iiSBE news

Visit to Kaohsiung and Ping Tung in Taiwan

During the interval between the Chongqing and Sydney SBE16 conferences, Nils Larsson spent 6 days in Kaohsiung, a city of more than one million located in southern Taiwan. One of our colleagues in Kaohsiung, Paul Chou, is Director of the Department of Interior Design at Shu-Te University, and he arranged a week of activity that included jury duty in a design competition, visits to start-up ventures, meetings with senior staff of Kaohsiung City and Ping Tung City; and finally a public lecture to 60 academics, architects, engineers and students.

Joseph Li, who is Executive Director of the Taiwan iiSBE chapter and also Associate Professor at Shu-Te University, is organizing two parallel sessions at WSBE17 Hong Kong that focus on urban resilience in Asian cities and approaches to sustainability followed in Taiwan.

Climate change is now a major public concern in Taiwan, with summer daytime temperatures in Kaohsiung having increased by 2.1ºC over the last 100 years and summer night-time temperatures having increased by 2.3ºC. Other relevant facts are that there were 165 days in 2015 with temperatures over 30ºC, and that PM2.5 concentrations are of increasing concern.

Dominican Republic GBC members join iiSBE

Eight members of the Dominican Republic Green Building Council have decided to also join iiSBE to strengthen their international and research interests. Members of the DR iiSBE group include:

Angelica Sherber (President)
Michael Sherber (Treasurer)
Argentina Espaillat
Dulce Rodriguez-Ferencz
Ella R. de Lima
Hamlet Rodriguez
David Teller
Rafel Garcia Mena

We welcome the new group to iiSBE and hope to see them participating actively in future activities.

ÖGNB joins iiSBE

The Österreichische Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen (AKA the Austrian Green Building Council) has become a chapter of iiSBE. This step is welcomed by iiSBE President Luis Braganca as signaling that participation in iiSBE can be complementary to membership in the World Green Building Council (WGBC). The Spanish GBCe is also a member of both global networks.

For further information contact Peter Wallisch at office@oegnb.net, or Nils Larsson at larsson@iisbe.org.

Cities and Forms, by Serge Salat

We are happy to be able to bring you an offer for a major and very interesting new book on aspects of urban sustainability: Cities and forms - On sustainable urbanism. The principal author for this very content-rich volume of 543 pages is Serge Salat, head of the CSTB Urban Morphology Lab in Paris and also Chair of iiSBE's urban working group.
The book has a somewhat unusual history: it was written and produced as part of a large China-France cooperation project, and the work has therefore benefited from major financial support. This circumstance has allowed a very reasonable price despite high production values. For iiSBE members, the price is further reduced to 65 € (about $90 USD), including shipping of the 2.6 kg. volume.

We will be soon bringing you a full review of the book, but in the meantime here are some brief notes.

One strong element is the very interesting comparative morphological studies of major cities in several continents, all carried out on a 400 x 400 m or 800 x 800 m grid, leading to discussions on efficiency, densities, circulation and connectivity... also, a very satisfying attack on Le Corbusier. Other sections deal with underlying mathematical structures, climate change resiliency and urban assessment.
This is not just a pretty coffee-table book; it is massively content-rich and should be a priority purchase for anyone doing urban research.

SBChallenge11 proceedings

Image During last week's highly successful SB11 conference in Helsinki, iiSBE held its traditional SBChallenge - a collection of projects from all over the world.
Twenty-five projects from thirteen countries have entered the SBChallenge, and have provided a full paper, Key Performance Indicators and a video presentation.
This material is now available at http://sbchallenge.iisbe.org

Two special issues of Building Research and Information

iiSBE partner BRI journal has just published two special issues:


BRI special Issue: Deconstruction, demolition and destruction
Guest editors: André Thomsen, Frank Schultmann, Niklaus Kohler
BRI July-Aug 2011 vol 39-4

BRI special issue:Motivating stakeholders to deliver environmental change
Guest editor: Raymond J. Cole
BRI Sep-Oct 2011, vol 39-5

International trends in the development of rating systems

As part of a larger conference for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization, a two-day seminar on green buildings was held on 3-4 March 2011, in Washington DC. The seminar, Green Buildings and Green Growth: the Enabling Role of Standards and Trade, brought together some 100 people from 10 countries from the fields of trade, business, standards and building technology. Delegates known to most iiSBE members included Niclas Svenningsen of UNEP and Kazuo Iwamura from Japan.

Beyond welcomes and introductions, some 40 substantive presentations were made. Issues covered included the role of standards, EPDs (environmental product declarations) and rating systems in promoting or hindering global trade. Nils Larsson represented iiSBE and delivered a presentation titled International trends in the development of rating systems., which is attached.