URSA leads three scientific sessions at the World Sustainable Building Conference

Next 28th October will mark the start of the World Sustainable Building Conference 2014 Barcelona (World SB14 Barcelona). Taking place over three days, this event will count on the highlighted presence of URSA, insulation materials branch of the multinational Uralita.

As a PLATINUM sponsor, the company has actively taken part in the decision making and Conference organisation process, becoming one of the key players in the Organising Committee who, over the last three years, has worked to manage this international gathering of the main stakeholders in the sustainable building sector from all over the globe.

URSA will be present within the exhibition area of the Conference, which will be held at the same venue, the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya, with a large stand (stand number 36) and will play a leading role in the scientific programme, sponsoring three debate sessions.

The first one of these sessions will take place on the 28th October from 17,00 hours, under the title “Which are the keys to define roadmaps to sustainable building?”. This session will be chaired by Peter Sweatman, CEO and founder at Climate Strategy and co-author of the GTR-Building Rehabilitation Group reports. Answering this interesting question, he will be joined by Pau Garcia-Audi, Project Officer - EACI, from the European Commission, Andoni Hidalgo from Eurima, Adrian Joyce, Director of EuroACE and Eduardo Santiago, Ministry of Infrastructure representative.

The aim of this session is to propose and debate the key points that must be considered to define the roadmaps which will allow us to organise the building sector in each country or region, in order to overcome the global and local challenges.

The second session will take place at 12,00 pm on the morning of the 29th October. In it, Ignacio Paricio, architect, professor at the UPC and member of the Institute for Construction Technology of Catalonia, will chair the session “How can we power building renovation in Spain after recent national and European regulatory changes?”. He will be joined in the debate by Teresa Batlle, architect and ASA Vice-president, María Teresa de Diego, Responsible for the Urban Renovation Area at Ferrovial Agromán, and Juan Rubio del Val, Director of the Urban Renovation and Innovation in Residential Projects Area of the Municipal Authority of Zaragoza.

The aim of this session is to analyse and discuss the possibilities that open to building renovation in Spain after the approval, in 2013, of the "3R law" (restoration, regeneration and renovation), energy certification, modifications to the Spanish Building Code, compliance with the Energy Efficiency Directive UE/2012.

Lastly, on the 30th October at 10,00 am, the session “Which are the keys to dealing with the technological changes that the building renovation sector requires?” will take place.

It will also be chaired by Ignacio Paricio, accompanied at the roundtable by Anna Rey Niubó, from the Department of International Marketing at URSA, Josep Congost, Design Manager at the Roca Design Center & Innovation Lab, and Pablo Saiz Sánchez, architect and founder of Modulab.

This session intends to answer the special needs that renovated buildings require regarding products and materials used. We must not forget that building renovation requires customised, tailored, construction. Added products must adapt to the dimensions of the already built. Therefore, they must be amorphous materials, semi-products, which can be cut, or specially manufactured products. On another hand, it will be useful to minimise work on site, meaning materials used are able to satisfy all the functions that the building needs. Both are issues difficult to resolve for many manufacturers. To reach the site, many will need to complement each other to form composites, others will need to be produced with dimensionally adaptable processes, other will need to be grouped to form complex clusters. Some new organisations are growing, providing a bridge between the building material industry and building renovation works.

> via uralita.com