Nomination Statement for Intern Liaison to 2011 AIBC Council

Derek DeLand IA.AIBC B.Sc B.Arch

I've been involved in the architecture and design industry since the early 1990's. My primary motivation for choosing firms, collaborators, and projects is the potential for idea-driven creativity. This ethos of curiosity has led me to work on architecture projects for established registered architects in several cities, and also with highly creative emerging voices concentrating on building design, interior design, landscape architecture and skateboard parks. I have also undertaken independent design investigations at varying scales, from objects, to public art, to design/builds, to ideation at city scale. I have been active with the AIBC Intern Committee since 2009, and have also worked with the Vancouver Skatepark Coalition, Chinatown Historic Area Planning Committee, Main 2nd to 7th Planning Group, and Vancouver Design Nerds among others. Some of my multidisciplinary work to date defies AIBC categorization, so I am an Intern and an emerging rather than established voice. I've contributed design, ideas and writing to projects that have won two Ontario Concrete Awards and a BC Concrete Award, with more possible awards pending. My writing, and projects that I've helped to create have been published in two design books and in multiple design magazines, Internationally and in North America. Like many emerging voices, I may be better known internationally (China, France etc) than I am in Canada.

Communication is the key purpose of the Intern Liaison to Council. My priority will be to represent the concerns of Interns to Council, and to report Council news back to the Intern community. In addition to attending Council meetings, Intern Committee meetings and AIBC functions in person, I will also use my independent Facebook, blog, and Twitter presence to foster this communication.

I would like to encourage established registered architects to participate more actively in real mentorship. I have seen very talented people leave our profession due to a shortage of mentorship or opportunity, and with them gifts that could greatly enrich our work. My observation is that much of the true, effective mentorship of interns is being done by Interns' recently-registered peers and by AIBC staff, and I would like to see more participation in this process from established principals and senior staff. This observation goes both ways, so I would also like to encourage Interns to open communication with senior architects. They are busy but most of them do want to see you succeed. I would also like to encourage architects to meaningfully include Interns in all stages of projects, from programming and schematic design through to construction management. This is important both to Interns' ability to log their hours toward registration, and also to the more-important agenda of their true understanding of the holistic process of making architecture. If the profession is to function to its potential, we have to connect the artistic creativity and technological innovation of youth to the strategic and business abilities of experience.

My current vision of architecture is a very contemporary architecture that bridges disciplines, sustainable, with an experimental spirit and dynamic form fused with experiential skatepark-influenced hard landscape. This vision will evolve over time, and each project is its own entity with its own client, scale, budget, ideology, special assets and constraints, so each must be considered individually.

As a member of the architectural community as a whole, I envision a positive and collaborative atmosphere in which students, Interns and Architects work with citizens to realize our best visions. I want all of us, as a profession and as a region, to reach our architectural potential. I want to see a milieu in which talent is fully expressed, and where architectural ideas make it to energetic reality in original, colourful and dynamic ways without being self-censored to play it safe. It’s better to be audacious and fall short than to aim low and hit. If there's one thing the 2010 Olympics showed us, it's that Canadians are now ready to allow themselves to be successful. I would like to see that attitude translate to our profession. We all have clients, budgets, and building codes to deal with but let's not limit ourselves. If it's interesting, let's put it out there. I also think that city planning codes need to be modified to allow more architectural expression; it's time to question our too-safe ethos of mandated monochromatic mediocrity.

When I tell civilians that I'm involved in architecture, they generally find it uninteresting and change the subject, or start discussing something built a hundred years ago; if I tell them about skatepark design, they are immediately engaged. This is because much of the province's architecture is playing it safe, whereas skatepark designers try to push for an innovative aesthetic and real risk in every project. When I look around Vancouver, and British Columbia in general, I see a great deal of good architecture, careful, considered and well-made; however great architecture, the kind that makes civilians care about it, is rare. Bing Thom Architects, Patkau Architects, Henriquez Partners, Busby Perkins+Will, and Shape Architecture among others consistently do excellent work. Projects like the Shangri-La, the new Convention Centre, the Surrey City Centre Library and others have artistry and ambition, and are inspiring. Social responsibility and architectural beauty can be harmonious, look at Woodwards or Bruce Erickson Place; it’s time for us to move beyond this false dichotomy. Beyond simply good, I would also like to see the next-level international design flair found in a Seattle Central Library, an LA Art Tower, or a MAXXI Museum. I'm not talking about project scale, more about a bold attitude of really reaching for something special, even if it's minimal pet-architecture projects that simply attempt a new approach.

I would like to see the talent in British Columbia outgrow its provincial roots and take its rightful place in international contemporary architecture. This is a place that supported the then-audacious vision of Arthur Erickson. I would like to see us sprout our own Zaha Hadids, Eric Owen Mosses, Will Alsops, Frank Gehrys, Michael Maltzans, Thomas Heatherwicks, Antoine Predocks, Rem Koolhaas, Atelier Bow-Wows, Herzog & De Meurons, and Snohettas. We have all the creativity, technology and talent to make this happen, we just need the attitude to try something new, and to engage citizens, politicians and planners so they're excited about it too. Most importantly, we need to truly work together multigenerationally, so that the best of each generation is synergized into a greater whole. If we're prepared to take the social risk we can really try something new, creative, unprecedented, beautiful and special.

If we're going to spoil the view, let us outshine the view.