On 29 September 2022, the 3rd Science Workshop of Build4People WP2 “Sustainable Building” took place at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia (ITC). The purpose of this workshop was to promote knowledge exchange between the German and the Cambodian side of the Build4People project and try to answer the question of what is a sustainable building in the Cambodian context and what are the most important environmental challenges that should be considered when such a definition is attempted.
Multiple Cambodian and international researchers presented their work, amongst them the WP2’s Cambodian research partners Dr. Virak Han, Ms. Taing Kimnenh, Mr. Long Makara and Ms. Keth Kannary.
The workshop started with the Build4People Project leader, Dr. Michael Waibel, introducing the general approaches of the project during the RD phase thereby stressing the importance of the building sector and a transdisciplinary approach for a sustainable transition in Cambodia.
Following this insightful input Dr. Waibel handed over 15 copies of the Build4People special edition of the Architectural Guide of Phnom Penh in Khmer language (published by Moritz Henning and Walter Koditek).
Next Christina Karagianni from WP2 presented and held out a questionnaire-based survey about environmental challenges in Cambodia, the results of which will be presented on the next science workshop.
After the participatory part of the workshop Dr. Virak Han presented about the building audit and measurement campaign that is being held in Phnom Penh right now, its purposes and challenges.
This was followed by an input of Prof Dr Dirk Schwede, the leader of the WP2 team, who participated online and gave a presentation about sustainable building dimensions and about his research results from the CAMaRSEC project in Vietnam.
Christina Karagianni continued by going deeper into sustainable building dimensions and by giving an overview about present Green Building Rating Systems in Southeast Asia.
After a short break three Cambodian PhD students presented online about their research and how it connects to the Build4People project.
At first, the PhD student Ms Taing Kimneh presented about Building Thermal Comfort and Bioclimatic Design in Cambodia. This was followed by a presentation of Mr Long Makara about Sustainable Building Design and Strategy based on Life Cycle Assessment Methodology. Finally, Ms Keth Kanary presented about Workflow in the Design Phase: The Effect on the Sustainable Outcome of Buildings.
During the last presentation a short survey took place amongst the participants regarding the workflow in a construction project.
Closing the workshop Mr Ravi Jayaweera presented about transitions studies and about the Sustainable Building Arena a concept that aims to support social innovation for transformational change towards sustainability in Cambodia’s built environment sector.
Last but not least, the Build4People team would like to kindly thank ITC for supporting and co-organising this event and all of the presenters and participants for sharing their meaningful research and valuable insights from Cambodia.