norway (Stavanger)
From 2009, two countries
per year:
2009 Austria – Lithuania
2010 Germany – Hungary
2011 Finland – Estonia
2012 Portugal – Slovenia
2013 France – Slovakia
2014 Sweden – Lithuania
2015 Belgium – Czech
Republic
2016 Spain – Poland
2017 Denmark – Cyprus
2018 The Netherlands –
Malta
2019 Italy
KYOTO PROTOCOL ENTERS INTO
FORCE
On the 16th
February, the Kyoto Protocol on climate change entered into force. It has
been signed by 140 countries and has been hailed as the first real step in
fight against global warming. There was a wide welcome for the event with
much satisfaction being expressed about the leading role that the EU is playing
in the process. This is in sharp contrast to the approach of the US and
the entry into force of the Protocol was used by many to urge the US to join
the protocol and so assist in the preparations for the post-1012 period of the
fight. Further information is available at:
http://unfccc.int/essential_background/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php
ARCHIBALD – THE COMIC
STRIP ARCHITECT
With the goal of
promoting architecture and enhancing discussion about it, a young Belgian
architect has turned away from practice to become a full-time cartoonist.
Mike Hermans has a daily architectural cartoon strip that appears in several
countries and is also available to view on the following website:
PRESCOTT SETS OUT
EUROPEAN SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES VISION
On the 1st
February 2005, the Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, John Prescott, launched a
drive to develop a European approach to creating sustainable communities.
In his keynote address to the “Delivering Sustainable Communities Summit” in
Manchester he said that he wants to use the UK Presidency of the European Union
to set up a new, Europe-wide framework for creating places where people want to
live. At the heart of Mr. Prescott’s initiative will be the UK’s new
Academy for Sustainable Communities, which was launched at the conference and will
be based in Leeds, England. Further information can be found at:
HOUSING MINISTERS
MEETING – PRAGUE
An informal meeting of
the EU Ministers for Housing is due to take place in Prague on the 14th
and 15th March 2005. The theme of the meeting will be the
challenge of high-rise residential buildings in Eastern Europe. This is
an acknowledgment of the poor state of maintenance of these buildings and of
the needs that arise in order to deal with this fact. In the context of
the meeting, the Czech Member of CECODHAS, the European Liaison Committee for
Social Housing, will host a seminar in Prague on the 14th March on
“The Future of Housing Co-operatives in Europe”. Further information can
be found at:
http://www.cecodhas.org/rightclick.cfm?id=1547
RICS EUROPEAN HOUSING
REVIEW
The RICS has published
its 2004 review of the state of the housing market in Europe. As the
survey information was gathered prior to the Enlargement in 2004 the review
only cover the EU-15. It can be downloaded in pdf format at the following
address:
DAUGE REPORT ON THE
ARCHITECTURAL PROFESSION
The French Senate has
published a report on the architectural profession in France. It surveys
the current situation for the profession in France, addresses the question of
the need to promote quality in architecture and it makes 30 propositions for
architecture and the living environment. The full text can be downloaded
at:
http://www.senat.fr/rap/r04-064/r04-064.html
EU ENERGY AND TRANSPORT
IN FIGURES – 2004
This statistical
pocketbook has been published by the Directorate General foe Energy and
Transport. It provides an overview of energy and transport statistics for
the EU-15 and, where available, for countries from the EU-10 would joined the
EU in May 2004. The tables of the book and soe additional information can
be found at:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy_transport/figures/pocketbook/index_en.htm
VILLAGE REGENERATION IN
AUSTRIA
A book on the
regeneration of Austrian villages, with a particular emphasis on recent
interventions by architects in the historical centres of the villages has been
published by the land of Tirol. Further information and orders for copies
can be sought by e-amil to:
LE CORBUSIER PLANS
All of the plans of Le
Corbusier are being published as a series of DVD’s. The final set
collection will consist of 16 DVD’s and will contain all 35,000 drawings by Le
Corbusier that are held by the Le Corbusier Foundation in Paris. The cost
