What is an Architect

 

A person or entity registered, licensed or otherwise authorized to use the title "architect" and to practice architecture in a province or territory.

The most basic definition of an architect is a professional who is qualified to design and provide advice - both aesthetic and technical - on built objects in our public and private landscapes. But this definition barely scratches the surface of an architect's role. Architects serve as trusted advisors, their role is holistic, blending diverse requirements and disciplines in a creative process, while serving the public interest and addressing health and safety matters.

Perhaps, it would be best to describe architects as conductors who orchestrate and take the lead in reconciling all the goals for a building or other structure. Architects do this by providing solutions through the use of:

• artistic imagination and creative vision to design spaces where their ideas and techniques-represented through form, light, textures, materials, and colours-combine to fulfill our aesthetic, spiritual, and cultural needs;
  
  
• practical and technical knowledge to create spaces that are safe, efficient, sustainable, and meet economic needs; and
  
  
• interpersonal skills, psychological understanding and ethical practice to craft spaces that fulfill the complex, and sometimes conflicting, needs of clients, users, and the community.

Preparing your CV (resume) for an internship application

Your CV is your chance to grab the potential employer’s attention and demonstrate what they will gain from employing you as an intern. A CV is effectively a “sales document”. Imagine you are marketing yourself like a product, be sure to highlight your strengths and provide the evidence to prove it to show how the organisation will benefit from your skills and experience. Usually the most effective CV format for an undergraduate student is the chronological CV, which clearly details your experience in reverse chronological order, most recent first.

What to include:

• Personal details – imagine your name to be the headline or title with your contact details as the sub-heading, ideally in bold. Include full name, contact address, telephone number and email address, date of birth and nationality.
• Profile – summarise your selling points; mention what you are studying, your key strengths and skills, relevant experience, internship field of interest and career ambitions. This should be a short, concise paragraph.
• Education – detail your academic experience since the age of 16, most recent first. Include dates, name and location of institution, level of qualification, subjects studied and grades achieved. For your degree, mention two or three classes relevant to your chosen internship field.
• Work experience (paid and/or voluntary) – include dates, job title, name of employing organisation, main duties/responsibilities, skills demonstrated/your style or approach (how you carried out your tasks?) and result or achievement. Where possible, quantify your results.
• Key skills and achievements – include knowledge and experience of Information Technology (IT/computing), foreign language ability, any awards or outstanding achievements etc. Mention anything you feel is essential to your application that is not mentioned elsewhere on your CV.
• Interests – this section offers the employer the chance to find out more about your personality, you as an individual. Try to be a bit different, avoid just saying “Socialising, reading and going out with friends”.

General tips and advice:

• Be concise – ensure that every sentence counts and includes relevant information, avoid vague, general statements; be specific. Your CV should be a maximum of two pages.
• Be eye-catching – ensure the CV is clear, easy to read, using bullet points to separate sections of text. Use bold for headings.
• Be positive – use active verbs in the past tense to emphasise what you did, for example organised, managed, coordinated, analysed etc.
• Be honest – always provide evidence for your claims.
• Be knowledgeable – research and identify the skills required for your chosen field and clearly describe examples where you have demonstrated those skills.

Malaysia’s tallest building to be called KL118 Tower?

The Warisan Merdeka tower, Malaysia’s future tallest building, could be officially known as KL118 Tower and will also feature four residential blocks, all worth some RM5 billion.

Until now, the 118-storey skyscraper has been known as Warisan Merdeka. But an established Finnish company, which was awarded a lucrative contract to supply elevators and escalators for Warisan Merdeka, may have opened the lid on the tower’s official name.

KONE Corp, in announcing that it has received an order from PNB, yesterday said: “...will be supplying 105 elevators and escalators to KL118 Tower, a 118-storey mixed-use tower developed by PNB Merdeka Ventures Sdn Bhd in Kuala Lumpur”.

PNB Merdeka is a subsidiary of PNB, the country's biggest asset manager.

KONE said the project will feature more than 400,000 square metres of residential, hotel and commercial functions, and will be linked to a metro station.

“KL118 Tower is expected to be the tallest building in Malaysia upon completion in 2019, a new landmark of the country. Its second phase of development will consist of another four residential towers,” it added.

According to previous reports, the whole development will take shape on a 7.6ha site, located within the enclave of Stadium Merdeka and Stadium Negara.

The two stadiums will be retained as national heritage buildings. The project’s gross development cost is expected to be around RM3 billion.

Warisan Merdeka will be the tallest building in Malaysia at more than 500 metres, surpassing the 452-metre Petronas Twin Towers.

