Climate change is becoming a particular challenge for our urban life: our cities heat up particularly strongly in summer, and extreme weather such as heavy rainfall pushes infrastructure to its limits. Worldwide, almost 60 percent of people live in urbanized settlements, and the number is steadily increasing. As global temperatures continue to rise, so do the challenges facing cities and the people who live in them. In Berlin on November 8th 2022, several scientists talked and elaborated on the question of how to design and adapt our cities for such challenges ahead. The parliamentary evening was organizezed by Helmholtz SynCom.

On Monday, 7 November, Dirk E. Hebel was invited to the Bundestag by Kassem Taher Saleh, Member of the German Parliament and Chairman of the Committee on Housing, Urban Development, Construction and Municipalities, to discuss which recommendations for political action can be derived from Dirk E. Hebel’s research. Mr Saleh, a civil engineer by profession and member of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, was particularly interested in wood as a building material along the entire value chain (raw material availability and end-of-life scenarios) and strategies for a truely circular economy in the building sector.

At the expert discussion on “Innovative and Sustainable Building Materials” of the Green parliamentary group in the state parliament, to which Gudula Achterberg, member of the Heilbronn state parliament and member of the working group and committee on state development and housing, had invited on 21st October, science and practice met and identified future tasks for building and housing. The speakers from science and research as well as from construction practice were united by the realisation that the current crises and global interdependencies can also accelerate developments in construction. Keynote speaker Professor Werner Sobek received the Order of Merit of100

grow.build.repeat. Symposium on sustainable construction. Find here updated information for the venue and time of the event: 04. December 2020 / 09:00 – 18:45 h / Keynote by Mitchell JoachimAdmission from 8.00 a.m. / Start 9.00 a.m. / Closing 6.30 p.m. Venue:ZKM (Center for Art and Media)Media TheaterLorenzstrasse 1976135 Karlsruhe The Media Theater is located – adjacent to the entrance foyer – in Atrium 6 on the first floor of the ZKM. Organization:Department of Sustainable Construction KIT Karlsruhe Institute of Technology We would like to invite you to follow the live stream of the event. The link to the live100

grow.build.repeat. Symposium on sustainable construction. Nov/Dec 2020 / 18:00 – 20:30 h / KeynoteNov/Dec 2020 / 09:30 – 18:00 h Department of Sustainable Construction KIT Karlsruhe Institute of TechnologyEgon-Eiermann Lecture Hall (HS 16) Englerstrasse 7, Building 20.40 The symposium grow.build.repeat. at the KIT Faculty of Architecture deals with one of the most urgent questions of our time: how can we drive forward a radical change of the existing construction industry while increasingly considering the breeding, cultivation, seeding, and harvesting of biological building materials and their system cycles? The symposium is the second in a series on the topic of sustainable100

On October 16th 2018, Prof. Dirk E. Hebel is speaking at the Detail Kongress 2018 »No Waste! Ressource Bau« about the NEST Unit Urban Mining and Recycling by Werner Sobek with Dirk E. Hebel and Felix Heisel. Located at the Oktagon of Zeche Zollverein in Essen, the congress brings together partitioners, researchers and positions aiming to promote a more respectful resource and energy use in the built environment.  Registration at detail.de/detailkongress

Magdalena Zabek, wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin des Fachgebiets Nachhaltiges Bauen, veranstaltet in Kooperation mit der Innovationsregion Rheinisches Revier GmbH und der Juniorprofessur Rezykliergerechtes Bauen / RWTH Aachen eine Konferenz zum Thema „Kreislaufgerechtes Bauen“ am 07.07.2017 in Aachen. Es werden Vorträge zu Bewertungsmöglichkeiten von kreislaufgerechten und ressourcenschonenden Bauten stattfinden. Felix Heisel wird seine Erfahrungen mit der Kreislaufwirtschaft in Bauwesen vorstellen. Neben den Vorträgen findet eine Ausstellung zu kreislaufgerechten und umweltschonenden Bauprodukten statt. Veranstaltungsort: Ehemaliges Straßenbahndepot Talstraße 2 52068 Aachen Nähere Informationen zur Veranstaltung entnehmen Sie bitte dem Programmheft: http://rheinisches-revier.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/allgemein/170510_Programm_IRR.pdf Anmeldungen zur Veranstaltung bitte unter folgenden Link: https://goo.gl/forms/05lm48bWQvolaDzT2 Anmeldeschluss ist der 16.06.2017

For the first time Young Academics were awarded with the DVL Lehmbaupreis at Lehm 2016 – International Conference on Building with Earth in Weimar. The prize aims to promote the study of earth building in academic context. It recognises academic work of excellent quality that demonstrates a firm knowledge of earth building and makes a forward-looking and original contribution in the fields of design, construction, research or development. Philipp Müller was awarded with the second prize for his Master Thesis dealing with reliability analysis of earth block masonry structures as it can be seen as a major contribution to the efforts100

On Monday 29th August, Philipp Müller and Simon Lee speak at the 3rd International Conference on Bio-based Polymers and Composites. The Bamboo Fibre Composite developed at the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore has a great potential as a viable and environmental friendly alternative for the construction sector. The talk will cover the newly developed manufacuring process and the mechanical properties of the material as well as give an outlook onto future challenges and opportunities for Bamboo Fibre Composites in the building industry.  Bamboo-based building materials can replace steel and concrete and be a major contribution to a more sustainable development of the100

On 23rd June, Dirk E. Hebel will speak on Cultivation Urbanism as part of the Urban Nature Seminar of the FCL Singapore. Since modernity, human progress has been measured in terms of their domination of nature, rather than the redefinition of the nature of their relationship (Dunlap and Catton, 1979). Since then, humans have suffered through their estrangement from this natural processes. Throughout the history of urbanism, the notion of ‘urban’ and ‘nature’ often intersects. Nature has been subjugated, consumed, commodified, reproduced and also to great extent idolised, in the creation of human’s built environment. But what is nature in100

