Your Speakers
Jo McCafferty - Levitt Bernstein
Evolution of housing typologies
Jo has co-authored and contributed to several housing publications; writes regularly in the architectural press and speaks at a number of industry events and networks across the globe.
Speaking on housing typologies and how they have evolved over the past 60 years, Jo is a champion for inventive design in housing of all scales, Her focus is always on community engagement and developing creative design solutions – an approach that has been rewarded with many competition-winning schemes and industry awards.
Some notable projects include Vaudeville Court, a RIBA Award winning social housing scheme in Islington; Holly Street, an estate regeneration in Hackney, and Cherrywood, a new urban extension to the south of Dublin. She has also overseen a number of competition successes.
Ben Gazula - Elementa Consulting
Sustainable housing and regeneration
Ben brings his extensive sustainability, project and client management expertise to his role as Principal at Elementa have joined the London office from thier Oakland office. He has led projects that are pursue aggressive targets such as Net Zero Energy, WELL Building and Living Building Challenge, and has numerous LEED Platinum projects under his belt.
His project experience includes international multi-building campuses, workplaces, laboratory science buildings, data centers, historic buildings, cultural arts centers, governmental facilities, schools, hospitality and residential towers.
He has specialization in the integrated design of radiantly conditioned buildings and passive strategies which lead to improved user comfort and lower energy use through cost effective means. Ben will be working to connect innovative ideas and technologies to realize an environmentally regenerative future.
Rob Harris - Elementa Consulting
Sustainable housing and regeneration
As a Low Carbon Consultant, licensed BREEAM Assessor, with a masters in building services engineering and management, Rob has a broad knowledge of building types, sustainable technologies and their implementation and the ability to work across disciplines to deliver fully integrated coordinated designs.
He joined Elementa in 2001 and has progressed to become a Principal of the business today. His inclusive and immersive career path within Elementa is an ethos that he continues to pass on to the team today. He has personal exeprience in working on projects in Hong Kong, Vancouver an China integrating the requirements of different building types
James Ehrlich - Regen Villages
Off-grid and resilient neighbourhoods
James is the founder of ReGen Villages, a spin-off company inspired in part by Stanford research during the Solar Decathlon, and a UN Sustainability Brief co-authored by James Ehrlich, Professor Larry Leifer, Chris Ford (AIA) from the Stanford Center for Design Research on the future of tech-integrated real estate development in the built environment that power and feed self-reliant families.
James will lead the talk on developing off-grid integrated and resilient neighbourhood. He is a Senior Technologist at Stanford University, Senior Fellow at Opus Novum consortium at NASA Ames and an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Stanford Peace Innovation Lab at the Center for Design Research.
A serial entrepreneur in Silicon Valley for over 25-years, James successfully founded and managed technology and media companies with successful exits. For nearly a decade, Mr. Ehrlich executive produced an award-winning national public broadcasting series based on case studies of organic and bio-dynamic family farms, that at its apex reached over 35-million homes each week, and is also the co-author of a best-selling companion book on Hachette, Organic Living THG (2007).
The first pilot community of ReGen Villages will break ground this summer of 2016 in Almere, Netherlands just outside of Amsterdam.
Shea Hagy - Chalmers University, Gothenburg
Living in the future
Shea is the Project Manager for the HSB Living Lab at Chalmers, an experimental research facility, set up to test sustainable technologies and living practices.
Shea is the perfect expert for discussing 'Living in the Future - Creating a more sustainable lifestyle in the home' due to the extensive research undertaken in his work. The HSB Living Lab is built on the Chalmers University campus in collaboration with HSB, and is one of Sweden’s largest housing cooperatives. This facility houses approximately 20-30 students.
The HSB Living Lab is also part of a larger EU-funded project called the Climate-KIC Building Technology Accelerator Flagship where Shea works within the ’Next Generation Building Envelope Systems’ research group.
