Best Poster Award at the SBE 2016 Conference
LAST
The international conference "Sustainable Built Environment 2016" took place in Zurich from June 13 to June 17, under the title «Expanding Boundaries : Systems Thinking in the Built Environment». On that occasion, the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST) presented four papers on its research on integration of sustainability criteria in the urban and architectural project. This event provided an interesting exchange platform to promote efforts to apprehend the built environment as a system. The poster entitled "Towards integrated design strategies for implementing BIPV systems into the urban renewal processes: First case study in Neuchatel, Switzerland" presented by Sergi Aguacil, Sophie Lufkin and Emmanuel Rey, also received the "Best Poster Award" of the conference.
Consuming over 40% of total primary energy, the built environment is in the center of worldwide strategies and measures towards a more sustainable future. To provide resilient solutions, a simple optimization of individual technologies will not be sufficient. In contrast, whole-system thinking reveals and exploits connections between parts. Each system interacts with others on different scales (materials, components, buildings, cities) and domains (ecology, economy and social). Whole-system designers optimize the performance of such systems by understanding interconnections and identifying synergies. The more complete the design integration, the better the result.
Based on ongoing research, the laboratory LAST was involved in several papers on sustainability integration criteria into the design processes of high environmental performance buildings, which were presented at this occasion: