Looking back on BauZ! 2018

Even more than in former years, BauZ! 2018 was an event taking place as well in the congress room as outside in the foyer.

Interactive formats, introduced in 2017, became more prominent. Plenary lectures and special-interest workshops in smaller rooms were complemented by the World Café-type “congress at round tables” which could be referred to this time as “gatherings at the large monitors in the foyer” – events that foster lively discussion in a smaller audience. 14 companies running exhibitor’s tables in the foyer took the opportunity to introduce themseves to the plenary audience with 1-minute-presentations (Elevator Pitches). BauZ! congresses organise manifold opportunities for business contacts and exchange of knowledge, including a field trip and evening receptions by our cooperation partners.

BauZ! has been set up as an international event since 2013 – with international promotion and featuring simultaneous translation in the congress room. This year we were happy to receive delegations from Canada, China, Germany and Turkey. The share of international guests rose to 20 %.

Since 2004 BauZ! congresses have been a venue for protagonists of the building industriy and trades in Austria and abroad, who, while pursuing their businesses and research, try to keep an eye both to environmental and societal impacts of their activities.

This year’s motto was: Put into operation! – What are the things that are getting up and running?

In short – It turned out to be about extensions.

System boundaries of building services grow from buildings to neighborhoods and get extended to energy planning (Energieraumplanung).

Architectural planning develops into digital modelling, used by all following collaborators. Structural engineers, building services engineers, building physics and building simulation experts, contractors, facility managers – they all extend, detail, and contribute to, one model.

Specialised actors in building processes, who are traditionally co-ordinated to, but also separated from, each other by tendering procedures, contracts and claim management, extend their informal communication, led by a shared building model – which after all leaves them no other choice.

The role of the client, exerted mainly in an anonymous way by institutional investors, is extended, democratised, and personalised by new societies, well-organised groups of future users – new models of housing associations (Baugruppen).

Surfaces of buildings extend their functionality by generating heat and electricity but also by getting greened, culminating in vertical horticultural production.

Please check on www.bauz.at beginning of April the new call for papers for BauZ! 2019 , to be held 13 to 15 February 2019.