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Experts Encourage the Building Community to 'Go Active' in Round Table Talk

VELUX
2009-01-24 02:40 620

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Jan. 26 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Researchers, engineers, architects and experts from the international building sector gathered on the 22nd of January in Copenhagen for the first international Active Housing Round Table discussion. The aim of the day was to focus on the strong need and concern we face today dealing with climate changes, energy consumption and indoor living conditions. The Round Table event was hosted by VELUX A/S.

"Active Housing" is a term that highlights the challenges of how to combine energy design and liveability factor considerations in new and existing housing stock.

"The meeting today about 'Active Housing' is an opportunity to share knowledge and points of view. Afterwards, discussions will continue in the web community on the WIKI at http://www.activehousing.net . The overall aim of doing this is to create a catalyst effect for formulating a visionary response for innovative measures and solutions that tackle current challenges in the construction and building industry in one solution," Michael K. Rasmussen, CMO, VELUX A/S said in his introduction to the Round Table Forum Meeting.

Keynote speakers and Round Table discussions

The main topic of the "Active Housing" Forum Meeting was to start the discussion on a definition of Active Housing and to identify the most important challenges and ideas. More specifically, how to deal with and develop sustainable building components, design solutions and architecture combined with new low energy and zero carbon housing.

There were five keynote speakers -- Katherine Richardson, vice-dean of the Faculty of Science, Copenhagen University and Chairman of the Danish Commission on Climate Change, DK; Mark Rylander, AIA LEED AP, Director William McDonough + Partners, US; Rob Marsh, Senior researcher, Danish Building Research Institute/Aalborg University, DK; Kees Duijvestein, Professor, Sustainable development in building surrounding, Fac. Bouwkunde, TU Delft, NL; Ben Derbyshire, Managing Director Dip Arch Cantab RIBA FRSA, UK. Their presentations aimed to present the issues and solutions from different angles and in this way inspire the discussion during the day.

During the day, the participants were divided into 7 groups focusing on defining content and values for the two overall "Active Housing" terms, energy design and liveability factor -- how do we develop the building industry to meet the huge challenges?

The most repeated points about liveability factors focused on the human behaviour, incentives to act responsibly, as well as the need for scalable and flexible design solutions that can change during the life span of the building and its users.

"The energy design of tomorrow could be one of the greatest breakthroughs since modernism. We are searching for the good life (health, fresh air and lots of daylight,) just as we did in the 1920's, but this could actually become a new era," was one of the final conclusions from one of the discussion groups.

Themes concerning energy design included the need to re-brand sustainability with less focus on technical issues and more emphasis on creating a positive, appealing and rewarding story about being environmentally consciousness for users and experts. Another theme focused on the need to develop a means of measuring and benchmarking liveability.

More info

Summaries from the Round Table discussions, keynote speaker presentations and short video interviews of the key note speakers will be uploaded on the website http://www.activehousing.net , which is open for further "WIKI"-discussions to collect input and build a base for knowledge across disciplines.

About VELUX

VELUX creates better living environments with daylight and fresh air through the roof. Our product programme contains a wide range of roof windows and skylights, along with solutions for flat roofs. In addition, VELUX offers many types of decoration and sun screening, roller shutters, installation products, products for remote control and thermal solar panels for installation in roofs. VELUX, which has manufacturing companies in 10 countries and sales companies in just under 40 countries, is one of the strongest brands in the global building materials sector and its products are sold in most parts of the world. The VELUX Group has more than 10,000 employees and is owned by VKR Holding A/S. VKR Holding A/S is a limited company wholly owned by foundations and family. For more details, visit http://www.velux.com .

Source: VELUX
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