Keynote speakers

It is our great pleasure to welcome and introduce you excellent speakers in the field of sustainability and built environment.

Vojtěch Kotecký

Global Climate Change. A Challenge for Central Europe

Vojtěch Kotecký (born 1974) is a Czech environmentalist who currently works as an analyst at Glopolis, a Prague-based think tank. He focuses on environmental policy, green business and natural capital issues.

Vojtěch has got more than 20 years’ experience with environmental research and advocacy. He has been campaigns director of Hnutí DUHA (Friends of the Earth Czech Republic), one of the strongest environmental groups in EU’s new member states, for ten years until August 2014. Previously, he was responsible for the group’s research, and mining and minerals policy work.

The author or co-author of a number of research reports on various environmental issues, Vojtěch also wrote dozens of brief publications, hundreds of articles, including those in national daily newspapers, and shares a column in Respekt, a liberal Czech weekly. He has served as a member of the Government Council for Sustainable Development, and was the chair of Friends of the Earth Europe, the European branch of the world’s largest federation of environmental groups. He also sits in the advisory boards of Nature Conservation Agency and České Švýcarsko National Park. Vojtěch graduated in biology and ecology from the Charles University in Prague, and has got a PhD in environmental studies from the same university.

Doris Österreicher & Martin Treberspurg

Solar City Linz and aspern Seestadt – a comparison of large-scale urban developments in Austria

Doris Oesterreicher, Arch. Dipl.-ing. Dr. MSc is a lecturer and researcher at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna. Her research work concentrates mainly on energy-related concepts, design and methods in climate adaptive architecture and urban planning with a focus on energy and resources. She worked over nine years at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) and was Head of the Business Unit Sustainable Buildings and Cities in the Energy Department of the AIT. Before that she worked over eight years overseas in the UK and USA, mainly as an environmental designer in London, providing planning and consultancy for a number of signature innovative low energy buildings. She additionally works as a consultant for international projects, lectures on environmental design at several institutions and serves as a tutor and juror for architectural critics. Doris is a qualified architect in Austria (Ziviltechnikerin) and the UK (RIBA), holds a Dipl. Ing. and Dr.techn. in Architecture from the Vienna University of Technology and received a MSc in Architecture, Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies from the University of East London.

Martin Treberspurg, Univ. Prof. Arch. Dipl.-Ing. Dr., studied civil engineering and architecture at the Vienna University of Technology, where he also habilitated in 2001. Since 2004 he was University Professor of Resource-oriented Construction at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. He founded his first architectural office in 1985 and has been managing Treberspurg & Partner Architects since 1996. Aesthetics, quality of life and sustainability characterize his projects. For almost thirty years, the office has been one of the most innovative representatives of sustainable architecture far beyond the borders of Austria. Other focal points include the thermal renovation and restoration of historic buildings as well as urban planning based on solar energy aspects. For their commitment, Treberspurg & Partner Architects received in 1999 the World Architectural Award of the UIA (Union Internationale des Architectes).

Harald S. Müller

A new generation of sustainable structural concretes – Design approach and material properties

Dr.-Ing. Harald S. Müller received his academic education and his doctoral degree in civil engineering from the University of Karlsruhe in 1986. After several years of working primarily in consulting business at BAM in Berlin he returned to the University of Karlsruhe in 1995 (today: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT), where he became a full Professor for Building Materials and Concrete Structures and the director of the Institute. His major research subjects are creep and shrinkage, service life design, durability, sustainability and rehabilitation of concrete structures. He became a Prof. Emeritus by the end of 2017.

Prof. Müller is an elected member of the National Science Foundation of Germany and active in various national and international scientific and technical commissions such as fib, CEN, ACI and RILEM. He is Honorary President of the International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib) and a convenor within the CEN Eurocode 2 revision process. He owns several national and international awards. As a founder and managing partner of the SMP Society of Engineers of Constructions Ltd, based in Karlsruhe and Dresden, he is mainly involved in the analysis, rehabilitation and strengthening of concrete structures.

Thomas Lützkendorf

Sustainability in building construction – a multiscale approach

Thomas Lützkendorf, Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil, is director of the Centre for Real Estate at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). He holds a PhD (1985) and Habilitation (2000) in the area of implementing sustainable development principles within the construction sector. Within the scope of teaching and research activities he is concerned with questions relating to the integration of sustainability issues into design and decision making processes along the life cycle of buildings.

Prof. Lützkendorf is a founding member of iiSBE and involved in standardisation activities at European (CEN TC 350) and international (ISO TC 59 SC 17) level. He was and is involved at the development and testing of sustainability assessment systems for buildings in Germany (BNB, DGNB, NaWoh) and collaborates in international research projects (i. e. SuPerBuildings, CONCERTO, IEA-Annex 57, IEA Annexd 72, RenoValue and RentalCal).

Richard Lorch

Buildings and climate change: accelerating transformation

Richard Lorch is an architect, researcher, author, book series editor, and editor-in-chief of a new, international research journal entitled Buildings and Cities. For 21 years, he was the editor-in-chief of Building Research & Information. His focus is on public policy, organisational change and the wider social impacts of building on energy, climate, and the environment. As journal editor, he commissions work on transitioning to a low-carbon society.  From 2007-14, Lorch was also the executive editor of Climate Policy, a journal that focuses on international climate negotiations and their implications.  

Lorch is actively engaged in improving policy literacy within the construction sector, as an advisor to the European Commission and a member of UK think tank, The Edge. He is a visiting professor at University College London and serves on the advisory board of the Dresden Leibniz Graduate School, an international transdisciplinary PhD program on spatial science, economics, and social sciences.