ADP News 

ADPs Eddie Weir and Matthew Weir along with the regional committee for the CIAT have organised to have the CIATs annual general meeting and presidents diner dance brought to Northern Ireland. The event is set to attract over 300 professionals form throughout the construction industry and academics in Architectural Technology and the built environment from across the UK, Republic of Ireland, Hong Kong and overseas. 

 

The event was incredibly successful and featured over the course of two days.  

Friday 16th November, Following a civic reception hosted by the High Sheriff Alderman May Campbell, members were invited to take a guided tour of Belfast City Hall followed by a Titanic themed quiz hosted by the titanic society in the Europa Hotel.  

 

The presidents diner dance and awards show was hosted on Saturday 17th November in the grand banqueting facilities at the new Titanic Belfast. The prestigious black tie evening was extremely successful with live music provided by the Belfast Jazz Orchestra. 

The past year has seen Belfast celebrate the centenary of the launch of the Titanic and the city’s shipbuilding heritage, while CIAT has been celebrating a year which included its Chief Executive, Francesca Berriman being honoured with an MBE for services to the Architectural Technology profession. 

 

Following a civic reception hosted by the High Sheriff Alderman May Campbell, CIAT’s AGM was held in the Europa Hotel. The President’s Dinner Dance was held in the grand Titanic Suite at the Titanic Belfast. It was here that CIAT presented its annual Awards with over 300 guests from across the construction industry including VIPs Dame Mary Peters, Lord Lieutenant of Belfast, and Sammy Wilson MP, Minister of Finance and Personnel. 

 

President Colin Orr said ‘The hospitality and warm welcome...made this a truly memorable visit and we couldn’t have asked for a better setting than the new Titanic Belfast building.’ 

The event has been widely acknowledge to have been a fantastic success and many have thanked the efforts of the Northern Ireland Regional members who worked hard to make the event so enjoyable. 

 

The chosen charity for the AGM was Marie Curie. 

A collection at the President’s Annual Dinner Dance raised an impressive £2,024.06 for Marie Curie Nursing Care.  

Suzy McIlveen, Regional Fundraising Events Manager for Northern Ireland, described the total as ‘brilliant’ and added ‘this equates to 101 hours of nursing care’. 

Eddie Weir arranged an extremely well attended CPD event at the brand new Belfast Metropolitan Arts Centre (MAC).  

 

Mr Mike Christie, Senior Building Control Officer at Belfast City Council gave an overview presentation outlining the recently implemented changes to the N.I. Building Regulations, where Part F, Conservation of fuel and power was the main topic for the evening discussion. 

 

The Northern Ireland Building Regulations have now moved away from the current ‘Deemed to satisfy’ route of compliance, which we were all familiar with, and this has been replaced by a ‘Guidance’ based system. 

 

In conjunction with this change, some areas of the regulations themselves (to greater or lesser extents) have been revised and as a consequence are supported by up-graded technical standards.  

 

The outcome of these changes will broadly align Northern Ireland with building regulations used throughout the UK. 

 

The second part of the evening was presented by Mr Danny Kearney, Group Technical Manager with Xtratherm, were members and guests got the opportunity to look at the specifications required to meet the new Part F standards.  

Particular attention was paid to the new thermal bridging requirements along with U-values and air tightness targets which are the key components to low energy fabric design. 

At the end of year show detailed below, one of the awards given out this year was the ADP Prize for the highest achieving first year student on the course of Architectural Technology and Management. 

This was an exceptionally well attended double CPD seminar which was held at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown. 

 

The evening began with a joint CPD event by RTU and Heating and Energy Solutions on the topic of hemihydrate liquid floor screeds, underfloor heating design and associated heating and energy design solutions. 

RTU are the first in Ireland to have produced a premixed hemihydrate liquid floor screed, and their presentation focused on the benefits and technical elements of the product. 

Heating & Energy Solutions have many years of experience within the heating and energy industry and their presentation concentrated on underfloor heating design to compliment the hemihydrate screed and other 

products which they offer to provide a complete heating and energy design solution. 

 

The evening concluded with the presentation of student awards from the BSc Architectural & Technology & Management course and an opportunity to view samples of the students work / projects. 

 

 

ADPs Eddie and Matthew Weir are working as part of the Northern Ireland region of the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists (CIAT) to host the upcoming annual general meeting and presidents diner dance in Belfast.