Webinar | Optimizing Energy, Environment and Safety in the Built Environment

The development of the built environment is a tug of war between drivers and constraints.

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Webinar | Optimizing Energy, Environment and Safety in the Built Environment

16 Nov 2021, 13:00 – 14:00

About the webinar

The development of the built environment is a tug of war between drivers and constraints. Societal drivers such as the reduction of energy consumption harness all the resources and constraints are only addressed when knowledge is required to remove them or circumvent them. Talent and resources flow towards the drivers and those who cannot make it in the exciting world of drivers are left behind to deal with the constraints. Governments, in their thirst for eternal economic growth and sustainability, invest heavily on drivers and not in constraints. Instead governments remove them to avoid stifling much needed innovation. We forget that constraints are ultimately a tool to deliver wellbeing. At the core of wellbeing is a guarantee of safety which is underpinned by constraints. Constraints have enabled us to assume that safety is guaranteed for all citizens. This presentation combines material and combustion science, forensic studies and regulatory constraints to discuss how all these variables are optimized in the design of infrastructure.

Image caption: A city skyline
Image credit: Unsplash.

Please note, this webinar is open to everyone, but is aimed at an academic audience. No registration is required.

Webinar Joining Link

Professor José L. Torero

Professor José L. Torero is Professor Civil Engineering and Head of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at University College London. He works in the fields of safety, environmental remediation and sanitation where he specializes in complex environments such as developing nations, complex urban environments, novel architectures, critical infrastructure, aircraft and spacecraft. He holds a BSc for the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (1989), and an MSc (1991) and PhD (1992) from the University of California, Berkeley. He received a Doctor Honoris Causa by Ghent University (Belgium) in 2016. José is a Chartered Engineer (UK), a Registered Professional Engineer in Queensland, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), the Royal Society of Edinburgh (UK), the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences (Australia), the Institution of Civil Engineers (UK), the Institution of Fire Engineers (UK), the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (USA), the Combustion Institute (USA) and the Royal Society of New South Wales (Australia).