Living in the future
Zeno is responsible for leading on the growth of the Building Technology Accelerator (BTA) project, a flagship project within the Climate-Kic. Climate-KIC is the EU’s main climate innovation initiative. It is Europe’s largest public-private innovation partnership focused on mitigating and adapting to climate change. Climate-KIC consists of companies, academic institutions and the public sector.
Zeno will be leading on our ‘Living in the Future’ seminar. His expertise comes from a long standing career in social housing, where there was a strong focus on energy efficiency and innovation for new homes. In is role, Zeno sets up partnerships with a core group of researchers and innovators to map out their diverse new product lines, where sustainable building technologies is the primary focus. Integral to this is undertaking research studies and the development of business models for market entry whether ‘spin-offs’, ‘start-ups’ or ‘partnerships’ to ensure any new product development is both commercially viable and well protected under IP.
Zeno Winkels - Climate-Kic
Alternative housing models
During the last 30 years of practicing in both the UK and Sweden, architect and urban designer Geoff has developed an instinctive feel for how the Scandinavian design tradition can be applied to major urban development schemes through small scale building projects.
Leading our seminar on 'Alternative housing models', Geoff's experience of working on a range of residential projects in both countries, will give us an insight into how the design methodology and process differs, yet inspires innovative and sustainable design solutions for both environments.
Geoff is a partner at White Arkitekter, Scandinavia’s largest practice with some 800 employees in the design and heads the London Studio.
Geoff Denton - White Arkitekter
Regeneration Asia
Dave established PDP London’s Hong Kong Studio as Creative Director in 2010 with the aim of expanding the workload in the Asia Pacific region.
Dave's talk will be focused on residential models in the far east and how they compare to the UK. Prior to opening the Hong Kong Studio Dave, a partner of PDP since 2007, was involved in many high quality projects in central London and led the design and execution of a number of projects in Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Japan. These include the acclaimed residential developments Grosvenor Place Kamizono-cho, Tokyo, and The Westminster Terrace in Hong Kong.
Since the Hong Kong office opened, the portfolio of work in the region has expanded to new cities in mainland China and includes Macau, as well as a wide range of projects of different scales in Hong Kong and Japan. Dave maintains close design involvement, playing a key role in major projects.
David Hoggard - PDP London (Hong Kong Office)
Damian Utton - Pozzoni
Designing for Older People: Worldwide Influences
With over 25 years’ experience since professional qualification working in the design of care homes, assisted living, and extra care housing, Damian leads a team that work across the UK creating innovative designs for older people within cost and programme constraints.
Damian has written books about designing for people with dementia, writes frequently for the care press on the subject and is a regular speaker at national and international conferences on all aspects of designing for older people.
Jean Marc Bouvier - Nudura
MMC for homes
Jean has 28 years’ experience in the insulated concrete form industry and introduced Nudura to the UK in 2007, where they are now the market leader.
He is the International Director of Sales and Business Development for Nudura, a privately owned manufacturer based in Barrie, Ontario. Jean will lead us on modern methods of construction for residential developments.
Their expertise spans basements, homes, swimming pools, schools, care homes and hotels. Nudura have manufacturing facilities located across Canada and the United States.
MMC for homes
From early beginnings in high efficiency wood heating, flues and biomass, he moved to cement particle rainscreen cladding systems and Velux roof windows. For most of the last decade, his passion has been MMC and off-site solutions. This started with Kingspan, where Paul headed up off-site solutions for the residential market, including light steel, Sip’s, timber frame and Glulam.
Paul now is head of Business Development and Communications for Innovaré Systems, helping both Education and Residential sectors to begin reaping the huge benefits of off-site and SIPs based construction.
Previously, Paul was part of a Housing Forum workgroup publishing a report looking into customer-driven design innovation in housing, in order to address the Government’s “Red Tape Challenge”. He subsequently became involved in the Zero Carbon Hub workgroup which was commissioned by government to address concerns on the gap between “Design” and “As-built”.
