All,
The discussion continues...
Some of you are going to view this as a "flip flop" viewpoint. In advance, I will make my apologies in advance to those of you I have or will offend with this apparent reversal or clarification... ...it must be a result of my tenure in the DC Metro area...
To set the stage, please accept;
This certainly appears, in my humble opinion, to be a regional issue given the diverse orientation of opinions posting from the west / south and ol' rust belt / northeast members. It's always appeared, to me, the west and south have been a bit more liberal toward these "exempt structures" practice laws. In addition, yes, this is a "democratic" issue more than most members would care to admit. ...not speaking of the big "D", of course...
Nevertheless, to the point of this posting, I was a bit concerned to read a recent posting indicating a designer was collaborating with architects and engineers, where it appeared, to be the designer was obtaining "rubber stamp" services from an architect for submission purposes. Moreover, these types of practices can become a "slippery slope", since those of us being "licensed design professionals" have legal and moral responsibilities to that regard.
The law and code (of ethics), criminalize such activities. With that said, I know this fringe type of practice exists. However, is it really worth it?
RA's should / must ONLY sign / seal documents that they are involved in preparing... To rubbers stamp approach hurts all of us even in the pretext of "review". Except of course, for the criminals who are practicing in such a manner. With that said, if there is a some form of Collaboration Contract with such a Designer, I'll stand corrected....
Furthermore, promoting some other form of unlicensed practitioner in such a manner, and I would personally frown on that methodology, appears to me to be detrimental to our ultimate goals, as well as, a bit outside of this particular discussion.
Going back to the discussion at hand, "we (as the AIA) need to lobby (strongly, to state legislative bodies) to obtain all of the services areas within the Design Profession. Our functional integrity has been eroded away from the points of practice as it stood in the 1970's" (i.e. In 1985, RA's in California could design, engineer (including calculations), and seal all habitable works except for "bridges and calc for hospitals". Those days, of having the larger piece of the pie, are long gone due to encroachments by other operators such as CE's, LS's, Int Designers, CM's, Environmental Specialties, etc....)LOL
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Stephen Dunakoskie AIA
Riordan Construction Group Inc
Leesburg VA
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