Across the shimmering waters of the bay, the sand dunes of Moreton Island beckon. Just an hour by boat, the island offers a seemingly remote taste of paradise. From Mount Tempest, the highest vegetated sand hill in the world, there are sweeping views of the forested island. Bumpy four wheel drive tracks cross the island to Ocean Beach, where the wild ocean crashes onto kilometres of empty sand. On bay side of the island, the crystal clear waters around The Wrecks are home to a myriad of colourful fish. Eliza Morawska, Member of the ANZOC

For more information about the beautiful Moreton Bay (which is also the featured image on the conference banner) please click here.

Registration is now OPEN!

Registration for the 2012 Healthy Buildings Conference is now open! Please see the Registration page for more details on registration fees and inclusions. Early bird registration rates close on 31 March 2012.

Accommodation can also be booked as part of the registration process. Information on the hotels being offered can be found on the accommodation page.

Update on Program

Paper Submissions- The submission deadline for full papers and extended abstracts has now passed and the majority of authors have now lodged their revised submissions.

Keynote Speakers – The following is a list of keynote speakers who will present at the conference:

Balance of Power: Energy Conservation versus Indoor Environmental Quality

· Opening Plenary Speaker – To be Confirmed

· Professor Phillipa Howden-Chapman: Director, New Zealand Centre for Sustainable Cities, Department of Public Health, University of Otago

Race against Time: Population, Urban Growth and Miracles of Technology

· Professor Kalpana Balakrishnan: Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Occupational Health and Head of the Department, Environmental Health Engineering, Sri Ramachandra University, India

· Professor Jiang Yi: Director, Building Energy Research Centre, Tsinghua University and Co-Director, Tsinghua-UPENN Centre for Building Simulation and Energy.

Infection spread: will breathing kill you?

· Professor Clive Beggs: Chair, Medical Technology, School of Engineering, Design & Technology,
University of Bradford

· A/Professor Raymond Tellier: Medical Microbiologist, Provincial Laboratory for Public Health of Alberta, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, University of Calgary

Closing Plenary Addresses

· The winners of the student competition (one from each category) will give 3 x 10 minute presentations on the final day of the conference – more information about the student competition can be found here.

· Professor Charlie Weschler: Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School & Rutgers University
For further information, please visit the Keynote Speakers page.

Workshops – We received close to 40 workshop proposals for the conference. All authors of the proposals have now been notified of the outcome of their submission – some have been accepted as standalone workshops, while those that were similar to other submissions were combined and accepted as joint workshops. The workshop program is currently being finalised and further details will be available on the website shortly.

HB2012 on Twitter & Facebook

The facebook page has been set up and once we get enough people we will convert it to a custom URL which will make it easier to find. For now, the page can be found at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Healthy-Buildings-2012-Conference/185899311479077

We have also created a Twitter account at http://twitter.com/hb2012 and we are investigating ways to make use of both of these accounts both in the leadup to and during the conference. If you are interested in assisting with the administration of these accounts, please contact Woody Pattinson at woodroe.pattinson@pg.canterbury.ac.nz

Student Competition

A reminder that student competition submission closes on May 18 2012. If you are going to compete please email healthybuildings2012@gmail.com to let us know. We don’t need the finished submission until May but we do need an idea of how many people are going to participate so that we can organise the presentation session, review of entries, etc.

Please see the Registration page for more details on registration fees and inclusions. Information on applying for a Visa to visit Australia can be found here.

Accommodation can also be booked as part of the registration process. Information on the hotels being offered can be found on the accommodation page.

“Overlooking the golden fields of the Scenic Rim is the sweeping green arch of the Great Dividing Range, located on hour from Brisbane. Winding up the hillside, the rainforest gives way to grass trees that cling to the steep slopes. On the plateau, cows graze in the emerald fields surrounded by exposed cliffs. A short walk through tall open forest of towering red gums leads to Queen Mary Falls, where the waterfall drops 40m over basalt cliffs before continuing its twisting journey down the valley floor to join the Condamine River. For avid four wheel drivers, the 14 river crossings track in the Condamine Gorge offers a spectacular spot to test skills”. Eliza Morawska, Member of the ANZOC.

News about the HB2012 Student Program

The Healthy Buildings 2012 Student Program Committee (SPC) is off to a great start, organising an exciting program for students attending the conference. We are learning from our experiences of past conferences and looking at how we can build on the work of those before us to make HB2012′s student conference the best it can be. However, to do that, we will need your suggestions as to what you would like to get out of the student program. We would also appreciate any help you can give us in making your dreams come true.

