UNITED ARCHITECTS OF THE PHILIPPINES
ARCHITECTS REGIONAL COUNCIL ASIA
Committee on Professional Practice
Messages
AR. DILIP CHANDRA CHATTERJEE
Chairman, Arcasia Committee
on Professional Practice
Dear friends and fellow architects,
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It is my honor and pleasure to welcome you to the first ACPP Roundtable Forum of this year and under my Chairmanship. It feels great to be in Manila once again as ARCASIA has a special relationship with the city. I would like to tell you how UAP goes back a long way in ARCASIA.
UAP was in the first 10 nations in ARCASIA and played a very important role in the development of Arcasia as we see it today. In 1974 the United Architects of the Philippines (UAP) came as observer and joined in 1977.
In March 1981, the 1st ARCASIA Workshop took place in Manila. During this meeting, an ARCASIA document on the International Code of Ethics for Consulting Services was proposed by UAP and by 1983, all ten member Institutes endorsed the Code.
In 1984, the 5th Council Meeting and the 2nd ARCASIA Forum was held in Manila to coincide with its first major international conference called the first Asian Congress of Architects, or ACA-1. The conference became an important milestone for ARCASIA.
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In October 1992 , the 13th Council Meeting and ACA-5 was hosted by IAP in Lahore, Pakistan Revisions were made to transfer Philippines to Zone B, while and Japan, Macau and Mongolian were included in Zone C.
Again in 1994, the 15th Council Meeting and ACA 6 were held in Manila, Philippines.
Beginnings of ACPP :In September 1993, the 14th Council Meeting and Forum 7 were held at Hong Kong. Four work groups were formed to discuss the various aspects of the profession. Thus the formation of the various working committees out of which one was the Arcasia Committee for Professional Practice.
In the ARCASIA Committee for Professional Practice, we have been striving to bring forth the very problems of Asian Architects and finding an amicable solution to them. Every country is different with different cultural and economic factors governing the nature of the profession. We are sensitive to this and have therefore designed all our meetings and themes to understand each culture and their professional pressures. Here in Manila we intend to do the same.
In Manila we shall be talking about the ‘Procurement Strategies and Policies’ for any project by an Architectural Office. As we are bound by many Regulations of our governing council/association, there is a challenge in front of us, as we all face the threat of non-architect professionals in the field. Especially for young architects’ procurement of projects becomes a difficult job as they have to compete against their own peers and senior members of the profession. Sometimes senior members face difficulty in the fee discounts the junior architects have to offer.
Therefore we have chosen to understand how each country deals with this challenge and how they have overcome it. We intend to form a blueprint of what can be done, after discussion with all the local architects here. So we hope to meet all of you and take the profession to greater heights.
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AR. YOLANDA DAVID-REYES
Commissioner, Professional Regulation Commission
Past Chairman, ARCASIA
I am pleased to extend my warmest greetings the officers and members of the United Architects of the Philippines (UAP) for hosting the ARCASIA Committee on Professional Practice Meeting and the conduct of the ACPP-UAP Professional Practice Forum here in the Philippines in collaboration with our Professional Regulatory Board of Architecture (PRBOA). I commend the UAP for fostering the spirit of comradeship not just among the Filipino architects but also the practitioner-architects from the culturally diverse member-institutes of the Architects Regional Council Asia coming from Macau, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, China, Bhutan, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Indonesia Pakistan, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Mongolia and Vietnam, thereby providing us the opportunity to accentuate the global profile of the profession and at the same time raising the prestige of the Filipino architects in the international community.
I am therefore particularly pleased that the UAP is in the forefront in this undertaking by working with the PRBOA and the ARCASIA in re-energizing new frontiers for the architects of the institute, including the ASEAN and APEC architects, and assisting them with the national, regional, and global changes brought about by ongoing developments in the architecture profession.
The Professional Regulation Commission welcomes this gathering as an opportunity for the architects to take their professional careers to the next level, to build and accelerate the practice to global recognition, and for them to truly penetrate the global demands for them through professional branding and benchmarking strategies which are incidentally aligned to the stratagem of the Professional Regulation Commission on Continuing Professional Development, a fundamental investment in the branding and evolution of the profession and its professionals. In this new era of globalization and cross-border mobility of services, it is just about time that the architects learn to properly market their professional services which this Forum aims to address. As they say in the world of advertising, as in professional branding, high visibility is key.
As a proud member of the profession and with my former post as ARCASIA Chairman, I wish for the success of this Forum and for the attainment of its greater purpose of global recognition for architects to global practice in the built environment.
Mabuhay ang mga Arkitekto!