This year, we; the CASA-ACEA team, have had much dialogue about what each School of Architecture would like to see CASA-ACEA do, during the AGM a description of what each School of Architecture does was provided by the respective CASA-ACEA representatives that participated in the AGM (Annual General Meeting). It was concluded that each School of Architecture, already has, great studio and social culture; the student work is regularly displayed by students and or faculty; and the students; through their respective governing student organizations, have their voice heard regarding their collective academic concerns. The CASA-ACEA team; at the AGM, unanimously concluded that a connection to the profession was a task that could be undertaken by CASA-ACEA.

Below are some highlights of what CASA-ACEA would like to see accomplished this year:

1. Obtaining an Event and Lectures Calendar to post on the website for each school, this would enable a person interested in attending a Lecture and or Event could do so on a given evening should they be in the vicinity. Eventually we plan to also upload videos of the Lecture Series from each school like a TED Talk via the CASA-ACEA website.
2. A monthly update on each School; by accessing the schools Blog will enable the person interested, to see the Studio Culture at a given School of Architecture.
3. An online guide to the Canadian Graduate Schools of Architecture ; such as the 2006 one, where a student interested in attaining a Masters degree would be able to access the information online via one site: the CASA-ACEA Website.
4. An online access to the National Portfolio, the National Portfolio is a collection of the best student work from the scholar year of 2007-2009.
5. How to become an Architect Lecture Series.
6. And last but certainly not least the: Firm Directory
   The firm directory will be a database of Architecture firms that students could use to aid their job / internship search. This database will use a list of filters that would enable the student to narrow down their search. Some filters which have already been suggested are the following:

• Programs used: Revit, AutoCAD, Maya, 3d Studio Max, Sketch Up, etc;
• Amount of employees; 
• Net worth of the Firm;
• Projects being built in a year;
• Types of projects: residential, commercial and or institutional, P3 projects etc.
• Year Founded
• Average Earning (if possible)
• Number of Interns
• Number of Summer Students per year and from which schools (Waterloo, Ryerson, UBC, Calgary, Dalhousie, etc.)
• Website of Firm and others could be added later.

These filters will then be put into a survey format and distributed to firms. Ideally these firms could provide us with their mission statement if applicable and a brief introduction of the principals outlook. The student would use this information to help them in catering their resume and portfolio to the firms of their well informed choice.

Students if you have any other suggestions of what you’d like to see on the firm directory, please don’t hesitate to contact us by clicking the little envelope below.

With kind regards,
Rosa Margarita Umaña-Rosales

Dear Canadian Architecture Student,

This weekend is the All Group Meeting. We will be discussing about the unveiling of our National Portfolio. We’ll have a link ready by this Saturday August 21st 2010, to show our Nation some of the best work of some fantastic hard working Canadian Architecture Students. During this AGM we’ll be talking about how we can have a better prescence in our respective architecture schools. If you have any suggestions, please don’t hesitate to contact us. See below for the Meeting Agenda for each day.

Friday August 20th, 2010
8:00 pm - 10:30 pm
CASA-ACEA we’ll be gaining MOMENTUM during dinner @ Magic Oven.
6 Wellesley Street West

Saturday August 21st, 2010
10:00 am - 4:00 pm
We’ll be meeting at University of Toronto, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. During this time we’ll be watching some videos by Tony Robbins, Daniel Pink, and reading excerpts from author Stephen Covey. We’ll be discussing how to make CASA-ACEA a more involved organization. If you have any suggestions, please contact us.

Some of the videos we’ll be watching: Tony Robbins and Daniel Pink.

Sunday August 22nd, 2010
11:00 am - 3:00 pm
We’ll be meeting at University of Toronto, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. AIAS Ryerson will be giving a presentation to the group during this time. We’ll have lunch and conitue with our momemtum in forming a RPM (Results, Purpose Driven, Massive Action Plan).

Come back to this page after the AGM for some great updates on what you can expect this scholar year at your school.

With kind regards,

Rosa M. Umaña-Rosales
Executive Director

Dear Canadian Architecture Students:

This is an exciting time right now, soon things will change for this association and more and more of your needs will be met in the recent future.

Stay tuned, after our All Group Meeting: August 20th-22nd  2010, we’ll be unveiling some juicy details for our National Organization.