Paul Inch - Innovare Systems
Peter Blunt - Innovare Systems
Keynote Address
As Managing Director, Pete is responsible for the overall leadership and management of Innovaré. He is hands on in project and operational support; focusing on how to bring value engineering opportunities for clients, as well as product development and process improvement. Balancing strategic and operational priorities has allowed him to realise holistic benefits from change and improvements.
Originally from an automotive background (including Lotus Engineering and Jaguar Land Rover), Pete has worked in offsite construction for a number of years. Initially through consultancy work, Pete has brought his experience of lean methodology and transparent processes to develop various construction products and services.
Pete was originally brought into Innovaré Systems to setup the manufacturing arm of the business, however quickly progressed to running the full delivery from pre-contract to final account; encompassing design, technical, production, commercial and installation. Pete was made Managing Director of Innovaré Systems in October 2011.
Alastair Blyth - University of Westminster
Global education
Alastair Blyth is an architect and research analyst specialising in learning environments and has recently joined the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Westminster as a Senior Lecturer and researcher. He is conducting research into the impact and effectiveness of learning environments. He is also working with an Australian practice on school design, and with an architectural practice in Mexico on a training centre in Mexico City.
Until June 2016 he was an analyst at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) where he ran the Centre for Effective Learning Environments (CELE) and managed the Learning Environments Evaluation Programme.
Alastair remains a consultant to the OECD on Effective Learning Environments. He is a consultant with the World Bank on technical assistant programmes in the Central Europe Asia Region. He consults with architectural practice on learning environments around the world. Recently on a university and training campus for Liverpool in Mexico City.
Global education
Wayne is an expert in global education. He has over 20 years’ experience working on a series of international education projects.
He was design director for Jumeirah College, a prestigious primary and secondary school for 2,300 pupils in Al Barsha, Dubai for GEMS Education. He recently engaged with the British Council London & Madrid to develop an educational template for Global schools to inform designers and developers of design intent for a network of bilingual and bi-cultural schools via an advisory document.
Previously he worked on an exemplar design for the DfES Building Schools for the Future initiative. He developed proposals for a zero carbon emissions primary school and youth centre, as part of officially designated Green space at Crouch Hill Community Park, for the London Borough of Islington. He also worked on a number of BSF schemes in Islington and Southwark.
Wayne Head - Curl la Tourelle Head
Mie Guldbaek Broens - LOOP.bz
Teaching to learning - Hidden challenges
Mie Guldbaek Broens is an education strategist, specialising in the psychology and pedagogy of schools, which she is using to inform her research on how physical environments are influencing social behaviour and learning.
Over the last five years she has been visiting schools all over the world as part of her iMA (Ed) in Educational Anthropology. She has also carried out in-depth research on the impact of acoustic design on 21st Century learning; teachers' collaboration and the relationship with the physical space.
Mie believes that in order to move forward with the education system in a developing world, we need to design our spaces to support group work, social integration and shared understanding in our schools.
Aaron Taylor - Stantec
Developing the skills of a new generation
An architect and RIBA Client Adviser, Aaron’s specialism in education has led him to work at all levels within the sector, on both publicly and privately-funded schemes. Bringing a clear focus on the need for synergy between curriculum and learning environment to his designs, his portfolio includes education provision for children with special needs (SEN), primary and secondary schools and university buildings, including specialist research facilities, such as the recent Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine project at Queen’s University in Belfast and current Institute of Regeneration and Repair at University of Edinburgh.
Aaron has worked within the design of education facilities for almost two decades. Aaron has been at Stantec since 2006 and works with colleagues around the world on the design and development of education projects. Aaron also works closely with many local authorities and Academy groups in his role as an RIBA Client Adviser.
Collaboration and Integration in Higher Education in a global market
A previous Vice President of the RIBA and current senior partner a Cullinan Studio, Robin is also Convenor of the multi-disciplinary Built Environment think-tank, the Edge, chairs the Cambridgeshire Quality Panel and is a Cabe Design Review Chair.