Philipp Mueller will speak at the 12th World Congress of Earthen Architecture in Lyon with various speakers from more than 80 countries. The international Congress brings together academics and professionals gathering around the oldest known building material. Since more than 8000 years people are using earth as a building material and it still is en vogue due to its unique properties. Especially Earth block masonry is becoming more and more common as it is the building material with the lowest consumption of primary energy. The development of product standards has led to an increase of quality in terms of load-bearing capacity. Philipp Mueller will present results100

Felix Heisel will speak on the panel “How the Construction Business is Transforming Problems into Solutions” at the Cleantech Forum Europe on April 12th, 2016, 2pm – 3pm. The panels description by the organizer reads as follows: Hear from experts in the construction field on the latest solutions to creating more optimized buildings. While cement accounts for roughly 5 percent of global CO2 emissions, the industry is re-inventing itself through new and efficient processes and partnerships with innovative startups to not only reverse its environmental impact, but make improvements to the whole supply chain of building development. We will share100

Felix Heisel speaks at the 2016MIECF Macau International Environmental Co-operation Forum & Exhibition on April 1st 2016. “Disposing of waste in an environmentally-friendly manner is crucial to business, it also gives rise to a plethora of business opportunities. Thus, apart from welcoming participation from various green industries, 2016MIECF will adopt the theme ‘Green Economy – Opportunities for Waste Management’, and invite specialists and academics to share their techniques and experience in controlling waste streams.” Felix Heisel will contribute his views on waste as a building material. For more information, please click here.

Moderated by Dr. Barbara Becker and hosted by ETH Global on March 23rd 2015, Sarah Springman, Samih Sawiris and Dirk E. Hebel discussed the challenges and opportunities of Engineering for Development (E4D), a program of the Sawiris foundation and the ETH Zürich to promote the development of products and methods which are directly relevant for improving the livelihoods of people in developing territories.

You are warmly invited to attend the international FCL conference CONCRETE – SLEEPING BEAUTY on 26 November 2012 organized by the Chair of Architecture and Construction Dirk E. Hebel at ETH Zuerich/FCL Singapore together with TEC21 and espazium Switzerland as media partners. Five projects will introduce and initiate a discussion on the state of the art of a century-long unchanged material use. Can we think of new application and production methodologies? Can concrete heal itself? Can it produce power? Can concrete be computated? Are there organic reinforcement possibilities? Five international researchers from different backgrounds will showcase their work. They aim to change100

BIO: Francois Roche New-Territories unfold their protocols through the re-staging of contemporary relationships: aesthetical, machinist, computational, organics, biological and even artificial. The group works simultaneously through the architectural practice R&Sie(n), the “new-territories” research Lab and the [eIf/bt/c] scenario studio.  François Roche leads independently architectural research labs such as the Advanced Studio at Colombia University-Gsapp in New York. Abstract: Concrete Insurrection I’ve heard about something that builds up only through multiple, heterogeneous and contradictory scenarios, something that rejects even the idea of a possible prediction about its form of growth or future typology. Something shapeless grafted onto existing tissue, something that needs100

BIO: Prof. Matthias Kohler Matthias Kohler is an architect with interests ranging from computational design and robotic fabrication to material innovation. In 2000, he founded the architecture practice Gramazio & Kohler with his partner Fabio Gramazio. Founding also the world’s first architectural robotic laboratory at the ETH Zurich, his academic research concentrates on a multi-disciplinary practice between computational design, robotic fabrication and material innovation. Abstract: Computated Concrete At the disposal of architecture in the age of computation is an evolving array of interoperable tools and processes that allow the fabrication of design propositions to be increasingly complex and adaptive. With this100

BIO: Hendrik Jonkers Hendrik Marius Jonkers is currently a teaching scientist at Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at the Department of Materials & Environment, The Netherlands. Prior to that, he worked as a research scientist at the Max-Planck-Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany, as well as the University of Groningen, Department of Paleontology and the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (MT-TNO). Abstract: Healing Concrete In this research project the suitability of very specific but otherwise harmless bacteria are tested for their ability to repair cracks and thus significantly improve the durability of concrete structures. Such a100

BIO: Thorsten Klooster Thorsten Klooster is a Berlin based architect and the editor of the book SMART SURFACES AND THEIR APPLICATION IN ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN. He is a former member of the Technical Science Research Group at the Fraunhofer Institute (IPK) in Berlin and a teacher for architectural design and construction at the Brandenburg University of Technology. In 2007 he founded the architectural studio TASK in Berlin. Abstract: Electrifying Concrete “Electrifying concrete” talks about the development of a new concrete called DiysCrete that is able to generate electricity out of solar energy. DiysCrete is based on the technical principles of dye-sensitized100

BIO: Asst. Prof. Dirk Hebel Dirk Hebel is holding the position of Assistant Professor of Architecture and Construction at the Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore / ETH Zurich. Prior to that, he was the founding Scientific Director of the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His research concentrates on alternative building materials and construction techniques and their application in developing territories. Abstract: Bamboofying Concrete Bamboo has been used as a construction material for centuries around the globe. The benefits of using bamboo are enormous: its fast growth, high tensile strength, and the capacity to100

INTERNATIONAL FCL CONFERENCE CONCRETE SLEEPING BEAUTY AUDITORIUM 2nd FLOOR – CREATE TOWER Future Cities Laboratory FCL Singapore ETH Centre SEC 01 CREATE Way / University Town #06-01 CREATE TOWER Singapore 138602