Last Update: 04/08/2005
English version
INTRODUCTION
ACE MATTERS
CORE ISSUES
OTHER MATTERS
PUBLICATIONS
EVENTS
COMPETITIONS
USEFUL LINKS
EDITOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Welcome to the sixth
issue in 2005 of ACE Info, covering the months of July and August, the
regular 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.
Henning Thomsen Takes up
Post as Director of the AA (Denmark)
Henning Thomsen, an
active member of the ACE Work Group on Urban Issues, takes up the post of
Director in the ACE Member Organisation, Akademisk Arkitektforening
(AA-Denmark) on the 15th August 2005. He succeeds Bente
Beedholm, who has been very active within the ACE and its working structures
for many years and who shall remain involved in several activities, in
particular as a member of the Joint Working Party with the European Association
for Architectural Education (EAAE).
Trieste Declaration 2005
The Italian ACE Member
Organisation, CNAPPC, organised a third international conference in Trieste on
the topic of “Voyage Through Europe: Architectural experiences, visions and
realities” in May 2005. It attracted a diverse audience from across the
EU and beyond who were led in the debates by three leading architects: Richard Rogers
(UK), Carlos Ferrater (Spain) and Hrvoje Njiric (Croatia) who shared their
experiences in their respective countries. Presentation included one by
the Past President of the ACE, Leopoldo Freyrie and by the Secretary General of
the ACE, Alain Sagne At the end of the conference a declaration was
signed by many of the participants representing various organisations in which
they concluded that the planned review of the structure of the International
Union of Architects (UIA) should follow a similar approach to that followed by
the ACE in its recent re-structuring and that they shared a common commitment
to five main elements that are crucial to achieving overall quality in the
practice of architecture. These five elements are: education and training,
professional practice, sustainability, cultural identity and solidarity.
Copies of the declaration can be requested through the ACE Secretariat at info@acec-cae.org
ACE Events and Meetings
in August, September and October 2005
Work Group on
Procurement of Architectural Services – 25th and 26th
August, Helsinki
Special Working Group on
Services in the Internal Market – 2nd September 2005, Brussels
Work Group Urban Issues
– 10th September, Poznan
Work Group on Education
– 12th September, Brussels
Work Group on the
Environment and Sustainable Architecture – 17th September, Lisbon
Work Group Research
(first meeting) – 22nd September, Brussels
Permanent Committee –
Professional Practice – 23rd September, Brussels
Permanent Committee –
Communication and Education – 24th September, Brussels
Work Group Health and
Safety – 5th October, Brussels
Meeting of Chief
Executive Officers of Member Organisations – 6th October, Brussels
Finance Committee
Meeting – 7th October, Brussels
Executive Board Meeting
– 7th and 8th October, Brussels
Third Meeting of the
Joint Working Party of the ACE and the EAAE – 28th October, Brussels
New President of the
Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)
Jack Pringle, who has
been involved in ACE activities before, has succeeded George Ferguson as the
President of the RIBA for a period of one year.
Progress in USA-EU
Profession to Profession Agreement for Mutual Recognition
Delegations of the
National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB), the American
Institute of Architects (AIA) and of the ACE met in Istanbul at the beginning
July to advance the ongoing negotiations for a Mutual Recognition Agreement
(MRA) of Professional Qualifications. It is expected that the Agreement will be
signed before the end of 2005. The Agreement will then be transmitted to
the Competent Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic with a view to allow
for official negotiations to take place. It is recalled that in February
2005 the Commission received a mandate from the Council to negotiate such MRA’s
for architectural, planning and landscape services.
New Bureau of the
International Union of Architects
The XXIII World Congress
of architects took place in Istanbul, from 3-7 July 2005. The ACE was
represented by Marie-Hélène Lucas, President, Alain Sagne, Secretary
General and Adrian Joyce, Senior Adviser. The ACE also had an information
stand in the exhibition area throughout the whole Congress.
Following the Congress,
the General Assembly of the UIA took place, during which a new Bureau was
elected as follows:
Gaetan Siew, President;
Jordi Farrando, Secretary-General; Louise Cox, First Vice President (Region V);
Giancarlo Ius, Vice President Region I; Martin Drahovsky, Vice President Region
II; Mauricio Rivero Borrell, Vice-President, Region III; and Seif Alnaga,
Vice-President, Region IV. Jack Pringle (RIBA, United Kingdom) and Nina
Nedelykov (BAK, Germany) were elected as Members of the UIA Council.