Kat Healey is currently organising the social program (close to the conference venue, but far away enough that your supervisors won’t be watching) and all of us on the SPC look forward to meeting students and relaxing, both at the event, as well as in and around South East Queensland (adventurous folk may enjoy visiting the Queen Mary Falls and the Condamine Gorge).

The student competition, below, will give you the opportunity to present at a plenary session, so make sure you enter! Presenting at a conference and having conference papers on your CV is a great way to start a career in science, engineering or any other discipline related to Healthy Buildings.

Our social media co-ordinator, Woody Pattinson, will need people to help promote the student program via Twitter (an @HB2012 account lies dormant, waiting for someone to breathe life into it) and Facebook so let me know if you’ve got experience with social media and would like to help maintain our online presence.

We’re only a small group at the moment so if you’re interested in connecting with some motivated students and giving us a hand, or you want to volunteer someone else, please contact me at healthybuildings2012@gmail.com

On behalf of the Student Program Committee,

Sam Clifford (SPC Chair – featured in the photo above doing some impromptu theatre).

Student Competition

As part of the conference there is a Student Competition being run (please see below). Further details about eligibility and entry requirements can be found here.

Requirements – The entry should focus on the solution to a problem related to healthy buildings (rather than the broader topic of “sustainability”), be it at home, in the workplace, in public spaces (schools, hospitals, etc.), in both the developed or developing world.

Categories – The categories for the competition are:
· Policy: how can healthy building design and practice be encouraged?
· Engineering: how can we make a building healthy?
· Design and construction: how do you build a healthy building?
· Developing world: how can we achieve healthy buildings where money is limited?

Deadline
Entries must be received no later than 18 May 2012 (8 weeks prior to the conference). Please email your entry to healthybuildings2012@gmail.com

“Pinnacle Lookout – located in Border Ranges National Park 150km south of Brisbane – offers the perfect spot to see the shaping forces of 23 million years of geological history. Positioned on the rim of an ancient volcano, the panoramic view encompasses the precipitous cliffs that circle the central plug of Mt Warning revealing the largest erosion caldera in the Southern Hemisphere. Erupting around 23 million years ago, this enormous volcano sculpted a vast area of southern Queensland and northern New South Wales. Today, the Border Rangers are covered in ancient Antarctic Beech forest that has turned this World Heritage listed spot into a green cauldron.” Eliza Morawska, Member of the ANZOC.

Keynote Presentations

Professor Kalpana Balakrishnan, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Occupational Health and Head of the Department of Environmental Health Engineering at Sri Ramachandra University, India will be one of two keynote speakers on the second day of the conference.

Student Program

The Student Program Committee invites all students to enter the Healthy Buildings 2012 Student Competition. The competition will focus on SOLUTIONS to problems associated with indoor air quality and workplace health. Categories include: (i) policy, (ii) engineering, (iii) design and construction, and (iv) the developing world. Entries can be of any form so long as non-written projects are adequately documented.

Entries close 18 May 2012 and will be judged by a group of professors, practitioners and fellow students who do not submit entries. For more details, please see the Student Competition page.

Students will work either individually or as teams to develop solutions to problems in the fields of indoor air quality and “healthy buildings”.

Eligibility

All entrants must be students (not working full-time).

Requirements

The entry should focus on healthy buildings (rather than the broader topic of “sustainability”), be it at home, in the workplace, in public spaces (schools, hospitals, etc.), in the developed or developing world, etc.

1. Each entry must be developed by a team of students (or an individual) of any level, without assistance by professors or non-student researchers

2. Each entrant may only contribute to one entry

3. Entries may be in the form of a paper, video, architectural model, etc. so long as the focus is on a solution and documented appropriately

4. Written entries must be less than five pages in length (including references and figures) in 12pt font, submitted as PDF files

5. Entries must be in English

Categories

The categories for the competition are:

• policy: how can healthy building design and practice be encouraged?
• engineering: how can we make a building healthy?
• design and construction: how do you build a healthy building?
• developing world: how can we achieve healthy buildings where money is limited?

Distribution of entries

All abstracts will be distributed to conference attendees in a booklet, with the submitted PDF files available from a page on the conference website.

