Cabinet sends amendments to the Architect Title Act to Parliament
The cabinet today approved the proposal by Minister Cramer of the Department of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment to send amendments of the Architect Title Act (WAT in its Dutch acronym) to Parliament. Principals must be able to rely on the professionalism of architects. Confidence in architects will increase if they have a command of the construction process from beginning to end. To be able to utilise the title of architect, a two-year professional experience period must be completed in addition to attaining the required diploma. This arrangement also applies to town planners, garden and landscape architects and interior architects.
These amendments will restructure the Architect Title Act into a more powerful quality instrument, and the Netherlands will no longer lag behind in the professional competence requirements imposed on architects in neighbouring nations. Belgium, Germany, Britain and France also have a mandatory professional experience period. The desirability and necessity of a professional experience period are widely supported by both training institutions and professional organisations. Eight years of preparation have gone into the amendments to this Act.
The amendments to the Architect Title Act will particularly affect future generations of architects, town planners, garden and landscape architects and interior architects. Conditional upon the amendments coming into effect in 2011, the obligation to undergo a professional experience period will apply from 2012. A transition period will also be enabled. Implementation of the amendments has been delegated to the 'Bureau Architectenregister' (Architects Register Office). The Bureau Architectenregister has appointed a project organisation to this end, chaired by the former Chief Government Architect Rijnboutt.
You can download a summary in English of the amendments here.
WAT Management Summary English.pdf