One of the most important issues that I felt needed to be addressed when I was elected President of the Tasmanian Chapter in March this year, was the state of the industry.
The global financial crisis has hit the building industry hard. We are a few years down the track now, but the impacts of this time are still coming to the surface. I was saddened to see a long established medium scale building company go into liquidation recently.
As President I have taken the opportunity to meet with government ministers to discuss the important role that government has in supporting the local industry. This has included how government work is tendered, the impacts of design and construct projects and smaller projects being bundled into larger packages that are out of reach of local practices. I have also discussed the importance of design content in the work.
It is concerning that contracts that were previously won by local building professionals and contractors have recently been awarded to mainland companies.
Local businesses do not enjoy the same volume of work as those interstate, so there is a difference in overheads, which should be recognised. We must work with the government to ensure that they recognise these differences and support their local industry or risk losing highly skilled professionals and contractors. The inclusion of weighted criteria that acknowledges these differences can be used to address concerns that awarding contracts to local business is anti-competitive.
I was reading a front page headline this week asking Tasmanians to support local business to drive our economic revival. I hope our ministers were reading it too.
I will be attending a jobs forum with premier Lara Giddings this week and will be reinforcing our thoughts on these issues.
One thing that I have learnt is that good design does not really register concern in government circles, but topics like life cycle cost, facility, and risk, all ring bells. We as architects need to adjust our language to be heard.
We were recently invited to present to the Preventative Health Committee hearing with respect to the impact of the built environment on preventative health. It was a great opportunity to put this new language into practice and I felt that we were able to stake a claim on the importance of our role in this field.
How we as architects are positioned within the industry is also changing. With the increase in design and construct projects, the design process and our relationship with other consultants and contractors has been evolving. Traditional lump sum contracts are not the only method of procurement and we are being told to embrace the change.
One of the ways in which I have sought to deal with these changes has been to meet with representatives from the TBCITB so that we are recognised as part of the greater industry body.
The second is to work with other building industry organisations, by supporting them in their endeavours and offering our assistance when appropriate. Hopefully this support will be returned.
Another area that I have investigated is the decline of the role of the draftsman as a recognised profession and an important part of our practice structures. Addressing this will improve the quality of documentation in practices and maintain a skills base that is currently fast nearing retirement.
