The Canadian Architectural Licensing Authorities has announced changes to the Internship in Architecture Program (IAP) Manual, as of July 1, 2020.
The change allows Recognized Students to log up to 760 experience hours pre-graduation towards the IAP, as long as those hours satisfy the other requirements of the program – for example, gained under the supervision of an architect.
In order to be eligible, students must be enrolled in a CACB accredited architectural program and have completed at least 60 credit hours with an accredited program. Students wishing to log work experience may also need to register with their provincial or territorial licensing authority. Only hours gained as of July 1, 2020 may be recognized and there is no retroactive application of this provision.
The fundamental purpose of the pre-registration/licensing employment period is to ensure that the Recognized Student is provided with sufficient ‘hands-on’ architectural experience to meet the standards of practical skill and level of competence required to engage in the practice of architecture in Canada.
Other changes include:
- Addition of two discrete practice categories– energy literacy/sustainability and envelope detailing;
- Overall review of the level of required competency; and
- Format revisions
These two architectural experience categories were previously subsumed under other experience categories, but were deemed sufficiently important to be specific categories with allocated minimum hours.
The fourth edition of the national IAP Manual (PDF) is available for review here, and the accompanying Appendix B to the IAP Manual will be updated to reflect these recent changes and any transition provisions.