New laws are in the pipeline aimed at protecting local architectural firms, The Royal Gazette has learned.

The new legislation is designed to ensure that if an overseas firm of architects wants to do business on the Island it must have a licence in Bermuda or it must work through a local firm.

The Institute of Bermuda Architects is currently in the process of revamping the 1969 Architects Act and hopes to get the legislation passed soon.

The new laws would also require local professional architects to have indemnity insurance to better protect the public.

According to Stuart Galloway, a senior architect at Conyers & Associates, this will provide insurance companies with "sufficient confidence in the professional that they are willing to insure him or her as having reached a minimum education standard -- a minimum level of expertise.'' He added, "It's too easy for foreign architectural practices to take bread out of the mouths of Bermudians.

"So to combat that, the Institute of Bermuda Architects would like to see the requirement that foreign practices obtain a licence here which will not necessarily be freely given.

"Ideally it should have a Bermudian company and by virtue of that a Bermudian architect.'' Other members of the Institute of Bermuda Architects contacted by The Royal Gazette declined to comment on the proposed changes at this stage.

But Harold Conyers, founder and owner of Conyers and Mr. Galloway said it was important to maintain high standards.

As members of the Institute of Bermuda Architects they said they would like to see the local profession brought into line with overseas jurisdictions such as the United States who require a licence to perform as architects there.

"Architects coming in from the US or the UK or wherever they come from, while they get a flavour for architecture in Bermuda, don't know all the subtleties of getting a building built and working here on the Island.

"A lot of architects don't have the vagaries of shipping stuff here, they don't have to deal with our marine environment,'' Mr. Galloway said.

"There are certain types of locks that are made for a marine environment and there have been a number of times that we have had to correct information received from abroad to make it suit our local environment.

"People laugh when we say...you have to design for horizontal rain, in the last couple of weeks we have had horizontal rain.''