More than 100 professionals from engineering, architecture, planning, development and academia came to the Sandford Fleming Building April 30 to discuss the future of building envelopes.
The forum, “Sustainability, Durability Design: The Future of Building Envelopes,” was moderated by Toronto Star architecture critic Chrisopher Hume and featured a keynote by Kevin Hydes, past chair of the World Green Building Council.
Planned as the first in a series of forums on sustainable development, it was organized by U of T Civil Engineering, along with Holcim Canada and the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design.
Discussion centred on how urbanization is driving development and how to address efficiency needs in both new construction and existing stocks of older buildings.
“U of T is delighted to partner with Holcim Canada on this initiative.” said Professor Brenda McCabe, Chair of Civil Engineering. “Because of Civil Engineering’s strong focus on urban sustainability, being part of the hosting team was a fabulous opportunity to demonstrate how industry and academia can collaborate to achieve great things. We look forward to working with the forum participants to take steps toward improving our building infrastructure.”
“We are incredibly pleased with the success of our first forum. We brought together thought leaders who can bring to the table the real issues we are facing in developing Canada’s sustainable infrastructure and work together, across disciplines, to tackle these issues and make tangible progress. From a building material producer and supplier perspective, Holcim Canada aims to take a leadership approach and to be a part of this discussion to explore solutions and innovations for our changing needs to provide sustainable and resilient infrastructure,” said Nick Caccavella, Senior Vice President, Holcim (Canada) Inc.
U of T and Holcim plan to develop a white paper from the day’s discussions and organize a similar forum this fall to explore some of the more detailed topics that were explored in the first forum.
For more information, visit the forum website at:http://holcimuoftsdf.wordpress.com/about/.