Evaluation

Entries will be judged by a group of professors, practitioners and fellow students who do not submit entries. The evaluation will be based on a 100 point scale weighted according to quality of presentation of work (20%), potential benefit to society (25%), feasibility (25%) and creativity (30%).

Creativity

Creativity is a major component of the assessment for the panel evaluation and we encourage students to think outside the box. Solutions should be ambitious but realisable (for example, personal HEPA filters for wearing in the home and/or office is probably not a realistic solution).

Awards

The top entry in each category will receive certificate awards at Healthy Buildings 2012 and give a 10 minute presentation to a plenary session on the final day of the conference and have their paper included in the proceedings of the conference.

Deadline

Entries must be received no later than 18 May 2012 (8 weeks prior to the conference).

Out and about in South East Queensland

Eliza Morawska, a member of the Australia New Zealand Organising Committee recently visited one of South-East Queensland’s iconic beaches and had the following comment:

“The trendy township of Noosa, 160km north of Brisbane, overlooks a white sandy beach lapped by warm turquoise waters. From the boulevard restaurants there’s views to an 80km stretch of empty beach with a backdrop of forested dunes. Just around the corner on the headland is Noosa National Park. There, an easy coastal walk passes spectacular sea cliffs, secluded coves and offers the chance to see wildlife such as whales, turtles and koalas.”

Conference Program

Following recommendations from the hard work already done by the Australia New Zealand Organising Committee, the International Advisory Committee and the Program Committee, the three days of the conference will be divided into three main topic areas/symposia:

Day 1: Balance of power: Energy Conservation versus Indoor Environmental Quality

Day 2: Race against Time: Population, Urban Growth and Miracles of Technology

Day 3: Infection spread: Will breathing kill you?

Keynote Presentations

Professor Phillipa Howden-Chapman, Director of the New Zealand Centre for Sustainable Cities, Department of Public Health, University of Otago will be one of two keynote speakers on the first day of the conference. Professor Jiang Yi will also give a keynote presentation on the second day of the conference. He is Director of the Building Energy Research Centre at Tsinghua University and Co-director of the Tsinghua-UPENN Centre for Building Simulation and Energy. Professor Charles Weschler has also accepted the invitation to give a keynote talk on the closing day of the conference. He is a Professor at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School & Rutgers University in the USA.

Student Program

Mr Sam Clifford has recently been appointed as Chair of the Student Program Committee. Sam is a final year PhD student at the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Sam is currently working on statistical modelling of air quality in primary schools and he holds an Honours degree in mathematical modelling. His research interests include semi-parametric Bayesian regression, spatio-temporal modelling and the environmental and social impacts of transport systems. If you know of any students who would be interested in being a part of this committee, please email Sam at sj.clifford@student.qut.edu.au

Recent Visit to China

HB2012 President Lidia Morawska visited China last month to promote the conference and meet with members of the Asian Steering Committee. She visited: Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Wuhan Centers for Disease Prevention and Control; Huazhong Normal University; Wuhan University; Tsinghua University; Shanghai University; Shanghai Research Institute of Building Sciences; East China Architectural Design & Research Institute; and Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Centre. She also meet with staff from: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; Eastern China University of Technology; Donghua University; and Tongji University.

Winter skies in the Scenic Rim

With only one year to go until the conference, we thought you might like to know what the weather is like at this time of year. In order to capture the magic of a typical winter’s day in Brisbane, Eliza Morawska, a member of the Australia New Zealand Organising Committee, wrote the following description:

“The cold westerly winds howl through the trees during the night. Just before seven, the sun peeks over the horizon even though the shortest day of the year has only just past. There’s not a cloud in the pale blue sky, as brightly coloured lorikeets fly overhead. Squawking loudly they land in a grevillea that’s covered in flowers glowing in a warm winter palette. By mid-morning it’s over 20 degrees and the sky is a vivid blue. But as the last rays of sunlight disappear, the mercury drops quickly and a warm winters day turns into a cold winter night.”

Conference Symposia

Lorikeets feed on Grevillea flowers

Following recommendations from the hard work already done by theAustralia New Zealand Organising Committee, the International Advisory Committee and the Program Committee, the three days of the conference will be divided into three main topic areas:

Day 1: Balance of power: Energy Conservation versus Indoor Environmental Quality
Day 2: Growing Problems: Urbanisation and Poverty
Day 3: Infection Spread

More information on each topic will added to the conference website over the coming weeks.

June Competition Winner!