Business Times recently reported that PNB Merdeka is expected to award a few more contracts over the next several months for clearance works and infrastructure development.

The contract for the superstructure will also be tendered out by year-end or early next year.

In March, the first contract worth RM74 million went to Pintaras Geotechnics Sdn Bhd, a unit of Pintaras Jaya Bhd, which will undertake the foundation works for the tower.

KONE, which is listed on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Ltd in Finland, said the supply of 105 energy-efficient elevators and escalators for KL118 Tower was booked in the current quarter.

The company, however, did not disclose the contract value.

Source: http://www.malaysia-chronicle.com

The Recent Hype in Malaysia: Green Buildings

In recent years, Malaysia has been inching towards a greener mindset. There is now a much greater sense of environmental awareness than ever before in the country, though I must admit that it is still at a very humble level if compared to countries like Denmark, Germany, or Japan. In any case, there has been progress over the years and recently the hype is about green buildings. Inspired by green building rating tools such as UK’s BREEAM, USA’s LEED, Japan’s CASBEE, Australia’s GREENSTAR, and Singapore’s GREEN MARK, to name a few, Malaysia introduced its very own Green Building Index (GBI) in early 2009. GBI was jointly developed by the Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) and the Association of Consulting Engineers Malaysia (ACEM).

One may question the necessity for so many different standards, but according to the official GBI website:

Green rating tools by its nature and role is very dependent upon location and environment and thus climate… Malaysia’s Green Building Index or GBI will be the only rating tool for the tropical zones other than Singapore Government’s GREEN MARK.

So in other words, Malaysia’s GBI is customized to suit local conditions – our climate, current state of development, and existing resources. The GBI rating is based on six key criteria (generally based on the LEED certification of USA):

1. Energy Efficiency
2. Indoor Environmental Quality
3. Sustainable Site Planning and Management
4. Materials and Resources
5. Water Efficiency
6. Innovation

A good example demonstrating the characteristics of a green building is the David Brower Center in Berkeley, California. The Center’s design includes:

1. Construction using 53% recycled materials;
2. Photovoltaic panels which will double as a sun shade device;
3. 100% daylighting of all office areas;
4. Collection and reuse of rainwater for irrigation and toilet flushing;
5. Extremely low energy mechanical systems using radiant heating and cooling within the building’s concrete structural slabs;
6. Solar shading devices on all south-facing windows;
7. High efficiency lighting with automatic controls to limit use when adequate daylight is available;
8. Concrete with slag to significantly reduce CO₂ and cement content, and to increase strength;
9. Vertically post-tensioned structure to minimize potential damage due to earthquakes;
10. Operable windows and low pressure ventilation via the raised floor system to maximize indoor air quality;
11. CO₂ sensors that call for extra fresh air if required; and
12. Exterior and interior materials that ensure healthy air quality, maximize recycled content, avoid off-gassing, and minimize environmental impacts from production and transportation.

The David Brower Center is expected to attain the LEED Platinum rating, the highest possible rating from the LEED program. As one can see from the above list of characteristics, many factors are taken into consideration right from the early design and planning stages of building a green building. Like the materials used for construction, the placing of photovoltaic panels for optimal exposure to sunlight, the positioning of windows and openings for day-lighting and natural ventilation, and the rainwater collection and reuse system.

With reference to item #8 in the above list of sustainable characteristics of the David Brower Center; slag is a by-product formed as a result of smelting, welding and other metallurgical and combustion processes involving metals or ores. Its use as a construction material in buildings not only diverts it from the landfill, it reduces the use of cement which in turn reduces the energy and resources required to manufacture cement. Fly ash, a by-product from coal-fired power plants, is also similarly used as a supplementary cementitious material. Both slag and fly ash not only helps in reducing the use of cement and its associated environmental impacts from manufacturing, they also make the concrete stronger, more durable, and more resistant to chemical attack than when it is constructed with cement alone.

Hearst Tower, New York

Aside from the David Brower Center, there is a long list of other green buildings with very innovative sustainable designs and functions. One other building significant to note is the Hearst Tower in New York that has a LEED Gold rating. Aside from its energy/water efficiency features and recyclable content used in its construction, what makes this building stand out is the use of the diagrid system (diagonal + grid). It is a system which uses a series of triangles to support the building which eliminates the need for vertical steel beams altogether. The diagrid system not only provides stronger support due to the force-distributing nature of the triangular framework, it also required 20% less steel in the construction of the Hearst Tower. That is a good 2,000 ton savings in steel.

