What a fantastic day we had at last weeks CWCT AGM and Member’s Meeting!
A full house was treated to excellent, insightful and thought-provoking presentations, great questions and discussion and valuable networking.
The day started with updates from our Chair, Saverio Pasetto, Head of Facades at Skanska UK, our Finance Director Richard White of RSM, and David Metcalfe, Director of CWCT, who provided a review of CWCT activities over the past year.
Saverio spoke about the importance of people in our industry and in particular their competence. He highlighted the unique programme of courses that CWCT have developed that should be your first point of call in relation to training in façade engineering.
David focussed on the importance of communication and engagement. We want as many people as possible to know how CWCT supports the façade industry and we try and share important news and updates with you. To make this more accessible, we have recently launched a new company LinkedIn page. Please follow this page and engage with the posts which helps to boost visibility. We also have a Latest News area on the website where you can sign up to receive monthly updates. Engagement with us is so important. We want to better understand your challenges and concerns, we want your feedback on articles we publish (such as our H&S work), and we want your technical questions. This helps us to support you and to improve the industry.
During the AGM, we also launched our latest sustainability publication, An Introduction to Sustainable Façade Refurbishment. This is such a significant document. We want refurbishment to become the norm rather than the exception, and for this to happen, the challenges and options need to be understood. This document provides a practical framework for sustainable façade refurbishment and is supported by examples and case studies that help to connect the guidance to real project challenges, decisions and outcomes. Our thanks to everyone who contributed projects, knowledge and lessons learnt to support the development of the guide. A webinar to introduce this guidance will be help on 29th October – see here for further details. The guide is freely available to download for Members via the Cladding Forum and available to purchase for non-members via the website.
Finally, we had some questions. Some of these related back to last year, some to help prepare for the day’s presentations and some were more general about CWCT. A few interesting observations from the results were:
- Nearly 50% of respondents had seen an improvement in the Gateway 2 process,
- The majority of respondents (68%) had not responded to the key government consultations that have been published in the past year,
- A significant proportion of respondents (63%) were concerned about the increased use of AI in the façade industry.
These questions provide valuable feedback and there are several areas that we will investigate further.
After the AGM, our morning session focussed on façade sustainability and refurbishment.
First up, we heard from Neil Dobbs from Multiplex who spoke about one of the key concerns in relation to refurbishment – managing risk. He gave some excellent examples that underlined the complex issues that need to be addressed during the refurbishment process. We need to be able to give clients the confidence that such issues can be managed in order to remove this potential blocker to refurbishment over replacement.
Next, Gianluca Rapone from FMDC highlighted a number of ways in which stone can be reused in facades. The widespread use of stone in existing facades provides great opportunities for repurposing it in facades of the future. Of particular interest was the work presented to try and quantity the embodied carbon of stone reuse, showing that this not only reduces the use of new stone, but that there is also carbon savings associated with it.
Finally, we heard from British Land’s Matt Webster who helped to set the scene in terms of how a developer approaches refurbishment. Whilst the overall desire for greater refurbishment is clear, dealing with the technical challenges and design compromises that may exist are essential to making it work in practice.
The final session before lunch switched the focus to mental health. Dr Jennifer Opoku-Lageyre presented some very stark statistics in relation to mental health challenges in the construction industry, that many people could relate to. It is great that we can use the AGM to openly discuss key topics such as this.
After lunch, we held a panel discussion on the fire performance of facades. On stage were Camille Destrss of BB7, Alan Curran from OFR Consultants, Tony Ryan of Siderise and Aaron Dehara from Staticus. Fire and facades remains a complex topic and we used this session to try and explain some of the challenges and what might be done to address them. It was also great to have some engagement with the audience, who as expected, raised some interesting questions of their own.
The final session of the day looked at innovation and AI.
Firstly, Simon Pierce of Meinhardt spoke about the risks, opportunities and challenges of AI. For many in the audience, this was really eye-opening! Whilst AI has great potential, we first need to understand and control the risks that come with it, in particular the management of data. Where is our data stored? Who has access to it? How do we ensure it is correct? Understanding this is essential if we are to safely exploit the benefits of AI.
Our final speakers were Evan Levelle and Keyan Rahimazdeh from VIA. They showcased how they were using AI and analytical tools to design and fabricate novel and complex facades. Whilst the computational tools help, they have to be based on sound engineering principles, and the understanding of these principles is the key to their use.
The day ended with drinks, further discussion and networking overlooking the river.
People were the defining theme of the day. From engagement, feedback, communication and competence to mental health and the responsible use of AI, every discussion reinforced the same message: our industry depends on the people within it. If the façade sector is to flourish, we must continue to support, engage and develop them.
Our thanks to all of our amazing speakers and to everyone who attended and engaged with us throughout the day.
Presentations are available to download via the Cladding Forum. Recordings are also available to watch.
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