Supporting the evolution of building services sector

• Four crucial themes: variety, readiness, connectedness, emergence
• Five weeks of seminars, starting July 29 to help building performance professionals transform urban places
• Virtual sessions including expert industry keynote speakers and moderated panel discussion
• Capacity building the entire built environment sector – building owners, facilities managers and design professionals

Creating a sustainable, healthy and inclusive future requires us to imagine what that might look like, taking big picture concepts like climate resilience, regenerative supply chains and connected communities and translating them into tangible actions and approaches for specific professions and stakeholders.

The Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) recently released an outstanding report, CIBSE Building Performance Reimagined which creates a compelling and achievable vision of how the buildings of the future could achieve holistic approaches to ‘value’ that are much broader than financial metrics.

This project brought together experts from architecture, urban planning, engineering and other disciplines to develop ideas of how buildings and communities can address four performance metrics: variety, readiness, connectedness and emergence. Then, from those visions of what is possible, it sets out pathways to get there and explores how the new approach could change the role of building services engineers, including what new skills or knowledge may be necessary.

This year’s CIBSE ANZ Seminar Series, Building Performance: Imagination to Reality, takes the report as the starting point for in-depth discussions on the new performance metrics and what they mean for people working in the Australian and New Zealand property sector.

As advocates for practical action to address climate change, resource depletion and the decarbonisation transition, Geronimo Advisory is delighted to have come aboard as an industry supporter.

Geronimo Principal, Willow Aliento, is chairing the first of the seminars on July 29, from 12noon-2pm. The session will feature speakers including Fiona Cousins, Immediate Past President, CIBSE, who will share insights from the Building Performance Reimagined report.

Alison Scotland, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Sustainable Building Environment Council (ASBEC), will speak about the biggest barriers to building performance in the ANZ region; and Director Market Transformation at the New Zealand Green Building Council, Sam Archer, will bring insights from Aotearoa, and how the industry is navigating change.

Following the speakers, Willow will moderate a panel discussion that aims to explore the opportunities our speakers can see for taking the high-level ideas and potentials showcased in the report and operationalising them in the work of our building services engineers and broader building design, delivery and operations approaches.

The second seminar, on Tuesday August 5 will address the topic, what does it mean for a building to be truly connected? This session will feature keynotes on both the engineering aspects of connectivity such as smart buildings, energy grids and digital infrastructure, as well as the social aspects of designing for safety, inclusion and human belonging.

On Tuesday August 12, the seminar Emergent Intelligence: Designing for Evolution will bring together experts including CSIRO’s Dr Stephen White; Dikai Liu, Distinguished Professor, Director of the ARC Research Hub for Human-robot teaming for Construction, University of Technology Sydney; Dr Bree Trevena, Australasia Foresight Leader, Arup; and CIBSE Vice-Chair Jen Elias, Sustainability and Building Performance, Atelier Ten.

The session will explore topics including the role of robotics, approaches for circular economy in building services systems and materials, and findings from the International Energy Agency’s Data-Driven Smart Buildings initiative.

On Tuesday August 19, Adaptive by Design: Embracing Variety in the Built Environment will bring together experts from architecture, engineering, planning and place-making to showcase approaches to creative re-use of existing or underutilised buildings, designing for resilience and embedding flexibility and capacity for change into design and delivery approaches.

The final seminar on Tuesday August 26 digs into the big questions of resilience and adaptability, with Future-Proofing Performance, Designing for the Unknown. Speakers will showcase case studies, industry-led best practice standards, the role of prefabrication and designing for change.

“Adapting to the emerging future while also reducing the environmental harms that are causing earth systems and process to destabilise is the most pressing challenge for all participants in the property value chain, from asset owners, investors, developers and planners through to engineers, building managers and facilities managers,” Geronimo Principal, Willow Aliento says.

“We need to listen, collaborate and share insight, knowledge and experience so that everyone in the property value chain has the knowledge they need to improve outcomes. Then, building by building, street by street, community by community, this is how we transform our world!”

The seminar series is being held online, and tickets are available here