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Reflections after PLEA 2024 Conference
Reflections after PLEA 2024 Conference
What a conference we had! PLEA 2024 welcomed over 300 participants from all over the world. It was the first fully hybrid PLEA and we will soon publish photos and keynote speeches while abstracts and proceedings are already available.
During the informal opening in the Museum of Architecture a record was set in terms of the number of participants who joined the lecture of Joana Carla Soares Gonçalves on ‘Sustainable Cities - South meets Central’ followed by Lone Feifer speaking about 'VELUX: Building for Life – how can we connect the traditions of the past with aspirations for our future in the built environment?' and Richard Lorch presenting the Buildings & Cities journal.
We are so grateful to our honorary patrons Arkadiusz Wójs (Rector of WUST), Michał Duda (Director of Museum of Architecture) and Janusz Rębielak (Polish Academy of Sciences) and our honorable guests: Katarzyna Chojnacka (v-ce Rector of WUST), Katarzyna Szymczak-Pomianowska (Director of the Department of Sustainable Development, Wrocław City Hall), Ilona Ligocka (Department of Adaptation to Climate Change and Urban Policy, Ministry of Climate and Environment) , Lia Bektasiadou (European Commission, Joint Research Center, Belgium), Magdalena Glogowska, PhD (Global Challenges Section of the National Contact Point of the National Center for Research and Development) and PLEA - Sustainable Architecture and Urban Design President Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heide Schuster.
Right after the opening the participants had an immense pleasure to hear Mat Santamouris (UNSW, Sydney, Australia) speaking about the complex mechanism of urban heat. Mat devoted a lot of attention to explaining the issue of cooling spaces in cities and pointed out that planting trees in cities is not a universal panacea for climate change. Mat presented research results according to which trees during a heatwave, (if not watered properly) due to lack of transpiration, not only do not cool the surroundings, but can even lead to a local increase in temperature due to darker leaf color causing surface heating.
Klaus Klaas Loenhart (TU GRAZ) inspired the audience with the beauty of natural process and initiated the panel discussion on Nature-Based Solutions (NBS). The stunningly designed presentation captivated the attention of all those gathered. Klaus also drew attention to important issues related to the absorption of carbon dioxide and the possibility of storing it in the soil by mycellium. Our fantastic panelists Lone Feifer (VELUX), Emanuele Naboni (Norman Foster Institute), Rafael Alonso Candau (ATMOS LAB), and Erin Heidelberger (KOHN PEDERSEN FOX) set together with Klaus and analysed various aspects of bio-based materials and NBS which made the audience eagerly join the discussion. After the whole day of plenary and parallel sessions as many as 86 persons participated in walking city tours to WUWA and Centennial Hall.
The second day of #PLEA 2024 started with the talk of the First Lady of Polish architecture - Ewa Kuryłowicz about challenges and opportunities of design in extreme conditions. Describing her experience of designing Polish Arctic Station ‘Arctowski’, positioned in extremely demanding conditions, Ewa inspired the participants to think about self-sufficiency, sustainability and designing for resilience and survival.
The most important lecture, which all participants were looking forward to, was the keynote speech by a Noble Prize Laureate, Professor John Schellnhuber. This unquestionable genius of our times and initiator of the #NewEuropeanBauhaus fascinated the audience with a lecture on how to save the world in style. The important lesson from this speech is the significance of beauty in the human environment, that must be coupled with sustainability and inclusiveness. The message "Beautiful things will survive, ugly things will be destroyed and forgotten" in the context of the main theme of the PLEA 2024 conference “(Re)thinking resilience" should be applied not only to individual buildings, but to all human activity and its impact on the environment.
The gala dinner in the Museum of Architecture started with a energetic jazz concert by the students of Państwowa Szkoła Muzyczna II stopnia im. R. Bukowskiego. The event brought lots of fun and opportunity for informal networking.
The key message from PLEA 2024 (Re)thinking resilience is that together we can save the world, but we must act now!
See you in #PLEA2026 in Costa Rica!
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