He will be discussing the importance of design for Higher Education in a global economy and the difficulties in current cross-disciplinary research and learning. He will explore the mutual benefits of integrating the campus into the surrounding community, looking at lessons from both here and abroad.
He will aim to demonstrate that in a knowledge-based economy, the University has a key role at the heart of the city/community. Designing for integration and cross-disciplinary collaboration lie at the heart of Cullinan Studio's HE ethos, which now spans 25 years practice at the University of Warwick, leading to the design of the National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC) that is now under construction. He will reflect on that learning and the lessons from UNCC at Charlotte (USA) and SMU in Singapore.
Robin Nicholson CBE- Cullinan Studio
Academic Incubator Units - Universities
As a firm-wide leader of their education practice are, Maja guides teams in designing enhanced educational environments that deliver a vastly enhanced learning experience for students of all levels. A Senior Associate and Registered Architect, Maria is highly regarded as a specialist in her field.
Her passion for understanding the changing nature of the higher education landscape and how shifting student needs impact educational spaces is explored through conference speaking and regular blog pieces.
Maja's expertise will give us an insightful perspective of Academic Incubator Units and their contribution to future innovations.
Most recently, she was re-invited to participate on the 2016 World Architecture News awards jury panel for education and also joined the World Architecture News Effectiveness Awards in 2013. She earned a B.A. (Hons) in Architecture at the University of Portsmouth and a Diploma in Architecture at the University of Westminster, where she also pursued Postgraduate Certificate Professional Practice in Architecture.
Maja Nesdale- Gensler
The new collaboration campus
Mairi Johnson is a built environment professional with extensive experience on both the client and supply side of well-designed projects. She has worked in the public and private sectors, always for organisations that strive for quality in design and are at the heart of making decisions about the built environment.
She is an authority on the design and use of education facilities and is a frequent contributor to discussions about the future of learning and the new kinds of environments that could be required. As former Head of Design at the Education Funding Agency she collaborated with the best school designers in the UK in order to define what makes a good school and has worked to shape government school procurement so that fit for purpose, low energy, elegant buildings are the result.
Her most recent role as AECOM Global lead for the education sector involved using her experience of the clients, funders and end users of education facilities to grow the business of a large, international and multi-disciplinary design, consultancy, construction and facilities management company.
Mairi now works as an independent consultant advising on the design and delivery of buildings and places for learning.
Mairi Johnson - Consultant
“Manchester to Malaysia” - Can you export a winning formula?
Wayne founded interior design and FFE design consultancy Space Zero in 2009 its aim to deliver inspirational learning, working and recreational environments. Passionate about improving learning outcomes through innovative learning environments, he has recently begun a series of thought leadership workshops collaborating with designers, contractors, academics and performance specialists with the aim to overcome current and future challenges.
With over 28 years’ experience in design, product development, procurement, and supply chain management Wayne is effective at managing large scale educational projects through from concept to completion.
The team has now delivered over 200 UK and international education projects with the majority of these produced using BIM process and workflow which they adopted over 5 years ago. The last 3 years have seen Space Zero working on education projects across the Middle East and more recently Asia Pacific.
Wayne Taylor - Spacezero
Shane Cryer- Saint Gobain Ecophon
Acoustic regulations - home and away
Shane Cryer leads the education sector in the UK and Ireland for Swedish acoustic experts, Ecophon. He is an expert on acoustic regulations home and away, and how these affect the design of our schools and colleges.
An excellent speaker, Shane works closely with organisations such as The Institute of Acoustics (IOA) and the RIBA, promoting the new BB93: Acoustic Design of Schools standard via CPD seminars, conferences and articles in the trade press.
Following a career in the construction industry and studied building and property surveying, he now concentrates on building acoustics. Shane manages a diverse range of acoustic research projects around the UK.
