On 03 October 2023, the 3rd Science Workshop of Build4People WP#3 “Sustainable Neighbourhoods” took place at the Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia. For the first time, it was organized as an inter-disciplinary effort with Build4People WP#2 “Sustainable Building” and further with input from Build4People WP#5 “Urban Climate”.
The overarching topic of this Science Workshop was “Climate Protection and Energy Flows”. Thereby, the main aim was to introduce the latest research conclusions in regard to energy supply, energy efficiency and climate protection tools from the Build4People Project, with the specific objective to familiarise students with alternative design strategies and tools to reduce the environmental impact of buildings.
After the welcome remarks of Dr. Michael Waibel, Build4People project consortium representative, Hamburg University, and of Dr. Justin Dara Op, Vice-President of Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia, the Science Workshop continued with input presentations from several B4P team members.
The first talk encompassed the overview of design strategies for sustainable neighbourhood development which were presented by Ms. Nuria Roig, Research Associate of B4P WP#3 “Sustainable Neighbourhoods. It was followed by the presentation of relevant best practice examples in Southeast Asia region introduced by Mr. Messerschmidt, WP#3 leader and CEO of Eble Messerschmidt Partner, Tuebingen, Germany.
Deepening into the topic of energy efficient buildings, Ms. Christina Karagianni, Research Associate of B4P WP#2 “Sustainable Building”, detailed the impacts of passive design strategies as well as the implementation of more advanced measures to reduce energy consumption to procure the construction of future-proof buildings. Making a strong emphasis on the building-climate interaction, Prof. Dr. Lutz Katzschner, leader of B4P WP#5 “Urban Climate”, explained how the innovative Urban Climate Map recently developed by his team can be used to better understand the local climatic conditions.
This tool and its derived localized urban climate guidelines are regarded as an important milestone towards the sustainable transformation of Phnom Penh.
After these valuable inputs from the German B4P team members, students from the Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia and from the Institute of Technology of Cambodia (ITC) jointly worked on a quick practical exercise.
Their task was to estimate the energy savings derived from the implementation of the wide range of strategies discussed during the first half of the workshop.
At the end of the session, the students presented their results, which included rule of thumbs to estimate the potential energy savings on buildings and neighbourhoods and sketches that helped illustrating the wide range of benefits on the environment and quality of life these strategies might have for the inhabitants of Phnom Penh.
The organizing team of this inspiring inter-disciplinary Science Workshop would like to sincerely thank all the participants for their dedicated support and valuable contributions to the vibrant discussions and to the fruitful group work.