Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
Working as Part 1 Architectural Assistants since graduation earlier this year, there are many new elements to architecture that we, as newbies in the working world, have become aware of. Today’s post is dedicated to breaking down what a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is, how they are carried out in the UK architecture field and the general requirements set by the RIBA. It would be interesting to hear about how architects in other countries are expected to keep knowledge of the developments in our field as well. So, if you’re on the path to become an architect outside the UK, head on over to our Instagram to share your thoughts!
Many fresh architecture graduates and potentially students have probably come across the acronym CPD which stands for ‘Continuing Professional Development ’. The term refers to a lifelong learning process in which professionals take upon themselves to stay informed about how our industry is improving: developments within sustainability, technology, new materials, etc.
Having said this, CPD’s are not specific to the architecture field and many other professionals from different backgrounds also have their own obligations to fulfil in order to keep up-to-date with the latest industry developments. Personally, we think this is a good way of keeping our minds fresh about what is going on in the industry around us since we no longer have an institutional body, like a university, who constantly feeds us with this sort of information.
After parting from the educational side of your architecture journey, keeping up to date with the industry now becomes a personal commitment for individuals to make. In order to guarantee that individuals are going above and beyond what they learnt during their journey as an architect, the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) requires all chartered members to undertake CPDs in order to sustain competence in an ever-growing sector.
The RIBA Requirements
RIBA Chartered Members need to comply with a certain criteria when it comes to the topic of CPDs.To attend CPDs you are also required to record your undertaking as evidence for the institute. What is expected, goes as follows:
Each year to dedicate at least 35 hours of time towards CPDs
To prepare for half of your CPDs to be structured (not all informal)
For at least 20 hours of your dedicated CPD time to cover the 10 mandatory RIBA Core Curriculum CPD Topics (two hours for each topic per year)
Acquiring a minimum of 100 learning points
Recording your CPD activities using the RIBA’s CPD record tool
It’s safe to say that the most unfamiliar thing for a recent architecture graduate or anyone with minimal post-graduate work experience amongst the list is, “What are the 10 Mandatory RIBA Core Curriculum Topics?” We’ve listed them below so you can familiarise yourself with the summary of each section.
Topic 1: Architecture for Social Purpose
“The topic Architecture for social purpose helps you understand the social value, economic, and social benefits architecture brings for individuals. The topic covers improving life changes, social identity, cohesion, and wellbeing. It also addresses having the knowledge and skills to make informed, fair, and ethical choices and influence the project team and supply chain.” - RIBA
Topic 2: Health, Safety & Wellbeing
“The topic Health, safety and wellbeing helps you understand your legal, professional and ethical duties in relation to construction site and workplace safety and wellbeing. The topic also covers developing and managing appropriate strategies, processes, tools and systems, as designers, Principal Designers, architects, business and employers.” - RIBA
Topic 3: Business, Clients & Services
“The topic Business, clients and services covers the principles of good business practice and service provision, and the relevant legal frameworks. The topic also covers having the knowledge and skills to make sure that the business you own or work for is managed competently, ethically, effectively and efficiently, with sound financial and quality management, and appropriate systems, processes and procedures in place.” - RIBA
Topic 4: Legal, Regulatory & Statutory Compliance
“The topic Legal, regulatory and statutory compliance covers understanding and keeping up to date with the legal, regulatory and policy frameworks underpinning business, architecture and construction. The topic also covers having the knowledge and skills to apply these across the relevant aspects of the other CPD Core Curriculum topics.” - RIBA
Topic 5: Procurement & Contracts
“The topic Procurement and contracts covers understanding the legal and regulatory basis of the procurement system. The topic also covers having the knowledge and skills to negotiate consultant procurement and win work, and to ensure you have the right building or professional services contract or agreement in place for a project.” - RIBA
Topic 6: Sustainable Architecture
“The topic Sustainable architecture covers the legal and regulatory basis (including primary and secondary legislation) and principles of climate change mitigation and adaptation. It also covers low carbon and low energy design, over the life cycle of a building, with effective client briefing and management.” - RIBA
Topic 7: Inclusive Environments
“The topic Inclusive environments covers the legislation and principles that apply to creating inclusive environments which meet the diverse needs of the people who want to use them. It also covers having the knowledge and skills to develop and implement inclusive design strategies and methods at all spatial scales.” - RIBA
Topic 8: Places, Planning & Communities
“The topic Places, planning and communities covers the legal, regulatory and policy frameworks for creating successful urban and rural places, and the relevant planning processes and procedures. The topic also includes having the knowledge and skills to create successful buildings, within the context of neighbourhoods, towns and cities.” - RIBA
Topic 9: Building Conservation & Heritage
“The topic Building conservation and heritage covers understanding the legislative framework and principles of conservation practice. It also includes having the right knowledge, skills and techniques, or access to the right specialists, to work on conservation (repair and maintenance) projects and historic or listed buildings and places.” - RIBA
Topic 10: Design, Construction & Technology
“The topic Design, construction and technology covers understanding, and keeping up to date with, the technical, design, engineering, services and technological issues, trends and changes. It also covers having the knowledge and skills to deliver a successful building process using the latest technology in a rapidly changing industry and profession.” - RIBA
CPD Relevance to Office
The criteria set by the RIBA might seem limiting or overly specific; however, the institute does expect and encourage practices to pick out which CPDs they think would fit their types of work and their employees best. It also doesn’t need to be organised or set up by the RIBA in order for it to be recognised by the RIBA as long as it ticks off the rest of points on the criteria mentioned previously. For example; In the scenario where you are working at a small office based in London, a CPD about design for natural disasters in Japan seems a bit irrelevant unless you have any clients willing to assign you to a project there. You may end up learning something new but the CPD does not actively show presence in your day-to-day projects since they are London-based.
Instead, directors may appoint a CPD for the team which looks into local materials which can be used for types of projects that client’s come to the office with e.g. ground floor extensions, small new builds, etc.
Recording a CPD
RIBA chartered members (architects) are expected to record their CPDs to show as evidence for the participation. This is done through the RIBA CPD recording tool which can be found in a RIBA member’s account portal. It is amongst one of the drop down menus under ‘My Account’. Thankfully, considering how much intricacies there are within the CPD obligation criteria, a CPD record usually doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes to complete and then submit!
Personal Experience
Up to this date, since starting my role as a Part 1 Architectural Assistant, I have taken part in a couple CPDs covering mainly technologies or products that we could realistically specify for our projects. Most of which would fall into Topic 6 & 10. I also never knew that in some cases, you may be sent a CPD certificate commemorating your attendance… reminded me of primary school but I’ll happily take praise for my time and effort :D
Where I work, CPDs can be organised by anyone and a key focus is put on the relevance of the CPD to our practice ethos. We are keen on applying what we learn in our CPDs to our ongoing projects and I have been able to witness this very recently for a project that is currently in Stage 5. You may have seen me documenting this over on our Instagram these past couple of weeks! If you're not following us already, be sure to check out our Instagram stories so you can follow along with our experiences at work, including any future CPD sessions we might attend.
As we’ve mentioned already, we’d love to hear about the equivalents of CPD’s in other qualifying architectural bodies outside of the UK or any CPD’s you as an employee in an office have partook in. All in all, these sessions are a great way to continue the habit of learning and applying new knowledge to your work as an architect.
If you’d like more content relating to being a Part I Architectural Assistant, or the working world of architecture, stay interacting with stories on Instagram or drop us a DM to let us know what you’d like to see from us in the future!
