CORDIS attends the prestigious ‘Future of Building 2019’ conference
Whilst the event had an extremely Austrian feel, with an emphasis on Austrian companies’ innovative solutions to making our built environment greener and more sustainable, many of the almost 700 participants at the ‘Future of Building 2019’ event came from much further afield, from across Europe but also from as far and wide as Nigeria, China and Morocco. CORDIS, which had a dedicated stand in the event’s exhibition space, was able to meet and engage with many of them. How the building sector will help to fight climate change The event outlined that the building sector will play a crucial role over the coming years in tackling the escalating climate crisis, with many novel solutions either in the process of being optimised for the market or already in commercial use. These include the use of cutting-edge new materials, drives for better energy efficiency for both newly built and older buildings and the incorporation of green spaces into all new designs, including the next generation of skyscrapers. Other innovations that impressed your writer were a ground-breaking Australian masonry robot that can build one house per day, as well as new technology that utilises concrete as a 3D building tool. Well-deserved awards In the evening gala, which took place at the Dipomatic Academy of Vienna, awards were presented by Ulrike Rabmer-Koller, Vice-President of the WKÖ, Juergen Schneider of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism, and Hans Guenther Schwarz of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology. The awards are presented to Austrian companies and organisations in the field of sustainable building in the international arena that promote and support the environment, with particular attention being paid to climate protection. The awards are for buildings that are high quality and use innovative technologies. As stated by Herr Schwarz, the awards are a way to help set “… high ambitions to address the climate crisis” and enable “energy positive” houses and neighbourhoods. Amongst the six awards given, winning projects included a large-scale plus-energy building in Paris, prefabricated timber-built single-family houses from Kazakhstan, Estonia and China, to ground-breaking passive-house technology in China. Your writer’s favourite though was the award given for a ‘learning’ hotel for sustainable tourism in Bhutan, a true fusion of modernity and tradition. CORDIS has produced several publications recently that have covered topics that were explored and debated at ‘Future of Building 2019’. In particular, we invite you to browse: CORDIS Results Pack on Construction Skills CORDIS Results Pack on Deep Renovation CORDIS Results Pack on the Uptake of Clean Energy Solutions CORDIS Research*eu magazine issue 83 with a special feature on ‘Increasingly smart, increasingly sustainable: Europe’s cities get an upgrade’. For more information on the ‘Future of Building 2019’, please see: event website
Countries
Austria