July Update
It is always busy at ACA – SA. John Held outlines recent events and activities.
Following our membership lunch at SAHMRI in May we are excited to welcome a number of new members to ACA, including GHD, Troppo, Energy Architects, Nelson Architects, MPH, and Total Space. We trust they find their membership valuable and we look forward to their contribution to our state group.
Our recent Roundtable with Builders was an interesting, if sober, discussion around some of the issues facing the construction industry in SA. It was the first time we have sought sponsorship for these events – thanks to GWA Projects (Caroma) – and we hope that by developing relationships with sponsors we will be able to expand the range of issues we can tackle.
At a recent committee meeting we invited Rob Lustri from UniSA to present about their forward plans and procurement methodologies. We hope to have similar discussion with the other universities, and with local government, in the near future. We have also invited ODASA to the next committee meeting to discuss common interests.
The Practice Administrators group met for lunch in the last week of July, and covered quite a range of topics including software, admin systems and possible opportunities to work together in areas such as purchasing.
The current Keith Neighbour Study Group is working hard as the exam date approaches – thanks to Chris Tan Consulting for sponsorship of this group.
Other activities include our involvement in the Lean Construction/BuildingSMART seminar last week on Improviing Productivity in Construction. At that meeting John Domino announced the preparation of a five-year Strategic Plan for BIM implementation in DPTI, and ACA is a member of the working group to look at the detail of this. We also met with Business SA to discuss how to leverage SA’s expertise in BIM across the whole industry.
We should also congratulate Sue Phillips and Michael Pilkington for their well-earned receipt of the James Irwin President’s medal recently. Sue, as an ACA – SA committee member, is particularly working on outlines for a possible research project on the profession – anyone interested in contributing is welcome to contact her. Fellow Committee member Mario Dreosti took the lead in writing the excellent ACA national response to the Federal Treasury inquiry into unfair contracts for small business, which is available here.
Upcoming events include the next roundtable on Wednesday 24 September – please add this to your diary. More details soon!