The Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment (IDBE) Masters Programme at the University of Cambridge asked the Edge to debate whether BIM (Building Information Technology) is the revolutionary and game changing technology that has been claimed.

Venue: Cambridge Union Society, 9A Bridge Street, Cambridge CB2 1UB

Host:
Sebastian Macmillan, Course Director IDBE, University Of Cambridge

Chair:
David M. Adamson - Consultant in Sustainable Construction and former Director of Construction, OGC, HM Government

Speakers:
In favour:
Paddy Conaghan - Hoare Lea
Anna Winstanley - Independent consultant & former Strategic Design Director, Laing O’Rourke
Casey Rutland - Arup
Against:
Doug King - Doug King Consulting
Georgina Smit - Arup
Simon Foxell - The Architects Practice

Downloads:
‘This house believes that BIM is the answer’ Poster

In association with the Happold Trust, this annual event is held in memory of CIC’s founding Chairman and visionary engineer, Sir Edmund (Ted) Happold. Previous recipients of the prestigious Happold Medal are Professor Keith Clarke CBE, Paul Morrell OBE, Patrick Bellew, Sir Peter Hall, Sir Howard Bernstein, Sir Crispin Tickell, Amory Lovins and Tessa Tennant.

Venue: The Institution of Civil Engineers, One Great George Street, Westminster, London SW1P 3AA

Chair: Jack Pringle - CIC Chairman
Panel speakers: Tony Burton - CIC Deputy Chair, Louise Clarke - CIC 2050 Group chair, Robin Wilson CBE - CIC Past Chairman & Gavin Thompson - Happold Trust Chairman.

Downloads:
Robin Nicholson’s Happold Lecture presentation - Collective responsibility for a sustainable industry

Robin’s lecture is available in audio form - see the CIC’s YouTube site

See also Rob Garvey’s live version of the talk, and
Robin’s Building blog ‘Have we wasted the latest good crisis?’ from the 19th November

An Edge Debate hosted by CIBSE at the Royal Academy of Engineering

In 1994 The Latham Report described UK construction as ‘fragmented’ and ‘ineffective’; a theme later revisited in the reports of Egan and Wolstenholme. But, despite well-meant reforms, the UK industry today remains largely as Latham found it.

In 2010 The Low Carbon Construction Report, authored by Paul Morrell, the Government’s Chief Construction Adviser, found that essential reforms were ‘scarcely possible’ due to the lack of leadership, supply chain integration and the ‘silo-based habits of the industry’s institutions’. But although it is now decades since the writing first appeared on the wall, there is scant evidence of any institutional response to these challenges and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Government has now chosen to focus on a few pan-industry bodies rather than treating severally with the ‘professions’.

In an article in the April 2012 CIBSE Journal, CIBSE’s Past President, Terry Wyatt, examined the potential gains if the industry’s professional institutions joined together – in terms of value, relevance and reach – and proposed the merger of CIBSE and IStructE as a first step towards the creation of an Institute of the Built Environment embracing all construction professionals.

This Edge debate discussed whether a focus of expertise in small long-standing institutions is essential to the value and values they bring to the industry and to society, or if the pattern of numerous ‘silo-based’ institutions is no longer fit for the future. The debate addressed what, if any, structural reform is necessary and how institutions can provide the leadership to ensure more effective collaboration between construction professions?

Chair:
Professor Alan Penn - Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, UCL

Speakers:
Terry Wyatt - Hoare Lea and Past President CIBSE
Mike Murray - One Creative Environments Ltd

The Edge is an inter-institutional ginger group involving CIBSE, ICE, RIBA, IStructE and the RICS and seeks to promote interdisciplinary co-operation between construction professionals. We seek to encourage change in the industry through intellectual debate, political lobbying and inter-institutional working. Synopses of previous debates are recorded on our website www.edgedebate.com

We would be delighted if you could join us in this by-invitation only debate. Please let Simon Foxell at sf@architectspractice.com know if you, or a colleague, can attend. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come basis.

At the end of the debate we hope you will continue the discussion over a glass of wine

Venue: Royal Academy of Engineering, 3 Carlton House Terrace, SW1Y 5DG

Debate sponsored by CIBSE

Downloads:
- Edge Debate 58 - Institute of the Built Environment?
- Edge Debate 58 An Institution of the Built Environment - Report
- Edge Debate 58 Terry Wyatt presentation
- Edge Debate 58 Mike Murray presentation: Mindmap on leadership in the built environment (standard pdf version)
- Debate review at Simon Carne’s blog 30/5/13

An Edge Debate hosted by the Danish Embassy in London.

There have been new and radical recent policy decisions in UK and Danish healthcare as different approaches to the common problems both health systems face - how to square the circle of rising demand, rising cost and diminishing funding.

