NEWS
The ACA continuously looks for opportunities to provide updates on industry developments; our news articles cover a broad spectrum of topics; membership may be required for full access to some articles.
Implementing the Principal Designer role across different types of projects
In July the ACA held its second event covering the Principal Designer role. It provided the opportunity for us to reiterate our position that architects should be acting as Principal Designer for both BR & CDM where possible. However the afternoon sessions focussed on the practicalities of what is involved in acting as BRPD on different types of project. Highlights of the day Our President (now Immediate Past President) [...]
Strategy for the built environment professions, trades and occupations
Here is a summary of the ACA response to the MHCLG Call for Evidence The Association of Consultant Architects (ACA) response to the MHCLG Call for Evidence: Strategy for the Built Environment Professions, Trades and Occupations argues that the central weakness of the UK construction system is not primarily a lack of professional guidance or competence frameworks, but the absence of enforceable regulation of the people actually performing critical [...]
ACAPAG STOP PRESS REPORT: October 2026
Following draft regulations in Parliament to introduce a mandatory national scheme of delegation for planning decisions, the Town & Country Planning (Discharge of Local Planning Authority Functions) Regulations, made under the Planning and Infrastructure Act, come into force on 31 October. So in future applications will either be Schedule 1: always delegated to planning officers for a decision - or Schedule 2: presumed delegated to officers but can be [...]
The role of the architect – forty years of change and what comes next
Philip Waddy writes: When I qualified as an architect over forty years ago, the world—and our profession—felt very different from today. It was a time of drawing boards, tracing paper, and a planning system that, while far from perfect, felt navigable—perhaps even predictable. There were no mobile phones and no email; communication was by telephone or post. The architect was often seen as the conductor of the built environment [...]
Designing Buildings, a shared open wiki
You may or may not have heard of the Designing Buildings wiki. You may know it not by name but by its familiar look, or referenced it from web searches, or more recently it may have influenced an AI response to a construction enquiry you made. As a brand, it stands out now as simple, perhaps traditional, within the range of media platforms that now exist, but it is [...]
R&D tax relief
R&D tax relief The R&D tax relief pendulum swings back to the Centre, writes Andrew Hastie After years of excess, followed by over-correction and uncertainty, the UK’s R&D tax relief regime is finally finding its feet. The result is a system that is fairer, clearer and more supportive of Britain’s architectural innovators. The philosopher Hegel observed that progress rarely moves in straight lines. Instead, it swings, overreaches, and is [...]
Recent Post