Green Building Conference 2009

Green building has grown over the year's from strength to strength as property owners, investors, blue chip tenants (public and private) have realised the importance and the possibilities of building for a sustainable future.

At this year's Green Building Conference, high-levelled local and international professional speakers from different sectors will be sharing their knowledge and experience of ‘green' building.

The conference aims to find sustainable and practical ‘green' solutions which can be applied to all projects and find the balance between environmentally friendly, functionality and reality. Emilio Ambasz shares this dream and aim, as he describes in his abstract of his presentation for this year's conference - Green over Grey:
"For the last 30 years I have striven to find a built manner in which to integrate Architecture with Nature. In all my projects I have sought to return to the community, in the form of accessible gardens, as much, if not all, the land my building's footprint covers. A building of this nature would be accessible to and used by the members of the community at large."

The goal of the conference is to look at leading countries who have paved the ‘green' path, learn from their advancements and both apply and modify them to the needs and demands of South Africa. Kam Sing Wong (Hong Kong - Hong Ronald lu & Partners) will be approaching this in his presentation - High Density Sustainable Urban Design: Hong Kong, Mainland China & Beyond:
"The future of our built environment faces three key challenges. Sustainability is definitely the keystone. Urbanisation is a global trend; more than half of the world's population now live in cities. Last but not least, Densification is advocated as a sustainable urban design approach: less for more."

Event partners include the Gauteng Institutes for Architecture, the Commonwealth Association of Architects, the Council for the Built Environment and the EnerKey Program of the University of Johannesburg. CPD points will be available for architects, engineers and quantity surveyors.

The Green Building Conference and Exhibition will again welcome property owners, regulators, built environment professionals, academics and representatives from all facets of the construction industry as delegates to the conference and visitors to the exhibition. The exhibition will be open to all consumers for the full two days.