Election of Chair and Vice Chair of the Architects Registration Board (ARB)

Election of Chair and Vice Chair of the Architects Registration Board (ARB) (04/02/2008)

ARB has a Board of fifteen members, seven of whom are architects elected by the profession. The remaining eight are members of the public appointed by the Privy Council to represent the interests of consumers and users of architectural services.

The Board elects a Chair and a Vice Chair annually and the conduct of the election is governed by the Board’s General Rule 6.

Nomination for the positions of Chair and Vice Chair are invited from members of the Board. ARB is pleased to announce that Michael Starling, who was originally elected as Chair on 23 February 2007, has been elected unopposed to continue as Chair of the Board for the next year.

The position of Vice Chair is to be contested and ARB announces that the following are standing for election:-

Colin Roy Brock

Sarah Lupton

A ballot will be held on 21 February 2008 and the results will be announced thereafter.

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Notes for Editors

Michael Starling is a design academic, starting his career with over fifteen years as a tutor and then Senior Tutor in Industrial Design at the Royal College of Art where he helped set up a joint course with Imperial College of Science and Technology and an early course in the Design of the Human Computer Interface. As a convinced European, during his time at the RCA he also advised the French Ministry of Research and Technology on the development of their design education strategy.

Later, his research specialisation into computer simulation as an integrated design and engineering tool took him into industry as a software consultant to multinational manufacturing companies as they started to adopt this emerging technology soon to be better known as virtual reality. Returning to academic life in 1992 at the Manchester Metropolitan University, he managed the merger of the two schools of architecture in the city, becoming its first Administrative Director until 2001. For five years, he was a member of AGOCG, a HE Funding Council Group that advised universities on the introduction of computer graphics and which encouraged the early adoption of the World Wide Web. He is now the Head of Academic Development for the Faculty of Art and Design.

ARB is the statutory body established by Parliament under the Architects Act 1997 to regulate the UK architects’ profession in the public interest. The Act requires ARB (among other things) to:

• Maintain the Register of Architects (Section 3)

• Prescribe qualifications for entry to the Register of Architects (Section 4)

• Deal with competence to practise (Section 9)

• Issue a Code which lays down standards of professional conduct and practice (Section 13)

• Regulate use of the title “architect” and prosecute those who use it unlawfully (Section 20)