In our June eNews we ran a competition asking people to submit a name for our conference mascot. The judges were impressed by the numerous entries, and the clever suggestions, but the overall winner is…..

Brisby

Brisby was suggested by two different entrants. Congratulations to our two winners:
Rafal Górny, Central Institute for Labour Protection – National Research Institute, Poland &
Brandon E. Boor, The University of Texas at Austin

To enter, click here to email your answer. Competition closes on the 30th of June. Competition closed – winner will be announced shortly!

Click here to see the list of suggested names and the winning entry.

Previous winners:

April eNews Competition: Jerzy Sowa
January eNews Australia Zoo Family Pass: Josh Jacobs from Greenguard Environmental Institute, USA

And the winner is…

In the January edition of the e-news we ran a competition to win a family pass to the world-famous Australia Zoo. To enter you needed to have subscribed to our conference mail list by the end of February.

We are pleased to announce the winner is……Josh Jacobs from Greenguard Environmental Institute, USA. Congratulations Josh – we’ll be in contact regarding your prize.

WIN!

This month readers have the chance to win their very own HB 2012 mascot. Competition closed.

Question: What green environmental star rating does BCEC on Grey Street have? (clue: read on and follow one of the links in the BCEC story)

Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre

The host venue for Healthy Buildings 2012 is the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, located in the South Bank leisure precinct of Brisbane. The Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, or BCEC as it is more commonly known as to locals was selected as the host venue for many reasons, but one very important one are its environmental initiatives. BCEC on Grey is a new multi-million dollar expansion to the current centre. The expansion will be complete in the 3rd quarter of 2011, and the Healthy Buildings conference will be one of the first to experience this new space. Some of the environmentally friendly features of BECE on Grey are:

Water

• An underground water tank providing all necessary water for toilet flushing in the new Centre which will significantly reduce the Centre’s water consumption.
• Water efficient fixtures and fittings including urinals which use a chemical system in place of a water based flushing system.

Energy

• Light fittings have been selected to minimise energy consumption. Lighting zone design provides lighting switches with occupancy sensors and reduced modes for set-up and pack-down situations.
• Solar hot water generation is in place to reduce energy consumption.
• Air conditioning systems are energy efficient. The design includes the provision of occupant/carbon dioxide sensors to control operations of the air conditioning system in each separable area.

Materials

• All timber and composite timber products used in the project are to be sourced from a combination of the following:
• Post-consumer re-used timber
• Forest Stewardship Council Certified.

Indoor Environment Quality

• Finishes meet the benchmarks for low volatile organic compound (VOC) content. All painted surfaces are low VOC paints. All carpets are low VOC and all adhesives and sealants are low VOC.

To read more about the centre’s environmental initiatives please visit their website.

Committee Update

On the 25th of March a Committee Meeting was held at BCEC to inspect the rooms being used for the conference. Those in attendance (from left to right in the photo): Vyt Garnys – Cetec, Hai Guo – Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Jason Thomas, Rachel Appleby, Lidia Morawska and Luke Knibbs – all QUT.

We were also excited to have Vyt confirm Cetec would become a Gold Sponsor of the conference.

If you are interested in sponsorship options please download our Sponsorship Prospectus.

Committee Meeting

On Friday 5 November Professor Lidia Morawska (President – HB2012), Professor Richard deDear (Vice-President – HB2012), Dr Luke Knibbs (President – Australian Organising Committee), Professor Hai Guo (Vice-Chair – Asian Steering Committee) and Professor Erik Uhde (Member – International Advisory Committee) met with the HB2012 conference organisers (Jason Thomas, Gabrielle Hunter and Rachael Appleby) to discuss and visit potential venues for the conference social events. The meeting included a visit to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary (which is a potential venue for the conference dinner), where each of the committee members got to cuddle a koala. Please visit the gallery for some photos…

Committee Meeting - Friday 5 November

Committees

Over the past month we have been adding details of all our committee members to the website. We are pleased to have formed the following committees:

• Australian Organising Committee
• International Advisory Committee
• Asian Steering Committee
• Sponsorship Committee

Your destination in 2012 – Brisbane

Brisbane is a modern, dynamic destination with a youthful spirit, great convention and meeting facilities and an appealing range of leisure activities. In one neat package Brisbane embodies the great Australian destination. From the world-class infrastructure to the excellent transport systems to the global reputation for innovative and emerging industries to the immense options for pre and post touring and partner programs, Brisbane is a destination built for business events.