AECB Conference 2004

Five delegates from The Green Shop and Rainharvesting Systems Ltd attended this years AECB ecobuilding conference at The Weald and Downland Museum, near Chichester on 9 & 10 July.

Two hundred delegates attended, which included architects, engineers, builders and designers including some from the public sector. Full proceedings will appear on the AECB (Association for Environment-Conscious Building) website soon.

We had four trade stands, including a book shop which we run on behalf of the AECB but stocked with building and architecture books from The Green Shop. As in previous years the book stall proved to be a great success.

Workshops included BRE Ecohomes: a critical assessment, Lime into the mainstream, Practical Straw Bale Building (which some of us attended and it was a great hands on experience!), Proposed AECB standard for thermal performance of buildings, to name just a few, some at a general level others at an advanced level.

A keynote speech “Paradoxes of Sustainability” by Peter Harper, head of Research and Innovation at CAT (Centre for Alternative Technology) was, as with all his speeches, optimistic, amusing, sceptical but never cynical.

A Big Debate, chaired by the President, Chris Baines brought together two expert panels debating dilemas, conflicts, possible synergies between energy efficiency and sustainable building materials. A good meeting with a lot of input from members attending.

An interesting talk was given about the Gridshell building (which we were in). The building has pioneered innovative structural use of mostly locally grown timber. A building of such a leading edge structure had problems and challenges and indeed it was a learning curve, but the end result was a great success with a beautiful building.

All in all the delegates, the speeches, debates, workshops and trade stands had an extremely successful two days.