Brian Zulaikha, 2011–2012 national president of the Australian Institute of Architects.
Earlier this year, US President Barack Obama moved to reinvigorate a disheartened American electorate by urging them to embrace this “Sputnik moment” in history. His intention was to encourage those around him to seize the day, to reach new levels of inventiveness and innovation, to embrace research and development to ensure challenges such as climate change are met head-on. Such words can easily be dismissed as rhetoric, but I’d like to see us embrace the notion here for the benefit of the profession and Australians generally.
This sort of progressive thinking is certainly a hallmark of immediate past president Karl Fender, and I’d like to thank him here in my first words to you as national president for his consistent and tireless efforts through 2010 and the first half of 2011 to advance the profession of architecture. He has been an extraordinary ambassador internationally, and Australian architects and Australian architecture have benefited tremendously from his efforts.
I see this coming year as one of inspiration and consolidation. I will focus in particular on furthering Karl’s energetic efforts to advance the issues of sustainable cities, planning reform and the appointment of a Commonwealth Government architect.
The beginning of my year as national president coincided with a flurry of Australian government policy and initiatives of particular relevance to the profession. We saw commitments in the federal budget relating to sustainable urban and regional communities, and the release of two new policies – the National Urban Policy and the Sustainable Population Strategy – along with the release of the Productivity Commission’s report titled “Performance Benchmarking of Australian Business Regulation: Planning, Zoning and Development Assessments.”
One of my first activities as president is to work with staff and my fellow national councillors in developing an Institute position on these issues and representing this to the Australian Government in our efforts to achieve more productive, sustainable and livable cities and communities.
As all who know me are aware, I’m an avowed urbanist. I am strongly committed to urban density and urban design issues, and welcome the Australian Government’s acknowledgment that it has a role to play in future urban planning. I also welcome its commitment to the strategic criteria for capital city planning as adopted by the Council of Australian Governments in 2009. In particular, the Institute supports criteria number eight, which seeks to encourage world-class architecture and urban design for Australia.
The Institute will continue to advocate for an Australian Government architect position to be established, which in our view would facilitate the Australian Government achieving criteria eight.
Another area of strong interest for me is the issue of climate change, and the potential role of the built environment in securing greenhouse gas emission reductions through energy-efficiency initiatives. Having recently attended the American Institute of Architects convention, where I met with many of my international counterparts, I am keen to build upon the joint international efforts we established under the Copenhagen Call to Action Statement, initiated by former national president Melinda Dodson. The Copenhagen document was developed with and endorsed by Architecture Canada, the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Commonwealth Association of Architects. I look forward to continuing to work with these organizations and our friends in the US, Japan and Korea in sharing our activities, research and other findings and exploring opportunities for further joint activity on this important global issue for consideration at the Union of International Architects (UIA) Congress in Tokyo in September this year.
I am heartened by the recent work in Australia being led by our CEO David Parken under the auspices of the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC), which is now following its efforts on “Mitigation” with a shift in focus to “Adaptation and Resilience” in the built environment. We will keep you informed as this work progresses.