UK Presidency Priorities
The UK has taken up the
Presidency of the EU for the period July to December 2005 and it has announced
its main priorities for the period. Those of interest to the
architectural profession include the ambition to make progress on the proposed
directive on Services in the Internal Market (SIM), to make significant
progress on the REACH regulation for chemicals, to place particular emphasis on
climate change policy, energy efficiency and better regulation. The full
programme of the Presidency can be viewed at:
European Forum for Architectural
Policies
The plenary meeting of
the European Forum for Architectural Policies took place in Luxembourg on the
27th and 28th June last. Its first session was a
joint session with the Ministers of Culture from the EU who were meeting at the
same location for an Informal Culture Council meeting. The joint session
was addressed by both Octavie Modert, the Secretary of State for Culture in
Luxembourg and President of the Culture Council and by Jan Figel, EU
Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multi-lingualism. In
her opening remarks, Octavie Modert said “The natural and built up
environment is a component of the cultural identity of our country and of the
whole of Europe” stressing that “deep and lasting social and economic
changes” are engendered by quality architectural projects. Jan Figel
also underlined the importance of quality architecture for culture and for the
Commission to take architectural quality into account in all relevant policies.
At the event, the result
of a survey on the impact of the Council Resolution on architectural quality in
the urban and rural landscape (adopted by the Council on the 12th
February 2001) was presented. It showed that, although there have been
many initiatives across the EU, there is still much to be done and many EU
countries have yet to adopt coherent policies on architecture. The next
event of the Forum is due to take place under the UK Presidency and will be
held from the 13th to the 15th October in Glasgow and
Edinburgh. For further information visit:
Better Law-making –
Commission Strengthens Rules on Impact Assessment
In the last issue of ACE
Info, we reported on the initiative of the Commission to strengthen its
rules on impact assessment through the publication of guidelines on the
topic. It is possible for interested parties to submit comments on the
matter via the following link:
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/secretariat_general/impact/whatsnew.htm
It is also worth noting
that the Commission is preparing, for the end of this year, a manual on self-
and co-regulation for use by the Commission Services. Hearings of the
various Directorates General on the proposal will take place in the context of
the informal Groups of Commissioners put in place by President Barroso and
Chaired by Vice-President Verheugen, Commissioner for enterprise. It is
expected that this “panel” approach will result in a well-balanced proposal.
Commission Declaration
on Guiding Principles for Sustainable Development
On the 25th
May last, the Commission, responding to a request from the European Council of
the 23rd March 2005, adopted a draft Declaration on Guiding
Principles for Sustainable Development and an accompanying Commission
Communication which sets out the European Union’s long-standing commitment to
sustainable development as a guiding principle of all its policies and actions.
The Guidelines should help the EU to create a better quality of life of
all, now and in the future. The documents can be downloaded at the
following address:
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/sustainable/docs/COM_2005_0218_F_EN_ACTE.pdf
Virtual Museum of
Architecture
A truly virtual museum
of architecture has been launched in Italy with the support of the National
Council of Italian Architects and many other partners including the
Municipality of Naples, the Campania Region and the National Institute of
Architecture. It holds a permanent exhibition and a number of temporary
exhibitions. Take a visit at:
EU Submits a Revised
GATS Offer
The EU submitted, at the
beginning of June, a revised Global Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) Offer
to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva. It outlines how the EU
is prepared to further open access to its services market (including
architectural services) in exchange for improved access to other WTO Member’s
markets. It is ambitious in scope and responds, in many ways, to requests
for access from developing countries while safeguarding public services such as
education, health and audio-visual services. It can be accessed at:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/issues/newround/doha_da/pr020605_en.htm
Energy Efficiency
Directive – EU States Reject Binding Targets
On the 28th
June, at a meeting of Ministers responsible for energy from the 25 Member
States, the binding targets written into the Commission proposal for a
directive on energy end use efficiency, were rejected by the ministers.
They replaced the targets with a commitment to make an effort to achieve a
target of 6% in the period up to 2015. This decision follows on the
adoption of the proposal by the European Parliament (see ACE Info 6-05),
which had raised the targets above that set by the Commission. Without
setting binding targets it seems likely that the EU Member States will not
achieve the Kyoto targets that they have signed up for. Further
information can be found at:
http://www.euractiv.com/Article?tcmuri=tcm:29-141683-16&type=News
Oscar Niemeyer Project
gets Protection
The International
Fairground in Tripoli, Lebanon, designed by the great Brazilian architect Oscar
Niemeyer and built between 1968 and 1974, has been added to the World Monuments
Watch list of 100 Most Endangered Sites for 2006. This is a programme of
the World Monuments Fund and will have the effect of giving the buildings at
the site a reprieve from a proposal to build a tourist village at the
site. The full list for 2006 can be seen at:
http://wmf.org/html/programs/resources/interactive.html
Commission Publishes
Contract Notices on the energy Performance of Buildings Directive and on
Competitiveness of the Construction Sector
Both notices were
published on the 12th July and relate to calls for tender to carry
out work on topics relating to construction.