of the full set is 5,800 euro excluding VAT, although there is a reduction of
800 euro on orders placed before the 31st March 2005. Further
details can be found from:
SYMPOSIUM: ENABLING
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN REGENERATION
Comtechsa, a
not-for-profit consultancy organisation, is organising this symposium in the
week of the 18th April 2005. The week will feature a two-day
conference followed by a two-day study tour of completed projects. The
objective of the symposium is to share experience in working with communities
and voluntary groups in the regeneration of their neighbourhoods. Further
details can be found at:
WTO SEMINAR ON
CROSS-BORDER SERVICES
The World Trade
Organisation (WTO) has announced that it intends to hold a seminar on
cross-border trade in services (Mode 1) on the 28th and 29th
April 2005. The full calendar of event can be consulted at the website of
the WTO at:
CONFERENCE 10 DBMC:
DURABILITY OF BUILDING MATERIALS AND COMPONENTS
The triennial DBMC
Conference is to be held in Lyon, France from the 17th to the 20th
April 2005. It is being organised by the CSTB and it will address the
issues of durability in the context of the drive towards truly sustainable
construction. There will be a “practical day” dedicated to the field
experience of innovative tools and approaches related to durability and service
life within the building process. Further information at:
SFT ARCHITECTURE
CONFERENCE
Systems, Facades, Trends
– a conference to be held on the 16th, 17th and 18th
March 2005 in Munster, Germany on the topic of innovation in façade
design. Full details at:
http://www.sft-congress.de/eng/start.html
BEAUTY AND WASTE IN THE
ARCHITECTURE OF HERZOG &DE MEURON
Running from the 22nd
January to the 8th may 2005, this exhibition explores the unusual use
of materials of this important architectural practice. It is running at
the Nederlands Architectuurinstituut in Rotterdam. For further
information see:
EUROPEAN COMMISSION HOMEPAGE
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm
SEARCH PAGE FOR
COMMISSION DOCUMENTS
http://www.europa.eu.int/prelex/rech_simple.cfm?CL=en
THE BARROSO COMMISSION:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/commission_barroso/index_en.htm
WEBSITE OF THE
LUXEMBOURG PRESIDENCY
http://www.eu2005.lu/en
(Then choose your preferred language)
SUSTAINABLE BUILDING
WEBSITE
COAC INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS DATABASE:
http://www.coac.net/internacional/default_w.html
CNAPPC DATABASE –
ARCHIEUROPE:
http://www.archieuro.archiworld.it
WEBSITE OF THE EUROPEAN
CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM:
EU IMPACT ASSESSMENT IN
PRACTICE
Consult a list of impact
assessments that the EU has carried out on various legislative packages at:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/secretariat_general/impact/index_en.htm
ACE WEBSITE
USEFUL TIP:
In the website addresses
given in ACE Info for the documents of the EU, you will frequently see
the following near the end of the address: “_en”. These two letters
define the language of the document (English in the case of “en”) and you can
usually change these two letters in order to bring you to a different language
version as follows:
French
_fr
German
_de
Danish _da
Swedish _sv
Italian _it
Spanish _es
Greek
_el Dutch _nl
Portuguese
_pt Finnish
_fi
Czech
_cs Maltese
_mt
Estonian _et
Latvian
_lv
Lithuanian
_lt Polish
_pl
Hungarian
_hu
Slovene
_sl
Slovak _sk
The editorial board for
the compilation of ACE Info is:
The ACE
President:
Marie-Helene
Lucas
The Secretary General of
the ACE:
Alain Sagne
Senior Advisor to the
ACE:
Adrian Joyce
ACE Info is normally issued
around the second Wednesday of each month. You are free to circulate the
document as widely as you wish, to translate its contents for use in your
publications and to refer to the information it contains once you credit the
ACE as the origin.
If you wish to receive ACE
Info regularly and you are not on the mailing list, you can register online
at: http://www.ace-cae.org/Public/fsPublicNetwork_EN.html
If you have information
that you wish to have included in the next issue then e-mail it (in English or
French please) to adrian.joyce@ace-cae.org
Deadline for submissions is the first Friday of each month.
The editorial board
wishes to acknowledge the sources of information for this issue of ACE Info
which include Jean-Marie Fauconnier, CEPMC, the Euractiv website (www.euractiv.com) and
Bulletin Quotidien Europe.
adrian.joyce@ace-cae.org
– Comments and contributions welcome