(Un)sustainable users in (un)sustainable buildings
25 Feb 2010
An interactive workshop with Ralf Brand on 24 March
(Un)sustainable users in (un)sustainable buildings- Implications for pedagogy, design, policy and the rest of us
Wednesday 24 March 2010, 12 noon to 4pm
CEEBL, C24 Sackville Street Building
Presented by Ralf Brand, The University of Manchester
This workshop will familiarise the participants with the concept of a co-evolution between social and technical change in the context of sustainable buildings and cities.
Participants will learn about many best- and worst-practice examples from around the world, leading up to a presentation of Brand's experience with a student-led Post-occupancy Evaluation of an allegedly sustainable building in Manchester he organised in 2009.
Equipped with such background knowledge, all participants will then be asked to conduct an on-the-spot sustainability evaluation of Sackville Street Building (focussing mainly on energy, water, recycling and mobility) and how its users, janitors, security personnel etc. engage with it.
After their 60 minute data gathering mission with digital cameras and notepads, the participants will present and categorise their findings and scrutinise their experience for potential implications for pedagogy, design, policy and for their own everyday life.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own digital camera (plus card reader/data transfer cable) to the workshop.
Ralf Brand is lecturer in Architectural Studies at MARC, the Manchester Architecture Research Centre. His area of expertise is the mutual relationship between, generally speaking, the social and the technical. In practical terms, this relates to the way how and why people shape buildings in certain ways and the way how people relate to and behave in these buildings. This approach has proven particularly useful to better understand the performance (and failure) of "sustainable buildings".
Brand's research led to the conclusion that sustainable development requires a "synchronisation between social and technical change" which he developed in his book, which is mentioned as key background document in the UK Government's Foresight Report on Energy in Buildings.
Programme
- 12 noon-12.30pm Lunch
- 12.30-1.15pm Presentation
- 1.15-1.45pm Group discussion
- 1.45-2pm Break
- 2-3pm On-the-spot data gathering (in groups)
- 3-4pm Presentation and discussion of findings
There is no fee for this event, but places are limited, so please register online:
We very much look forward to welcoming you to CEEBL.