The first is a call run
a variety of actions to support the full and continued implementation of the
energy performance of buildings directive (2002/91/EC) over a two-and-a-half
year period. It has an indicative budget of 2,000,000 euro and the
closing date for receipt of tenders is the 20th September
2005. The full notice can be accessed at:
The second is a call for
the undertaking of a study that will analyse and assess the elements of certain
Community policies that significantly affect the competitiveness of the
construction sector. The indicative budget is 150,000 euro and the
closing date for receipt of tenders is the 29th August 2005.
The full notice can be accessed at:
European Parliament
Adopts a Resolution on the Proposal for a Council Regulation Establishing a
Cohesion Fund (2007-2013)
On the 6th
July last, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the proposal for a
Council Regulation establishing a Cohesion Fund. Among the elements which
the Parliament requests the Council and the Commission to take into account in
the making of the regulation is the inclusion of an explicit reference in
favour of people with disabilities and to the removal of every kind of barrier
and obstacle and to making expenditure on the renovation of social housing with
a view to achieving energy savings eligible for funding from the Cohesion
funds. The full text can be accessed at:
70 Cents for Culture
This is an initiative of
the European Cultural Foundation (ECF) and the European Forum for the Arts and
Heritage (EFAH), which aims to get the EU to spend 70 cents per citizens per
year on Culture. It is a long way from achieving its goal as the current
expenditure is only about 7 cents per citizen per year. On the 10th
May last, the European Parliament’s Temporary Committee on Policy Challenges
and Budgetary Means of the enlarged EU on the EU’s general financial framework
for 2007-2013 recommended an increase over the life of the framework to a sum
of 17 cents per citizen per year. However, with the failure of the EU
Summit to agree on the financial perspectives in June, even this modest
increase is in doubt. More on the campaign can be found at:
Commission Launches
Campaign to Raise Awareness About Sustainable Energy
The Commission launched,
on Monday 18th July, a Sustainable Energy Europe campaign aimed at
raising the awareness of decision-makers at local, regional, national and
European level, spread best practice, ensure a strong level of public
awareness, understanding and support and stimulate the necessary trends towards
an increase in private investment in sustainable energy technologies.
Within the campaign, achievable benchmarks for 2008 are provided including
several for buildings. These are that, by 2008, around 5 million
inspections and assessments of heating systems will take place, 2 million
Energy Performance Certifications on smaller buildings will be carried out and
50,000 “very low” energy houses will be built. More information at:
The Berlaymont Building
Receives its Energy Performance Certificates
On the 24th
June last, the Commissioner for Industry, Andres Piebalgs, was given the energy
performance certificates for the headquarters of the Commission – the
Berlaymont Building. These certificates are part of the measures provided
for by the Energy performance of Buildings Directive that must be brought into
force in the Member States by January 2006. The Commission hopes to set a
good example and the certificates issued in June seem to indicate that they
have. The renovated building, located in the heart of the European
Quarter in Brussels, has an energy consumption that is, according to the
experts that prepared the certificates, less than half that of the average
consumption of comparable buildings.
European Competition
Policy Report 2004
The European Commission
has recently adopted its annual report on European competition policy for 2004,
a year marked by the entry into force of new regulations, particularly
regulation 1/2003 on antitrust and 139/2004 on concentrations. The report
can be downloaded from the following address:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/competition/annual_reports/
Encounters –
Architectural Essays
A collection of the
essays (in English) by the Finnish architect, educator and critic, Juhani
Pallasmaa and edited by Peter McKeith. The essays are collected from
those that have been written over a 25-year period. This publication
contains essays that range from considerations of identity and intention to technology
and nature, from standardised systems of construction to phenomenological
approaches to architecture. It can be ordered on line at:
The same publisher is
also offering a number of books on the works of Alvar Aalto that are work a
look.
Communicating European
Research 2005
On 14-15 November, the
European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research will host the second
“Communicating European Research” conference at the Brussels Exhibition Centre.
