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Intelligence | Practice
Andrew Sutton Associate director BRE Wales and South West
A seminar from Pilkington proved relevant to the design of this music/ garden room for Ian Collins.
‘CPD FEELS like my job,’ says Andrew Sutton. He focuses on supporting the construction industry though training or practical delivery. He had designed a code 6 masonry house in practice, but learning about the timber-framed Passivhaus by Bere: Architects at Ebbw Vale (below), so he could give presentations on it himself, was very helpful for lessons in construction details.
Ian Collins COG Architecture
‘I DO VARIOUS things, I’ve been a bit inventive. I have to be – as a small practice I can’t throw lots of money at CPD,’ says Ian Collins. As a sole practitioner he makes good use of his networks and different roles to source CPD: ‘I have introduced CPD sessions for the regional
‘ I get a lot of informal CPD through marking log books and exams – the material is extremely pertinent’
RIBA – I got a lot of formal CPD in that way.’ Teaching on the part 2 and 3 courses at
Leeds Metropolitan University gives Collins access to up-to-date contract and practice information. ‘I get a lot of informal CPD through marking log books and exams – the material is extremely pertinent. And I was involved in a week of part 3 lectures which allowed me to listen in to David Chappell’s morning workshop on JCT contracts.’ Swapping contacts has provided another
stream of inexpensive CPD. ‘I go along to those in other practices and we tell each other what we are doing. Architects who have paid for a formal CPD event and can’t make it give me a call and I go along,’ he says. Such co-operation has given Collins access to a Pilkington Glass seminar that covered the acoustics of glazing and issues of solar gain. ‘That was particularly relevant to work I am doing on a garden room that is also a music room and has a lot of glass.’ Work itself also generates much informal CPD. ‘I have to know a little about a lot,’ he says.
Going through the regulations in detail prepared him to speak at a BRE/LABC conference, which also counted as structured CPD. ‘I may be talking at an event but the rest of the conference is effectively CPD for me,’ he says. He is very excited by the environmental professional development course he has put together for architects to give them an all round low carbon view. It look at different forms of assessment for sustainability and with topics like thermal bridging reduction it also covers things architects struggle to keep up to date with. He hopes it will help them reclaim ground from building physics. ‘This helps architects get their heads around design and keep beauty. I hate to think of the joy of building being destroyed by spreadsheets.’ So can Sutton do all the CPD he needs within the BRE? ‘There are probably one or two areas where I need to find more – those which aren’t BRE areas of expertise,’ he says.
WWW.RIBAJOURNAL.COM : SEPTEMBER 2011