News from South Australia

John Held , 13 July 2017

John Held with all the news from South Australia.

We extend a special welcome to new members, and are pleased that some of our new members are smaller practices and sole practitioners – we hope you benefit from the resources and contacts available for the Business of Architecture.

Our next event is the Roundtable on Thursday 20 July at 4.30pm with mechanical contractors. It’s interesting that there seem to be so many common issues with those faced by architects, in particular around procurement, coordination and documentation. We look forward to seeing you at JPE Design Studio for an interesting discussion.

Together with Consult Australia and the Australian Institute of Architects, we continue negotiations with DPTI on the introduction of AS4122-2010, and in particular the special conditions attached to the contract. We need to demonstrate overall economic benefit to the state from fairer contracts, and in particular the introduction of limited liability to government contracts. We hope that if we can agree on conditions it will lead to wider discussions on government procurement methodologies.

We continue to receive reports of various issues relating to the STEM program. The Institute and ACA – SA continue to have concerns about various aspects of the program and in particular the lack of consistent communication between DPTI and architects. Please check with your project manager that you have the latest version of the Schedule 5 matrix for novation, if applicable to your project, and be aware of recent changes to the DPTI NATSPEC masters.

Our Practice Administrators Group met recently, discussion practice management software. We welcomed a number of new members to the group.  If you would like to be involved, contact Sascha Byrne at sa@aca.org.au.

The latest Keith Neighbour Study Group has commenced, and we wish all those studying for registration the best.

We welcome our new National President, Kieran Wong. In August the National Executive will meet in Adelaide for two days, which will include a strategic planning session looking at the next phase of the development of the ACA. We also thank Steve Kennedy for his work over the last five years as National President and wish him the best in the future.

John Held is ACA – SA President.