Based on the very positive experiences from the 2004 edition, the event will
focus on the manifold aspects of science communication and will provide an
excellent forum and meeting place for scientists, communication professionals
and journalists. The conference will also take stock of the way towards the
Seventh Framework Programme. Full information is available at:
www.europa.eu.int/comm/research/cer2005.html
1st European
Social Housing Week 10th to 14th October 2005
CECODHAS, the European
Liaison Committee for Social Housing, has announced the first ever European
Social Housing Week, for which a number of high-level events and a major exhibition
in the European Parliament, are being organised in Brussels. Full
information can be found at:
http://www.cecodhas.org/rightclick.cfm?ID=40
Symposium on Market
Access
To be Chaired by the EU
Commissioner for Trade, Peter Mandelson, the EU Commission is organising a
symposium on market access entitled “To Lisbon … and Beyond: Market Access and
External Aspects of Competitiveness” in Brussels on the 19th
September 2005. This is one of the Commission's regular Market Access
symposia - the last of which took place in February 2003 and which hosted over
1000 business, Member States, accession and third country representatives as
well as lawyers and academic circles - have contributed substantially to this
three-way pro-active dialogue, providing the Commission with detailed and
strategic guidance on how to improve our access to third countries'
markets. Full details on this years event can be accessed at:
http://mkaccdb.eu.int/madb2/symposium2005/index.htm
Emissions and Odours
from Materials
Being organised by
CERTECH – the Centre for Technology Resources in Chemistry – is organising this
conference on the 12th and 13th October 2005. It
will be held in Brussels and it will look at a range of issues surrounding the
question of indoor air quality including comfort and impacts on health.
Full details can be accessed at:
http://www.certech.be/index.php?ContentID=6
2nd European
Symposium on Research in Architecture, Urban and Landscape Design
To be held in Lille,
France, this symposium will explore the issue of “Space on a Large Scale” and
will take place from the 23rd to the 25th November
2005. The languages of the symposium will be French and English and full
details at:
http://eurau2005.lille.archi.fr/
Modern Earth Building
2005
To be held in Berlin,
Germany, from the 18th to the 20th November 2005, this
international conference will seek to enhance co-operation and transfer of
knowledge about earth construction. Conference languages will be German and
English and full details can be accessed at:
http://www.moderner-lehmbau.com/english/programm/index.html
Calls for Papers
The ACE frequently
receives notifications of “Calls for Papers” for conferences and seminars
worldwide. You may have written a thesis or doctorate paper that you
would like to present or you may have an idea that you wish develop and to
share with a wider audience – here is your chance:
5th
Conference on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions – New Delhi,
India
This conference will be
held in India from the 6th to the 8th November
2006. The organisers have issued a call for papers with a deadline for
receipt of abstracts of the 30th September 2005. Full details
can be found at:
Improving Energy
Efficiency in Commercial Buildings – Frankfurt, Germany
This conference will be
held in Germany on the 26th and 27th of April 2006.
It will seek to attract property investors to present and discuss the energy
efficiency contribution to shareholder value in publicly traded companies as
well as the importance of public buildings as showcase examples for energy
efficiency solutions and practices. The deadline for the submission of
abstracts has been set at the 30th September 2005. Full
details can be found at:
http://energyefficiency.jrc.cec.eu.int/Electricity%20end-use/events.htm
under “Future Events”.
Accidents and Safety in
the Construction Sector – Helsinki, Finland
This conference will be
held in Finland from the 10th to the 12th May 2006.
The call for papers covers a wide range of topics and their relationship to
accidents and safety in the sector. The deadline for receipt of abstracts
is the 31st October 2005 and full details can be accessed at:
http://www.ril.fi/Resource.phx/seminaari/semi-safety/index.htx
International Ideas
Competition – “Time in a City”
With a first prize of
3,000 US dollars, this ideas competition seeks to explore the concept of how
time can be expressed by a square, a river, a fountain, a park, a construction,
a landscape element, a sculpture etc. Full details can be accessed at:
http://www.professionearchitetto.it/concorsi/notizia.asp?id=4038
Global House 2005 – for
Young Architects
Restricted to students
and architects under the age of 28, this competition this competition seeks to
collect the best ideas about what houses ought to be like in the current Global
Village. There are three cash prizes and nine regional “mentions”.
Full details at:
http://www.arquitectum.com/casa_global_en.php
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 UK
Presidency
Website of the
Luxembourg Presidency
(then choose your
preferred language)
European Forum for
Architectural Policies
http://www.architecture-forum.net
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 the UIA, Jean-Marie Fauconnier, the Euractiv website (www.euractiv.com) and
Bulletin Quotidien Europe.
adrian.joyce@ace-cae.org
- Comments and contributions welcome