In Denmark hard won productivity gains have been achieved and it is now hoped that it will be possible to scale this up in an enormous hospital building programme — the largest construction project in Denmark since church construction in the Middle Ages.

In the UK, the hospitals have been built and it is now proposed to scale this back by giving financial control to the newly formed clinical commissioning groups in the hope that more ‘hospital’ services can be provided at a local (cheaper) level and further efficiencies can be achieved from being able to source from private and well as public providers.

Given that both countries have common problems, are starting at different ends of the spectrum and are moving towards each other what can we learn from each other?

Venue: Danish Embassy, 55 Sloane Street London SW1X 9SR

Host:
Anne Hedensted Steffensen - Her Excellency the Danish Ambassador in London

Chair:
Sunand Prasad - PPRIBA, Penoyre & Prasad

Speakers:
Pia Olsen-Dyhr - Danish Minister for Trade and Investment
Sir Muir Gray – Chief Knowledge Officer to the NHS
Paul Westbury - Chief Executive, Buro Happold
Marlene Willemann Würgler - Centre for Health Technology, Business and Regional Development, Danish Regions
Teva Hesse - CF Møller Architects

An Edge Debate in Bristol hosted by CIBSE South West Region. The debate will focus on the development and challenge of implementing BIM.

Venue: Lecture Theatre, Arup, 63 St Thomas Street, Bristol, Avon BS1 6JZ
Date & Time: 7th March 2013. 6.00pm for 6.30 start finishing no later than 8.00pm.

Chair:
Dr Mike Murray - Director, One Creative Environments

Speakers:
Steve Race – Construction Industry Council
Ben Roberts – Hoare Lea
Paddy Conaghan – CIBSE HQ BIM champion
Ronnie Rennoldson - RIBA CODA

Downloads:
- Speaker Biographies
- Edge Debate 56 - BIM: notes
- Edge Debate 56 - Carbon emissions, Data notes
- Edge Debate 56 - Beneficial, scary or bewildering
- Edge Debate 56 - BIM: Regional hubs
- Edge Debate 56 - Installer/Designer interface

For more details see CIBSE South West

Energy is arguably our most precious resource and carbon emissions one of the most damaging of the pollutants we pump out into the atmosphere, but information on their use and emissions in the built environment are very hard to come by. Lack of good data means:
— Design is carried out without adequate knowledge of what works
— Lessons from existing buildings are not shared or learned
— The performance gap between design and use is pervasive
— Energy modelling software relate to compliance and not performance
— Energy benchmarks are ill-informed and out of date
— Innovation that achieves improved performance is not rewarded
— There is minimal social and consumer pressure for low carbon buildings
— The outcome of policies such as the Green Deal cannot be judged

All this indicates a need for making data on the energy use and carbon emissions of individual buildings, building types and communities freely available, with a recognised set of straightforward metrics. Yet this appears to be strongly resisted: why?
— Such data is seen as private
— Revealing real time data might make buildings insecure and vulnerable
— Such information is commercially sensitive
— Raw data can easily be misinterpreted and needs to be contextualised, decoded and explained by adepts
— The data is only meaningful in relation to other information on building fabric, management and use

This Edge debate aimed to establish the extent and type of information that needs to be available on the whole life carbon emissions of the UK’s building stock if the design, construction and property industries are to stand a chance of achieving the target set by The Carbon Plan (2011) that “By 2050 the emissions footprint of our buildings will need to be almost zero”.

Chair:
Simon Foxell, The Architects Practice

Speakers:
Doug King - Chief Science and Engineering Advisor to BRE
Professor Tadj Oreszczyn, Director UCL Energy Institute
Lynne Sullivan – sustainableBYdesign

The Edge is an inter-institutional ginger group involving CIBSE, ICE, RIBA, IStructE and the RICS and seeks to promote interdisciplinary co-operation between construction professionals. We seek to encourage change in the industry through intellectual debate, political lobbying and inter-institutional working. Synopses of previous debates are recorded on our website www.edgedebate.com

Venue: Ecobuild – Whole Life Carbon seminar stream, Excel Centre, London

Downloads:
- Edge Debate 55 - The Politics of Carbon Emissions Data

- Edge Debate 55 - The Politics of Carbon Emissions Data - Notes
- Lets measure something meaningful - Doug King - Presentation
- The Privatisation of Knowledge - Lynne Sullivan, sustainableBYdesign - Presentation
- Why is data so important for a low carbon future? Tadj Oreszczyn, UCL Energy Institute - Presentation

In 2011 the Edge debated ‘What does it mean to be a building professional in the 21st Century’ (Debate 46, 15.9.11). The debate led to the development of a Special Issue of the journal Building Research and Information on New Professionalism, which has just been published. Copies will be available at the Debate and those attending will be given internet access. The editorial is available for download

The debate examined the dynamic relationship between professionals, government and markets; and whether professionals need to have a stronger role in protecting the public good – through leadership, acting impartially, and sharing knowledge and expertise. In particular, it explored the actions that professional institutions could take.

