ASD 25th Anniversary Symposium It is my great pleasure of being invited by the Architectural Se r vic es D e part m e n t (A S D) t o join th e A S D 25t h Anniversary Symposium held on 11 April 2011 at a newly completed and well-equipped auditorium at Customs Headquarters Building, North Point. ASD is one of the closest working partners with our building surveying profession. It is essential to keep a close dialogue and information update on the policy, works plans and development of ASD with our BS profession. The symposium entitled “Partnership to serve with care” provided an encouraging review of the achievements done by ASD in the past 25 years in which I can see the indispensible contribution of many building surveyors who worked in ASD or served the ASD in various aspects. Presentations on several topics have covered green and sustainable design, the New Engineering Contract procurement approach, facilities management and barrier free design for the society. Our President, Mr Wong Bay was also invited to the panel discussion and has taken the opportunity to highlight the importance of future maintenance and upkeeping considerations in the design process of a building. From this perspective, I can see the role and prospect of building surveyors. Visit to King Yin Lei (景賢里) Representatives of HKIS were invited by the Development Bureau to join the visit to the restored King Yin Lei on 20 April 2011. I joined the visit and was deeply impressed by the great work of the project team and specialist in undertaking the restoring works to the damaged building. A video show was casted to explain and recap the entire restoration works process. Besides, it elaborated how the technical hurdles were overcome. I believe it is a good opportunity for us, building surveyors, to learn and appreciate the professional and technical skills required for carrying out this kind of heritage restoration works. We may also explore the roles and opportunities of building surveyors in this respect through a real-life case. APC Assessors and Councilors Gathering BSD organized a gathering with assessors and councilors on 14 April 2011 to update ourselves the APC issues. Chairman of Divisional Education Committee (DEC), Professor Barnabas Chung updated us the latest APC Rules & Guides and highlighted the critical issues that the APC assessors were expected to note and observe. We had more than 60 assessors/councilors attended the experienced BSs to share their thinking regarding the training of our future BSs. BSD is undergoing a review of the existing APC rules and guides to cater for the proposed APC/ATC reform of the Institute. Our DEC is preparing to conduct a questionnaire survey in seeking members’ views on our APC system and members are encouraged to respond and express views on this topic which will have great bearing not only on our assessment mechanism, but also quality of our future BSs. In order to help our probationers better prepare the APC, we have enhanced our training schedule by introducing extra elements on top of the revision courses. The first event of this newly structured series is the debriefing of Practical Task (PT) 2010 which will be held at SLC on 8 June 2011 (Wednesday). We have invited members of the Practical Task Working Group advising on the skills and technique in handling the task and responding to questions posted by assessors. Besides, candidates with good performance in the PT 2010 will give demonstrations and share with the audiences on how to prepare for the challenging task. Another new element that will be introduced this year is a mock assessment for candidates for which participants will visit and stay at a camp site for a weekend in carrying out the practical task. Details of the event will be announced later. Practice Update Amendment to Building (Construction) Regulations Members may wish to note that Buildings Department (BD) has recently introduced a legislation amendment to the Building (Construction) Regulations to modernize and update the design requirements for imposed loads on buildings via the Building (Construction) (Amendment) Regulation 2011 which was gazette on 14 January 2011. Subject to any amendments by the LegCo., the new regulation will come into operation on 1 August 2011. In essence, B(C)R 17 will be amended to provide for the following main issues : a) Where the floor of a building is used to support any equipment, machinery or display item that will result in a greater imposed load than the minimum imposed load specified in the new Table 1, the load of any of those items has to be considered in determining the imposed load on the floor. b) The uses of buildings and their corresponding minimum imposed load requirements are re-categorized from the existing 12 classes into eight classes in the new Table 1. c) The existing minimum imposed load requirements for certain uses (e.g. domestic use, restaurants, car-parking areas, etc) are reduced. The minimum imposed load requirements for some new uses of buildings (e.g. residential care homes for elderly persons, nursing homes, dance practice rooms, karaoke establishments, museums, etc) and present-day building elements (e.g. utility platforms) are introduced. d) No reduction of the imposed loads shall apply with respect to floors used for storage purposes and loads from partitions the positions of which are not indicated on the plan of the building. e) The allowable reduction of total distributed imposed loads for buildings is revised (as contained in the new Table 2) to allow less load reduction in structural design for high-rise buildings. f) The minimum horizontal imposed load on protective barriers for areas where people may congregate but overcrowding is not expected is specified in the new Table 3. g) The existing formulae for calculating impact forces on vehicle barriers in different areas are substituted by one single formula applicable to all situations. [Extracted from Legislative Council Paper No. LS 23/10-11] A Code of Practice for Dead and Imposed Loads 2011 is being drafted by the BD to serve as the technical guidelines for the operation of the amended B(C)R 17. Members may wish to note the future announcement by BD on the implementation of the new Code. Registration Requirements for Registered Inspectors (RIs) under the MBIS BD has recently circulated a paper regarding the proposal on the requirements for registration as a RI under the proposed MBIS to members of the Building Sub-Committee (BSC) for comments. I have received the same as a member of the BSC. In brief, BD is basically proposing to accept registered building professionals with qualifications similar to that required for registration as APs/RSEs with 1 year’s practical experience in building construction, repair and maintenance for application as RIs. Additionally, BD proposes to accept RPEs in building discipline, building services (building) discipline and materials (building) discipline with 1 to 3 years’ practical experience in building construction, repair and maintenance for application as RIs. Out of these 3 additional professional disciplines, we have strong reservation to the acceptance of building services (building) and materials (building) disciplines for being eligible for application as RIs since we have no knowledge to the relevancy of their academic qualifications and professional training to overall building defects diagnosis, repair and maintenance. I have raised strong objection on the same in the recent BSC meeting and wish BD would review the proposal for the sake of overall public safety and benefit.