Barcelona AGM and WSB14 conference

The iiSBE AGM was held in Barcelona on 27 October, the day before the World SB14 (WSB14) conference was held in the same city. Both events were solid successes.

The AGM attracted 35 members, all of whom also attended WSB14. Luis Braganca chaired the meeting, which included an annual report, a financial report and elections for the Board of Directors. The conference extended over three days and 144 separate sessions, lots of plenary lectures, exhibits, and reportedly 2300 delegates

Three Board positions were open at the AGM, one because of the unfortunate death of a good friend of iiSBE and one of our founding members, Aleks Panek. Another position was open because Thomas Lützkendorf was not eligible for another term.

Gord Shymko was re-elected, and the slate of two other candidates proposed by the Nomination Committee, Ilker Kahraman (Turkey) and Steve Burroughs (Australia), was also accepted. There were three more candidates for the Board, and they gracefully accepted roles to represent iiSBE in matters relating to Zero Net Energy issues, International Organizations Liaison and international student memberships. We now have 14 Directors from 13 countries.

There was also a change in Officers in view of the need for a new Treasurer. Bob Bach (Canada) volunteered to do the job, and since he has acted successfully as treasurer for two other NGOs, his offer was gratefully accepted.

Three days with 144 separate sessions, lots of plenary lectures, exhibits, with 2300 delegates from all over the world left participants exhausted as well as happy. The bonus, of course, was to have this take place in Barcelona, with a fine plenary presentation by Dr. Ray Cole (UBC), an excellent gala dinner in a fine old building and good weather thrown in for good measure.

Some national delegations were very large – 115 from Hong Kong, almost the same size from Sweden, about 35 from Canada and 20 from Taiwan.

A much-anticipated event at the conference was the announcement of Hong Kong as the site of the next international conference in the series, WSBE17. The delegation had a large exhibit booth to mark the occasion.

The four international co-promoting partners of the series (CIB, iiSBE, UNEP-SBCI and FIDIC) also announced the preliminary selection of a number of SBE16 national events for 2016. The four partners also sponsored an informal lunch for about 30 key representatives of SBE16 and SBE17 events and the WSB14 organizers. A second lunch took place for iiSBE members in the same location a day later.

There were lots of side meetings, organized by and for CIB, iiSBE, UNEP-SBCI, FIDIC, IEA Annex 57 and WGBC.

The SB Challenge, iiSBE’s presentation of comparative design-stage and operating stage performance, took place in two separate sessions, one chaired by Gord Shymko of Canada and the other by Andreas Rietz of Germany. The first session featured analysis of 9 Canadian buildings while the second covered 3 German federal buildings as well as projects in Belgium, the UK, and brief reviews of projects in Japan, Mexico, Singapore and Hong Kong. These SB Challenge sessions represent one of the first serious attempts to provide analysis of predicted and actual performance, and we are likely to see more of this in the future.

A full report can be seen in the attached file.

AttachmentSize
Fall 2014 iiSBE News 22Nov14.pdf859.38 KB