Board Bulletin – November 2022, An update from Chair of the RIBA Board, Jack Pringle.

Dear Members,??

It’s Jack Pringle here – Chair of the RIBA Board – with my second Board Bulletin to share our latest developments.??

Since my summer update, with the help of your representatives on RIBA Council, we’ve made further progress on many fronts. In summary; we’ve had a great awards season, bringing the Stirling Prize ceremony back home to 66 Portland Place, we are going to COP 27 with a strong message about low energy buildings and the importance of retrofitting the existing stock, we’ve appointed a new CEO and three new executive directors, we are working hard on correcting the Institute’s finances, we are rationalising our property platform and we are bringing in a fairer Chartered Practice fee structure. We’ve been busy! Now for the detail.?

Supporting and celebrating architecture through our global network of members and practices is at the very top of our agenda. Therefore, I wanted to begin by briefly reflecting on awards season. Congratulations to Niall McLaughlin Architects which won the 2022 Stirling Prize with The New Library, Magdalene College in Cambridge, and the recipients of our other special awards. If you want to see what makes The New Library so special, take a look at this short film and hear from the architects and client. This year, we brought the ceremony back to 66 Portland Place and it was a delight to see our magnificent building packed with guests – and the BBC.?

Coming soon, you will be able to see the homes in the running for the 2022 RIBA House of the Year, in a special four-part series on Channel 4. Now in its seventh run, the inimitable Kevin McCloud and co will reveal the shortlist and winner of our award for the UK’s best new home. Tune in from next Wednesday (16 November) at 9pm on Channel 4.??

Our annual awards programme is one of the most important ways we celebrate our members’ achievements and shout about great architecture to audiences in the millions, on the global stage. From the projects shortlisted for Regional Awards, to the UK’s best new building, these places and spaces showcase your talent, tenacity, and their ability to enhance people’s lives. We will be calling for 2023 entries shortly, so please do get involved – either as an entrant or judge.??

On to current news and activity. As you will know, the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is currently taking place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.? Alongside other RIBA representatives, Simon Allford, our President will be taking part in purposeful discussions about how we, alongside our global built environment counterparts, can do more to tackle the climate emergency. We will focus on designing buildings with a climate conscious trajectory (RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge), retrofitting existing housing stock (our National Retrofit Strategy), adapting our built environment to climate change and our policy recommendations which are set out in the RIBA Built for the Environment report.??

Back to RIBA Board business now with an important update on finances.??

We are making positive progress in recalibrating the organisation’s finances following the pandemic - to reduce our operating costs and make sure we have resources where they are needed most.??

We have just published our 2021 financial statements and Annual Report . Of course, by definition, these details are already out of date. They are helpful to reflect on our journey so far, and the foundations we put in place to get the organisation on a firmer financial footing. In 2020, we completed the terrific sale of our commercial arm, NBS, which generated approximately ￡170m - which we are now carefully investing. NBS used to gift us their profits of around ￡3.5m pa which of course stopped after the first part of the two part sale process. It takes some time to get the sale proceeds invested securely and profitably, especially in this turbulent market, so for a while we have a “mind the gap” deficit, until the investment income kicks in. This gap, between receiving NBS profits and getting investment income, accounts for nearly half the ￡8m deficit we are working on eradicating. This is also an extremely difficult economic climate to trade in with a huge inflation spike, interest rates relentlessly increasing and a long deep recession looming. It’s not easy, but we have a good team focussing on it.?

We are well on our way with transforming the organisation. This includes getting the organisation into the right shape and scale: smaller and leaner – a more agile, and much more architecture and member-focussed organisation?

As part of this, I’d next like to share a short update on appointments. I am delighted to announce that Dr Valerie Vaughan-Dick MBE becomes our new Chief Executive in January. Valerie has had an extensive career in transformation, strategic development and delivery and is currently Chief Operating Officer at the membership organisation, the Royal College of General Practitioners. Valerie’s successful track record in financial transformation and experience in forming international and professional partnerships will prove invaluable as we continue to transform RIBA and deliver our ambitious plans in support of architecture and all our members who create it, wherever they are based in the world.??

We have also recently been joined by three new members of our Executive Team with Laura Webb, our new Executive Director of Membership Experience, Oliver Urquhart Irvine joins as Executive Director of Architecture Programmes and Collections and Karen Beamish completes the list of hires by taking up the role of Executive Director, Products and Services. They all have big jobs to do; making the Institute more relevant to members, planning the future of the collections (post V&A) and our architecture programmes and last but not least, planning new income streams to support the Institute. We welcome them all and look forward to working with them.??

We’re also making headway with another key strand in our transformation - our property footprint rationalisation. We’re in the process of marketing the lease for 76 Portland Place and we’re exploring options for the long-term future for Mann Island. Like many organisations, our office and venues requirements have changed dramatically since the pandemic, and we simply need to streamline our operations. Most of our colleagues have moved to a hybrid or remote working model – and we have received extremely positive feedback from many members about their access to support.?

That brings me on to 66 Portland Place: the physical home of our House of Architecture initiative. This glorious building is RIBA’s long-term home. In my view it is the very best architecture institute’s building in the world. I’ve been to most of the others and know our international colleagues would give their eye teeth to have such a building. We hold it under a personal lease from the Howard de Walden estate and could not trade it, even if we wanted to. But who would want to? It’s a long-term legacy. But it’s simply not fit for purpose. It underperforms from a carbon, accessibility and inclusion perspective and we must surely lead by example in these matters. We need a low energy building that performs exceptionally well for members and venue clients, but that’s a complex task in a Grade II* listed building. We are carrying out a detailed feasibility study, led by Benedetti Architects, that we aim to complete by the end of January.??

The building remains just one part, the bricks and mortar element, of the House of Architecture concept. This will be a growing, globally, digitally accessible programme of exhibitions and events to inspire anyone who wants to engage with architecture.????

Finally, I want to touch on our 2023 membership fees. In September we announced a 7.5 percent increase to fees for Chartered, Affiliate and Associate Members which brings us back to the fee levels in real terms that we charged a few years ago. Now we are introducing a new pricing model for Chartered Practices, featuring a graded increase across the practice bands. This is broadly based on a fee per capita in the practice and is much fairer to small practices – who we want to encourage to join up. These rises aim to keep fees as low as possible, while ensuring we can continue to deliver the support and services you need. It’s also the first-time fees have increased for three years.?

I hope you found this summary useful. If you want to find out more about the work of RIBA Board, or have any feedback on this note, please email my assistant [email protected] . We want to make sure RIBA works for its growing global membership, and that relies on the feedback you share with us directly ([email protected] ) and through your elected representatives. ?

More from me in 2023.?

Best wishes,??

Jack Pringle????