-
- Seminars
Ecobuild’s renowned seminar programme offers more than 130 sessions covering the most pressing and important issues for built environment professionals.
With the emphasis throughout on delivering practical and applied information, each seminar is structured to provide key learning points, supported by case studies, analysis, and examples of best practice.
Please note that seminars are available on a first come, first served basis so please arrive in good time to be sure of your place.
The Housing minister wants us to become a nation of self builders and commissioners, encouraging more people to join the thousands who already undertake their own projects every year. These are projects being undertaken for reasons more complicated than just profit. Amongst these self builders and commissioners we see incredible thought, attention to detail, ambition and passion. This stream explores the challenges of building it yourself, offers solutions, and celebrates the achievements.
Energy efficiency and renewable energy are said to be the twin pillars of a sustainable energy strategy. But because energy has been, and continues to be relatively cheap, cost has not proved to be a strong driver towards energy efficiency in buildings. It is still commercially acceptable to cool them in the summer, heat them in the winter, and light them all year round using heavily carbonised energy to do it. But priorities are changing, and saving carbon, (as well as saving cost), is the new and more compelling reason to make buildings energy efficient.
The Government’s chief construction adviser has confirmed that Building Information Modelling (BIM) will be adopted for the procurement and management of all public projects, and is expected to become a standard process for all projects. BIM is the process of developing building models which are used in presenting and visualizing building components, construction sequences, resource allocation and other elements of construction process in a virtual environment.
Responding to the amount of regulation, codes and standards, and the speed of their introduction, continues to provide a challenge for many. Whether it is the latest on Part L, or the Definition of Zero Carbon and the Code for Sustainable Homes, how BREEAM is evolving, or what changes are anticipated for SAP, this series of seminars will help visitors understand the latest developments and the connections which exist between them.
Passivhaus is becoming a leading principle and standard not only across Europe, but also in the UK. This series of seminars combines an introduction to Passivhaus with more detailed sessions, using case studies of a range of building types. They will address a variety of aspects of Passivhaus, including: design, alignment with regulations, cost, applicability for refurbishment, implications for the supply chain, and how a wider market can be created for the standard.
Improving the energy efficiency of the existing stock presents one of our biggest challenges. This stream focuses on non domestic property, and is directed at property owners, investors, and occupiers, who want to better understand how to reduce the running costs of buildings whilst reducing carbon emissions. It puts the issue of property and sustainability into a financial and business context.
The construction project for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games has been delivered by the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) on time and on budget.
The ODA set itself and the project’s supply chain challenging targets and milestones, most well above industry standards and benchmarks. The majority of these have now been achieved and, in some cases, exceeded: The project has a strong health and safety record, achieved high sustainability outcomes and challenged some of the historic and long-standing inequalities within the UK construction sector.
The InstallerConnect seminar stream examines the business potential of renewable technologies, and provides valuable guidance in the proper selection, specification and installation of micro renewable technologies.
It is now completely understood and accepted that refurbishment is the key to achieving a low carbon built environment. The majority of the buildings which exist today will still exist in 2050. For the UK to meet its targets and obligations on carbon emissions, this building stock will have to be refurbished and made much more efficient. This series of seminars takes a wide ranging look at the challenge posed by refurbishment, examines the drivers for change, the commercial case, and especially the mechanisms and functionality of the Green Deal, retrofit measures and solutions, best practice and options for large scale roll out.
There has never been such an important time for micro and community scale generation. Government policy is being directed at it (and despite the adjustments to the FiT it remains a significant incentive), new products and solutions are becoming available, and best practice and thinking are being refined and developed. This series of seminars will investigate the market drivers for micro and small scale generation, understand how to find the right scale solution for the right situation, and how to specify each of the core technologies as stand alone or as integrated solutions.
Design affects everything. Every component, every product, every building. This stream addresses itself to a wide variety of design issues, each one of them to do with an aspect of sustainability, and each searching for the stimulating, the inspirational and the challenging.
In a broad sense, sustainable architecture seeks to minimise the negative environmental impact of buildings by enhancing efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, and development space. At the same time, architecture and design is concerned with creating inspirational, successful and sustainable buildings, places and communities. So how can all these be brought together and how should architects be engaged in shaping a truly sustainable built environment?
More than half the world’s population now lives in cities, and cities are responsible for up to 75% of the world’s carbon emissions. Adapting cities to consume less energy, and to mitigate the effects of climate change is clearly crucial. But they need to be successful and sustainable in an holistic sense too. This seminar stream will also look at the things you can’t always draw on plans or even measure: how cities work, what can be done better, who can take the lead, and look at initiatives on different scales from the sub regional to the neighbourhood level
lead sponsor
lead supporters
chosen charity