The diagrid system used for the Hearst Tower

There are many more awesome green buildings out there to be discovered and even more hardcore ones to come in the near future. So far, Malaysia has only a handful of green buildings. Examples include:

1. Mesiniaga Tower in Subang Jaya, Selangor (1993)

2. Securities Commision building in Bukit Kiara, Kuala Lumpur  (1999)

3. Low Energy Office (LEO) building in Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur (2004)

4. Zero Energy Office (ZEO) building in Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor (2007)

Although the above-listed Malaysian buildings may not be as impressive as those abroad, they are definitely significant milestones for the development of green buildings in the country. Now with our very own green building certification, the GBI, equipped with specific guidelines and criteria for certification, it will not be long before we see the construction of green buildings that are on par with (if not better than) those abroad. Malaysia’s newest green building, named the Diamond building, is already under construction in Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur. The Diamond building has a GREEN MARK Platinum rating from Singapore.

The Malaysian government is also very supportive of the development of green buildings in the country. In fact, recently it has been decided that all new government buildings must incorporate the features of GBI. Aside from that, in the recent tabling of Malaysia’s Budget 2010, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced tax exemption for building owners who obtain the GBI certificate. In addition, buyers of buildings with GBI certificates will also be exempted from stamp duty starting from October 24 2009 until December 31 2014 – a good five years. A RM1.5 billion fund will also be set up to provide assistance to companies dealing with green technology. With such political will, Malaysia is set to progress much more significantly than ever before in the development of green buildings. It’s about time anyway.

Source: http://umsgreenpulse.wordpress.com

Selecting Your Architect

Whether you are building your own home or designing a commercial complex, choosing the right architect is vital to a successful project.

Architecture firms come in a variety of sizes and types. The statistically average firm is made up of 9 or 10 people; many firms are smaller. There are also very large firms with staffs of 100 or more. Some firms specialize in one or more project or facility types. Others have very specific specialties. Some firms include in-house engineering (structural, mechanical, electrical, etc.) or other design disciplines (planning, urban design, landscape architecture, interior design, etc.)  Many architects introduce specialty disciplines into their projects through appropriate consultants. Each architecture firm brings its own combination of skills, expertise, interests, and values to its projects. All good architects will listen to you and translate your ideas into a viable construction project. Look for a good listener and you'll find a good architect. 

The Right Architect

If you are a first-time client, or an experienced client facing a new situation, you probably have many questions about architect selection. Some of the more frequently asked questions are addressed here.

When, in the life cycle of a project, should I bring the architect into the picture?

As early as possible. Architects can help you define the project in terms that provide meaningful guidance for design. They may also do site studies, help secure planning and zoning approvals, help you work out financing, and a variety of other predesign services.

Should I look at more than one firm?

Usually, yes. One obvious exception is when you already have a good relationship with an architect and it makes little sense to change.

How do I find suitable firms to contact?

Contact other owners who have developed similar facilities and ask who they interviewed and ultimately selected. Ask who designed buildings and projects that you've admired or that seem especially appropriate. Many local chapters of the American Institute of Architects maintain referral lists and are available to assist you in identifying architects who can help you. 

What information should I request from firms?

At a minimum, ask to see projects the firm has designed that are similar in type and size to yours or that have addressed similar issues (for example, siting, functional complexity, or design aspirations). Ask them to indicate how they will approach your project and who will be working on it (including consultants). Ask for the names of other owners you may contact.

Why are formal interviews desirable?

An interview addresses one issue that can't be covered in brochures: the chemistry between the owner and the architecture firm. Interviews also allow the owner to  learn how each  firm plans to approach the project.

How many firms should I interview and how should they be selected?

Most people advise that you interview three to five firms--enough to see the range of possibilities, but not so many that an already tough decision will be further complicated.  Interview architecture firms that you feel can do your project because of their expertise, experience, and ability to bring a fresh look to your situation. Treat each firm fairly, offering, for example, equal time and equal access to your site and existing facilities.

What can I realistically expect to learn from an interview? How can I structure the interview to make it as informative as possible?

You can learn how the architect's team will approach your project by talking to key members. Ask how the architect will gather information, establish priorities, and make decisions. Ask what the architect sees as the important issues for consideration in the project. Evaluate the firm's style, personality, priorities, and approach: are they compatible with yours?

How should I follow up?

Tell each firm what you intend to do next and when you plan to make your decision. If you haven't talked with past clients, do so now. Ask them to assess both the performance of the firm and the performance of the resulting architecture. You may want to visit existing buildings to see them in use. Notify the selected firm, or short-listed firms, as soon as possible. Remember, conditions change, sometimes very rapidly: regulatory parameters, market conditions, and team availability.

On what should I base my decision?