The evening was in two parts:
1) Introductory statements by some contributors to the Special Issue, including Edge members Bill Bordass, Frank Duffy & Stephen Hill, and
2) a “Question Time” discussion involving the audience and a panel of leaders from professional institutes.

Most of the papers in the Special Issue agree that the leadership role of building professionals has been eroded over recent decades, but that the world today is in great need of professional independence, judgement and responsibility for the public good. Can professionals and their institutions respond effectively to this challenge? Can they develop new ways of working, test them in practice, and build the knowledge and capacity to apply them at scale?

The authors have proposed a number of essential actions, including:
— Establishment of a shared identity and vision for practice and education
— Better procurement processes
— Increasing the available knowledge about building performance in use
— Considering the need for an independent ‘Institute of Building Performance’

The debate also considered some shared principles that all individual building professionals might adopt. A list that the Edge has been developing is attached below.

Speakers:
Dr Bill Bordass OBE, Usable Buildings Trust and a guest editor of the BRI special issue[confirmed]
Dr Frank Duffy CBE, Founder DEGW and Past President RIBA [invited]
Dr Kathryn Janda, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford [invited]
Stephen Hill, C2O Futureplanners [confirmed]
Professor Will Hughes, University of Reading [confirmed]

Panelists:
Professor David Fisk, Imperial College and President CIBSE
Harry Rich, Chief Executive RIBA
Kenneth Creighton, Director of Professional Standards, RICS
Michael Brown, Chief Deputy Director CIOB
Keith Clarke CBE, former CEO Atkins and former chairman CIC

The Edge is an inter-institutional ginger group involving CIBSE, ICE, RIBA, IStructE and the RICS and seeks to promote interdisciplinary co-operation between construction professionals. We seek to encourage change in the industry through intellectual debate, political lobbying and inter-institutional working.
Synopses of previous debates are recorded on our website www.edgedebate.com

Venue: The Building Centre
Store Street, London WC1E 7BT

Hashtag: #edgeprofessionalism - (see Anne Dye’s live Twitter feed)

Downloads:
- Edge Debate 54 - Debate report
- Edge Debate 54 - Bill Bordass - Intro slides
- Edge Debate 54 - Kathryn Janda - Slides
- Edge Debate 54 - Stephen Hill - Slides
- Edge Debate 54: Elements of a New Professionalism - Draft Code
- Edge Debate 54 A New Professionalism - handout 130220
- Edge Debate 54 A New Professionalism - Attendees 130220
- Edge Debate 54 - A New Professionalism invite (20.2.13)

Venue: Danish Embassy, 55 Sloane Street London SW1X 9SR

The Debate whether if there were more women in the Design/Construction/ Management Industry the current culture of competition and confrontation could evolve to embrace processes and outcomes that work effectively for all stakeholders. Women’s attributes would encourage co-operation and shared goals and enable participants to work together across disciplines to achieve exceptional results and proper engagement with sustainability. In other sectors women are better represented at all levels, so how can the Construction Industry learn from these?

It has been shown that businesses with more senior women on their boards out-perform those with the least, with 42% higher return on sales, 66% higher return on invested capital and 53% higher return on equity (The Bottom Line: Corporate performance and women’s representation on boards, Catalyst, 2007). The Davies Report of 2011: ‘Women on Boards’ called urgently for a more diverse selection of skillsets in the governance of business. In July 2012, the Credit Suisse Research Institute showed that companies with at least some female board representation outperformed those with no women on the board, citing share price improvements of 26% over the past 6 years.

Where do we go from here in the light of such evidence? How can the perceptions and behaviours of both men and women be changed so that they co-operate more effectively? How can policy-makers devise and enforce relevant mechanisms? How can women be encouraged to stay in the Industry, and how can the Industry be influenced to respect the essential role of women? Currently women represent an average 11% of the workforce in our industry.

Can change happen fast enough for better solutions to be achieved, that can support our delicate ecological system, and also help resolve the current financial crisis?

Host: Anne Hedensted Steffensen, Her Excellency the Danish Ambassador in London
Chair: Harvey Francis, Vice-president Skanska UK
Speakers: Katherine Whitehorn, The Observer
Stephanie Wray, Construction Industry Consultant and Non-Executive Director
Charlotte Morgan, Linklaters

Suggested hashtag for the Debate #edgewomen.

Downloads:
Edge Debate 53 Construction needs Women because …..
Edge Debate 53 Construction needs Women because ….. Debate report
Edge Debate 53 Construction needs Women because …. Attendance List

Link:
Cambridge Women in Construction blog 3/2/2013