With kind regards,

Rosa M. Umaña-Rosales
Executive Director

Hey everyone,

A bit of a late post, but here’s some updates from our all-group meeting (AGM) in October!

Left to Right:

• Amanda Wingenbach (Dalhousie - Secretary)
• Yolanda Cheung (Waterloo - Director)
• Rosa Umana Rosales (Ryerson - Executive Director)
• Grace Coulter (Calgary)
• Maria Nunez (Calgary)
• Sebastian Lubcynski (Ryerson - Treasurer)
• Nicolas Boutin (Ryerson)
• Mathieu Boucher-Cote (Laval - Publication Coordinator)

I’ve honestly never seen this much snow in October, but I suppose that’s Calgary for you.

Our hosts from UofC (Grace and Maria) graciously (no pun intended) gave us a meeting space in the School of Architecture building. We were also given a quick tour of the school, which consisted of an extremely well-equipped workshop and a bright and healthy studio. Apparently there was a rule that no one could melt things and cut foam because one of the students was pregnant. Which is an awesome rule, considering that around that time, my stduio alone had at least 5 heat guns and enough bubbling plastic to intoxicate the entire class. Fun.

Also it’s funny that, like Waterloo, Calgary had two hammocks stationed in two of the studios. (Waterloo’s hammock isn’t there anymore though.) I’d love to see how creative sleeping arrangements get in other schools!

Anyway, the meeting went well - we discussed the National Portfolio as well as Grad Guide, which Rosa mentioned in the earlier post. We also took a chance to discuss CASA’s future.

We threw around some ideas such as accreditation lectures, design-build competitions and possibly doing a charity work project (Similar to Habitat for Humanity). Everyone was very enthusiastic and creative, so that was very encouraging. I’d love to give all those ideas a chance… if we had the money!

Rosa and I would like to thank everyone who attended, and encourage the schools that did not to find out who their CASA rep is! You can find a full list of it here. We’d love to hear from you about what you would like to see in CASA, and what would really make your school life and career path easier.

If your school doesn’t have a rep, or you would like to get involved with CASA somehow, please contact me at director@casa-acea.org.

‘til next time!

Cheers,

Yolanda

Hello Team and Fellow Students!

I wanted to share this image with you, it’s an image that was taken during the RAIC festival held in Montreal last year.

• Starting from the top left:
  
  • Mathieu Boucher-Cote (Publications Co-ordinator)
  • Helene Arsenault (CACB Rep)
    
  • Lizbeth Guzman (Marketing Co-ordinator)
  • Carmen Hull (CACB Representative)
  • Alvaro Quispe (Ryerson Internal Rep)
  • Nicholas Boutin (Ryerson External Rep)
• Bottom left corner:
  
  • Alejandro Lopez (Past Director)
  • Adam Smith (Dalhousie External Rep)
  • Rosa Umaña-Rosales (Executive Director)
  • Yolanda Cheung (Director)

It was an enlightening event, from meeting the Padcau duo to speaking with Ian Chodikoff (Editor of Canadian Architect).  Having a heart to heart conversation with the CAGBC (Canadian Green Building Council) Representative and chatting it up with Vivian Manasc (Principal of Manasc Isaac Architects).  We held our AGM (All Group Meeting) at McGill, where we talked about the past projects:

• Grad Guide Publication 2006
• Ignition
• National Portfolio Events

Future projects:

• National Portfolio Publication 2010
• Grad Guide Publication 2010

During that meeting we seriously considered updating our website, which is the one you are on right now.  We’re happy of the current result and look forward to ameliorating the communication between our fellow architecture schools with every passing day.  We selected the future representatives; as noted above beside each name for 2009-2010, and we’re happy to announce that most of our tasks from the RAIC Festival of Architecture are almost completed.

This year we’ll be having the RAIC Festival of Architecture in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It will be held June 22 - 26 2010.  We’ll be having our AGM in Saskatoon and we’ll update all of you; via this website, as to what will be going on this upcomming 2010-2011 scholar year.

Please email us if you have any suggestions in enhancing communication between schools.  Just click the little envelope at the bottom should you have any comments.

Stay tuned for our future publications that will not be printed but will be displayed on this website.

Cheers All!

Rosa M. Umaña-Rosales