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Climate Change and the Design of the Built Environment

Climate Change and the Design of the Built Environment

The Georgia Institute of Technology Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design Conference: Climate Change and the Design of the Built Environment: Enterprising Approaches for Industry, Government, and Community.

Conference Hosts: Michael Gamble, Shan Arora, and Kim Cobb, along with the Kendeda Living Building Advisory Board

About the Symposium

Earth’s climate is changing now faster than any other period in the history of modern civilization; this acceleration is primarily a result of human activities. Global climate change has already resulted in a wide range of impacts across every region of the country, and as we have seen throughout 2020, new approaches are needed to combat pathogen transmission and create next level healthy places. Many sectors of the economy are expected to grow related to climate and health in the coming decades.

Consequently, the design and retrofit of buildings, infrastructure, and cities will be a major part of future efforts.  The design and responsiveness of the built environment is the basis for inviting leading thinkers in the field of climate and sustainability research to help foster creativity, invention and entrepreneurship amongst participants with three primary goals: 

  • Develop a baseline understanding of the current impacts and opportunities that the design, development, and responsiveness of the built environment has on climate change, and climate change has on the built environment.
  • Increase understanding of the different communities and stakeholders that are involved in climate change debates via immersion in prescient topics formed around the design of the built environment: ethics, economics, health, equity, value, etc.  
  • Create valuable dialogue that assists industry, government and academic leaders in understanding their role in how new environments, especially the social and habitable, can be reinvented in relation to emerging sustainability goals.

Symposium Topics

Session 1 & 2

  • What is does the future look like?  Design at all scales based on ethics and equality
  • The Quality of All Lives: Pandemics, Air Quality and Equity
  • The Ethics of Sustainability

Didactic Buildings and Landscapes: Session 1 & 2

  • The Value(s) of Buildings and Landscapes that Teach
  • Living at the Intersection of Design and Analytics
  • New Performance Landscapes

Design-Based Climate Change Policy: Session 1 & 2

  • Valuing What we Build for Future Generations: Design Based Climate Change Policy
  • Value effects of sustainability and green buildings on both green and conventional properties
  • What We Build Will Change the Laws
  • Decarbonization Strategies and Why They Matter

Session 1 & 2

  • Cities are the Largest People-Made Things on Earth, We Can Do Better
  • Eco districts and the Return of Neighborhood Planning
  • UN Sustainable Development
  • De-accelerating Equity Gaps in the Built Environment
  • Making Room for a Changing America, New Affordable Housing
  • Why Service-Based Learning Matters for Everyone
  • Designing/Engineering Equity

Climate Change, Air Quality and Decarbonization

  • Timber City, carbon sequestration expert (architect)
  • News from the Building Decarbonization Coalition
  • Building Simulation Futures: Adaptive Reuse and New Construction

Safety Net Media Inquiries

Media Inquiries

 
Ann Hoevel
Director of Communications
College of Design
E-mail Ann Hoevel
+1 404-385-0693