At the request of Council, Barry Johns completed a 6 month term as the (Interim) Director of Practice with the Alberta Association of Architects in the Fall of 2010. During this tenure, several Practice Bulletins were completed for review and publication by the Practice Review Board. A permanent Director is targeted to be hired in 2011.
Studio Archive
Kinsmen Pool Acoustic Upgrade – Avenue Magazine
The Kinsmen Aquatic Centre Acoustic Upgrade was featured in the February 2011 issue of Avenue Magazine Edmonton. The article, entitled Personal Spaces, asked “five local architects, designers and design aficionados to pick the space in Edmonton they most admire — rooms or buildings so special that they transport them from the everyday world.”
Local designer Adriean Koleric describes the roof as “like this alien structure, how it mimics and reflects in the pool underneath. It’s amazing.”
RAIC-AU Centre for Architecture
The new RAIC Centre for Architecture at Athabasca University – a long anticipated renewal of the RAIC Minimum Syllabus Program, received funding and final approval for its Post Baccalaureate Diploma in Architecture from the Department of Advanced Education in Alberta in November 2010. In addition to federal government grants for course development to include broadly experienced foreign trained architects, the renewed national and bilingual program – a partnership between RAIC and Athabasca University – will ultimately offer two degrees. It will also continue to be an alternate path to licensure and registration, meeting the Canadian Education Standard for individual CACB certification of its graduates. Predicated upon a broad ‘apprenticeship’ model – connecting practice and rigorous face to face and virtual design studios into an integrated curriculum, the exciting developments of this program to be headquartered in Edmonton and rolled out in September 2011, are summarised in the following video:
Canadian Builders Quarterly
Barry Johns and Craig Webber of Group2 Architecture Engineering are featured (pdf) in the July-August 2010 issue of Canadian Builders Quarterly, speaking about the experience of growing an effective design-based firm.