5-7 October; SBE16 Tallinn Conference

Submitted by nlarsson on Sat, 11/26/2016 - 14:38

Tallinn and Helsinki collaborated to hold an SBE16 event during October 5-7. All of the sessions were held in Tallinn, at the Tallinn Spa and Conference Hotel, but a one-day excursion to Helsinki was organized for the third day of the event. The primary technical organizer was RIL, the Finnish Association of Civil Engineers, and EEL, the equivalent Estonian association.

The theme was Build Green and Renovate Deep, very appropriate in this region of relatively mature cities with older urban areas and large stocks of existing buildings. Sub-themes focused on financial and investment issues, green metrics, nearly zero buildings, incentives and models of deep and integrated renovation approaches, and energy issues related to all these aspects.

The event was a good mix of high technical standards and social informality. There were about 160 delegates and 94 peer-reviewed papers, a fairly typical size for a national / regional event.

Nils L.

SBE16 Thessaloniki: Sustainable Synergies from Buildings to the Urban Scale

Submitted by nlarsson on Sat, 11/26/2016 - 14:37

This event (16-19 October) was a successful reprise of a previous event that took part in the 2007 conference series. Plenary presenters included Thomas Luetzkendorf, on remaining objective in assessing performance, Luis Bragança on affordability and investment issues, Miguel Amado, and Nils Larsson on the nature and activities of the new Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction.

There were 21 separate technical sessions organized in the 3 parallel streams, covering a broad range of sustainability issues. The high level of knowledge and experience of Dimitrios Bikas, the main organizer, was evident throughout.

Staff

5-6 November; SBE16 Conference in Chongqing

Submitted by nlarsson on Sat, 11/26/2016 - 14:30

This two-day event was the 16th in the SBE16 series of national / regional conferences, and took place during 5-6 November. The conference theme was Low carbon cities; Low carbon buildings. The Chair was Prof. Andrew Baldwin, while Prof. Qingqin Wang served as Co-Chair, Prof. Runming Yao Scientific Chair with Prof. Meng Liu as Co-Chair.

Keynote speakers came mainly from the UK, with Prof. Chimay Anumba, Robin Nicolson and Prof. Runming Yao, all having strong ties to UK universities and organizations. A particularly memorable point, made by Robin Nicolson, is that the global industry needs to halve energy demand, double efficiency and halve carbon content in the energy supply.
Another keynote speaker, Prof. Qingqin Wang, is Vice President of the China Academy of Building Research (CABR) and is a key actor in the world of Chinese building-sector policy and technical research.

Plenary speakers included Dr. Benny Chow, Dr. Lennon Choy, Prof. Clement Croome, Prof. Scott Fernie, Alan Kell, Dr. Michael Murray, Dr. Teresa Parejo-Navajas, Dr. Queena Qian, Prof. Alan Short, Briony Turner, Chris Twinn, Prof. Shengwei Wang, Dr. Irene Wong and Prof. Hiroshi Yoshino.

The conference was structured with mornings devoted to plenary speeches and with two parallel sessions each afternoon. The plenary presentations covered a wide range of technical topics and a few high-level policy issues. Nils Larsson, representing the SBE series partners, presented a brief background about the conference series and an overview of the activities and plans of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GABC). Dr. Benny Chow from HKGBC provided an overview of the WSBE17 global conference to be held in Hong Kong in June 2017.

There was a high level of interaction between participants in this relatively small conference.

Nils L.

Visit to Kaohsiung and Ping Tung in Taiwan

Submitted by nlarsson on Sat, 11/26/2016 - 14:28

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

Submitted by nlarsson on Sun, 08/07/2016 - 15:43

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.