GIA CHAPTER REPORT: AUTUMN 2022

Fiona Sinclair received the New Zealand Institute of Architects President’s Award on 27th August.
To reflect the eleven hour time difference, a joint New Zealand / GIA meeting was arranged with New Zealand convening in the early evening and GIA convening at breakfast, and a good remote video link.

The Award citation reads:
“Fiona Sinclair is a community minded architect who cares about buildings and people. As an architect, author, historian and volunteer she has shone as a great carer of her community. She has worked on the maintaining and repairing of a diverse range of historic buildings including ancient monuments, tenements and a distillery. Her practice philosophy is based on the traditional use of materials and techniques.
She teaches regularly at Strathclyde University and brings real projects to the students. During the lockdown in Scotland not only did she help run a GIA Competition on the Duke of Hamilton's Memorial (entered by some NZ architects), but she also worked as a volunteer handing out activity packs and bags of fruit to struggling Glaswegian families. Throughout her career community has always been at the top of her list. This is a well-deserved award.”
Judi Keith-Brown, President, Te Kahui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects

Fiona Sinclair has been a consistently active force in GIA for many years, an encouraging and stabilising influence. GIA are delighted that Fiona has received this award, a great accolade from another nation. The President of the New Zealand Institute of Architects described the unusually prolonged rainfall they have been experiencing, and the increased emphasis their Institute is placing on measures to address climate change.

When we met, New Zealand’s spring was about to begin as Scotland stepped towards Autumn, a reminder that the seasonal cycle of growth, seeding, dying back and rebirth is the accident of a 23.4° tilt in the Earth’s axis. The seasons bring a familiar rhythm of renewal and evolution, while climate has become a driver for radical review and human ingenuity. Without that tilt, the interplay of light and shade throughout the year would become a constant, and architecture diminished. The long reach of the low winter sun set out the chambered cairn of Maeshowe, only illuminating its depths once a year. The seasons generate the cycle of life, allow us to mark time, and gave rise to annual rituals which bring people together. They bring the comfort of a predictable and stable ebb and flow. They inspire architectural form and manipulation of light throughout the year, for the delight of humanity.

Climate is now fomenting rapid change, disrupting that seasonal comfort. If we cannot rely on the regeneration of crops, the proliferation of pollen-bearing inspects, the annual migration of seed-dispersing species, and predictable temperatures, then the pleasures brought by the seasons will be sorely diminished.

The challenge of Climate Change is substantial, and will need an acceleration of technical and globally-considered initiatives. Architecture by definition has a significant part to play. The meeting with the New Zealand Institute of Architects connected two nations on opposite sides of the globe, and made clear that despite the separation of 1,126 miles we have the same aim of seeking stability and making Architecture provide solutions.

R Jonathan Potter FRIAS RIBA

President, Glasgow Institute of Architects