Personal confidence in the architect is paramount.  Seek also an appropriate balance among design ability, technical competence, professional service, and cost. Once you've selected the best firm, enter into detailed negotiations regarding services and compensation. The AIA Contract Documents-the industry standard-offer an excellent starting point for contract negotiation.

What about selecting an architect by competitive bid?

You can ask for a fee proposal from an architect at any time during the selection process that you think is appropriate. The U.S. government, by law, depends on qualifications-based selection, whereby qualification for a project is the first consideration, and fee is secondary. You are engaging the services of a professional with whom you will work closely throughout the life of the project.

Choose your architect at least as carefully as you would your dentist or doctor. Factors such as experience, technical competence, and available staff resources will be important to your decision. So, if you are soliciting proposals from more than one firm, make sure that you can provide all the information required for definite proposals to ensure that the proposals you get offer the same scope of services, and you can evaluate them on a consistent basis.

Yours will be a business relationship. Find out how prospective architects do business, how they work with their clients, how responsive they are to your management and decision styles, and how well their work stacks up against their clients' expectations.

Ask questions. Approach the architect as a professional who will bring experience and specialized knowledge to your project. Don't be afraid to ask the same questions you've asked yourself: What does the architect expect to contribute to the project? How much information does the architect need?  How does the architect set priorities and make decisions? Who in the firm will work directly with you?  How will engineering or other design services be provided? How does the firm provide quality control during design? 

What is the firm's construction-cost experience?

Be frank. Tell the architect what you know and what you expect. Ask for an explanation of anything you don't understand. The more on the table at the outset, the better the chances are for a successful project. Remember, a good architect is a good listener. Only when you have outlined your issues can the architect address them.

Because you will be in a business relationship to acquire the professional skills and judgment of the prospective architect, you might also want to inquire about the ability of the architect to stand financially behind the services to be provided. For example, you might ask if the architect carries professional liability insurance--much like that carried by doctors, lawyers, and accountants. While not all architects carry such insurance, it can, in many circumstances, be an indicator of sound business acumen.

Be prepared to answer questions about your project's purpose, budget, time frame, site, and the team of players you anticipate being involved with the project. Once again, be frank, and inform the architect of any information you want to be kept in confidence. Protecting your confidential information is an ethical requirement for members of the AIA.

Selection Is a Mutual Process


The most thoughtful architects are as careful in selecting their clients as owners are in selecting architects. They are as interested in a successful project as you are, and they know that good architecture results from fruitful collaboration between architects and clients.

Even the simplest of projects are very complex. Each situation is different, including people, needs, site, financing, and regulatory requirements. Many of the owner's needs and expectations come into focus only in the process of design. As the owner and architect mutually evaluate alternative approaches to the project's design, priorities are clarified and new possibilities emerge. There is no substitute for the complex, time-consuming, and intensive dialogue and inquiry that characterize the design process.

Source: www.aia.org

Architect: Job description

Architects work in the construction industry and are involved with designing new buildings, extensions or alterations to existing buildings, or advising on the restoration and conservation of old properties.

They can work on individual buildings or on large redevelopment schemes, and can be responsible for the design of the surrounding landscape and spaces.

Architects work closely with their clients and users to make sure that projected designs match their needs and are functional, safe and economical. They usually control a project from start to finish and work with a number of construction professionals, including surveyors and engineers, producing drawings and specifications that the construction team works to.

The role of an architect is very varied and can range from freelance and small-scale project work to employment with multinational organisations working on iconic landmarks.

Typical work activities

Architects are involved from the earliest stages of a building project, which can start with developing ideas with the client, establishing budgets, assessing the needs of the building and its users, and its impact within the local environment.

They assist with site selection and work closely with contractors on site, ensuring that works are carried out to specific standards and that, above all, the building is sustainable, functional and aesthetically pleasing. They also need to have an awareness of commercial and financial considerations.
 Responsibilities vary but typically include:

• discussing the objectives, requirements and budget of a project;
• consulting with other professionals about design;
• preparing and presenting feasibility reports and design proposals to the client;
• advising the client on the practicality of their project;
• using IT in design and project management, specifically using computer-aided design software;
• keeping within financial budgets and deadlines;
• producing detailed workings, drawings and specifications;
• specifying the nature and quality of materials required;
• preparing tender applications and presentations;
• negotiating with contractors and other professionals;
• preparing applications for planning and building control departments;
• drawing up tender documents for contracts;
• project managing and helping to coordinate the work of contractors;
• controlling a project from start to finish;
• regular site visits to check on progress, ensuring that the project is running on time and to budget;
• resolving problems and issues that arise during construction;
• ensuring that the environmental impact of the project is managed.

Source: www.prospects.ac.uk