From Boston to London to Switzerland

This Fall, while I was on my study abroad at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), I received the brilliant opportunity to attend the conference on Advanced Building Skins in Bern, Switzerland. The process of applying for the funding, the visa and the conference was a breeze. Once I knew I was going, I started some background research by talking to my Prof. on Sustainable development at LSE, I course I was doing that semester. He told me that an advanced building skin or membrane was a building exterior that had advanced capacities like aesthetic solar design capacity, solar windows, kinetic energy capacities and also surface absorption of water. The aim of the Conference on Advanced Building Skins is to contribute to a multidisciplinary, integrated planning approach by architects, engineers, scientists and manufacturers to reduce energy consumption of buildings. By fostering lively exchange between these groups, this conference will shed light on the significance of the building skin, with a view to putting scientific know-how into practice. On Day 1 of the conference they discussed the following points

• Innovative Products and Technologies for the Building Skin

• New materials for the building skin

• Smart materials for intelligent building envelopes

• Architectural membranes for high-performance building skins

• Thermal performance of Phase Change Materials for the building skin

• Eco materials for the building skin

• Integrating solar technologies into the building envelope

• Solar reflective technologies and shading systems for enhanced daylight control

• Solar Decathlon projects and technologies

At the end of Day 1 I got to interact with key personalities from companies representing the same research, products and topics. I was impressed at the amount of companies personally spending on R & D and also those spending in combination with funding from the EU. Most of the companies were Switzerland based. As Day 2 began I made sure to network with key people and conference organizers. The topics they covered the next day were more policy based and explained scope in a detailed manner-

Policies, Finance, Business Models Policies to overcome market barriers

Challenges to policy implementation

Incentives: moving beyond niche markets / Market strategies for sustainable buildings

Commercialization: How to get sustainable building products into the market

Mandatory policies and community empowerment

Efficiency improvement programs for existing buildings

Financing and new business models of building refurbishment Economic evaluation of building retrofits / Cost optimization of façade renovation

Building ownership and energy consumption

Urban development strategies for EcoCities / Applying sustainable urban-scale strategies at building level