Architects across the country are appalled that a law enabling around 4,000 civil engineers to submit and sign-off architectural projects, has been passed by the review committee. The bill allowing engineers to sign-off architectural designs was approved on Thursday and is "a setback and a shame" according to the Vice President of the Order of Architects, Daniel Fortuna do Couto.
The bill was approved unanimously by the Parliamentary Committee for the Economy, Innovation and Public Works and introduces a probability that engineers who have been on one of four approved higher education courses can sign-off architectural projects.
Bill No.495 / XII, which was approved in July 2017 by MPs, was batted back to the Parliamentary Committee for review. It now will be sent to parliamentary legal services for tweaking.
According to the president of the architects’ order in the north of the country, it is unacceptable that in a democratic country, qualifications are allocated by decree, stating that this group of engineers had a transitional period of eight years to take a course in architecture – “some made the effort and some did not."
Also, civil engineers who sign architectural drawings will not be criminally or civilly liable for mistakes and design errors, unlike architects who have to have professional liability insurance.
"The engineers will provide a service without being subject to the same type of penalties of the architects, since clients will not be able to appeal to the courts for defects in architectural projects," says the order.
With the decision taken on Thursday, the Order said that it will use all available means to reverse what it considers to be a legislative retrograde step that completely disrespects a professional class of more than 24,000 architects.
Álvaro Siza, Vieira Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura were some of the architects who signed a petition last summer, claiming that architecture should only be performed by professionals qualified for the purpose, that is, those who have qualified as architects.
This argument is an old one, beginning in 1986, when the Portuguese Government informed the European Community that in Portugal, in addition to recognised Architecture courses, there were four engineering courses that would enable students to act as architects, contrary to the information given to the EU when Portugal was trying to get into the EEC.
