2024 Agenda

 

Streamed live online over two long lunches. All sessions recorded and available on demand in the Festival of Place talks library. Event runs Monday and Tuesday from 11am-3pm.

 

Monday 25 November

 

11:00 - 11:50 The road to Climate Resilience: What does a climate resilient built environment look like and how do we get there?

Speakers: Dr Macarena Cárdenas, Senior Advisor – Resilience and Nature, UKGBC

How do we assess the vulnerability of our buildings and their communities? What metrics do we need? How do we balance the need for resilience with the need to achieve zero carbon? As noted by the Climate Change Committee, the UK currently lacks associated targets or goals for resilience standards at a national, local or sectoral level. The UKGBC is working to define these targets through collaborative research and engagement with the wider built environment industry. Find about their work to catalyse more urgent, comprehensive, and cohesive action on climate resilience throughout our industry and beyond.

 

12:00 - 12:50 Saving for a rainy day: hardworking horticulture and transformative raingardens

Speakers: Isla Jackson, Director, Civic Engineers; Prof. Vernon Phoenix, Professor of Environmental Engineering Science, University of Strathclyde

Explore opportunities and hardworking potential of rain gardens to solve multiple challenges and their ability to create liveable, walkable and healthier neighbourhoods with greater biodiversity. Taking cues from pioneering research into sustainable drainage performance at Glasgow’s Avenues project, the discussion will reveal innovative thinking about how raingardens sit within a wider infrastructure puzzle and bust some myths around their maintenance.

 

13:00-13:50 Delivering flood resilience through planning

Speaker: Celia Davis, senior projects and policy manager, Town & Country Planning Association

Is the planning system consistent in securing climate adaptation measures on new-build residential sites? Celia David, senior projects and policy manager at the TCPA presents new research seeking to understand the treatment of flood risk in the development process with a focus on processes that occur after full or outline planning consent is granted and the processes through which flood risk mitigations are agreed, including sustainable urban drainage, property flood resilience and emergency evacuation plans.

 

14:00-14:50 How to repurpose commercial buildings into quality homes and living spaces

Speaker: Damien Sharkey, Managing Director, HUB

sharing how commercial buildings can be converted into high-quality, sustainable homes. Learn what makes a building suitable for conversion and why not all offices make good homes. Find out about the risks and opportunities of reuse, and how to make informed choices using embodied, operational carbon and cost calculations. Listen to the case study of Cornerstone, a 1950s commercial building on Beech Street in the City of London that has won planning permission to be transformed into 174 co-living homes.

 

Tuesday 26 November

 

11:00 - 11:50 3 degree neighbourhood

Speaker: Imandeep Kaur, co-founder and director, Civic Square

The 3 degree neighbourhood is a new piece of research co-authored by Civic Square and Dark Matter Labs on the risks UK urban neighbourhoods face due to climate and ecological breakdown under a high emissions scenario. In this talk, Imandeep Kaur, co-founder and director of Civic Square will discuss how to reimagine and “re-infrastructure” neighbourhoods to rebuild the social and organisational networks for a more unpredictable world.

 

12:00 - 12:50 Decarbonisation, retrofit and zero bills homes

Speaker: Emma Fletcher, Low Carbon Homes Director, Octopus Energy

We will be talking about their ability to accredit homes with Zero Bills for developers, housing associations and local authorities. In this session, you’ll learn how Octopus is disrupting the market and aiming to remove electricity bills for all.
 
13:00-13:50 Retrofit Revisit

Speaker: Marion Baeli, co-author of Retrofit Revisit and Principal – Sustainability Transformation at 10 Design 

10 years since their retrofit, an investigation into 10 housing projects has revealed how retrofitted housing outperforms non-retrofitted stock including greater occupant comfort and reduced energy bills. In this talk, Marion Baeli, co-author of Retrofit Revisit and Principal – Sustainability Transformation at 10 Design, you will learn about the insights gained from a decade of building performance evaluation of retrofitted homes and areas needing further research to support the nationwide rollout of retrofit.

14:00-14:50 UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard 

Speaker: Dr Jane Anderson from LCA Construction and Technical Steering Group of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard

Dr Jane Anderson from LCA Construction and Technical Steering Group of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard will be presenting the new Net Zero standard. Anderson is an expert on embodied carbon and will bring a wealth of knowledge from her own consultancy as well as her intimate knowledge of the development and detail of the Standard. Dr Jane Anderson is one of the leading experts on embodied carbon and Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) in the construction sector. She is involved in sustainable construction standardisation efforts at product and building level internationally for the UK. She was part of the authorship team for the recently released second edition of the RICS ’Whole life carbon assessment for the built environment’, providing input into consistency, compliance, general guidance and had a principal role in editing the document. She represents the Whole Life Carbon Network on the Technical Steering Group of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard. She has recently completed a PhD considering the role of EPD in embodied carbon reduction.

 

 

 

 

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