Jane Hamlyn, Atelier 3 Ltd
RIBA South West Chair 2020 - 2021
RIBA South West Immediate Past Chair 2021 - 2022
Looking back on my time as South West Chair, it hasn’t been at all what I expected due to the pandemic but this had led to some unexpected highlights. The shift to online meetings was actually a revelation for our events and committees where members are so geographically dispersed.
These technological advances were mirrored in practice too as we adapted to this new challenge. In a rural region such as the South West, online meetings and working from home have become valuable time saving opportunities. My practice, like many others, continues to work from home, operating even more efficiently than we did in the office. The environmental benefits of this are obvious too. However, we must be cautious not to lose the role a studio has to play in great architecture. Working together to generate ideas and solve problems creatively can also be something special. It has been particularly difficult for sole practitioners over the last year and the rapid changes to regulation and responsibility have not made this any easier.
In addition to this, the rising threat of climate change is probably the biggest challenge of our generation and architects are in a prime position to help. Our People Place Planet programme (in conjunction with RIBA Wessex) has been particularly successful in this respect with impressive numbers of attendees. As the industry wakes up to the forthcoming climate crisis I feel confident I am handing over the chair role to the right person at the right time. Sarah Lee has already made an impact through her work with RIBA Plymouth and will have no trouble steering our region through the challenge to come.
Sarah Lee, Stride Treglown
RIBA South West Chair 2021 - 2023
With the Future Plymouth 2030 webinar series, we have attempted to break down actions, words, themes and topics relating to carbon reduction in the built environment into bite size chunks trying to make it tangible and comprehensible to all people. We have attracted students, lecturers, construction professionals and 'laypeople' with an interest to understand what we can do. We all use buildings; we live/work/shop/play in them (normally). We are not just focusing on the design of new buildings, but also the reuse and retrofitting of existing buildings too.
A strong theme for me while being RIBA South West Regional Chair will be to concentrate on getting this message out to our members that we all need to be doing more, better and faster, to reduce carbon in our designs and projects with the national target of 2030 to achieve net zero carbon, looming ever closer. Nine years is not really very long.
As a profession, and generally, principals of construction industry design teams, as thought leaders, action provokers and trusted advisors to our clients, we have a duty to ensure that all architects are empowered and educated sufficiently to feel that they are capable of leading this charge. And with COP26 being hosted in the UK this year too, this presents our nation and profession with an even greater sense of responsibility and leadership.
