Green Building Conference Confirms Kam Sing Wong

By Celeste Yates - Green Building Media

Kam Sing Wong has been confirmed to speak at the Green Building Conference, 2009, which will be held at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa on the 7-8th of July. His topic - High Density Sustainable Urban Design: Hong Kong, Mainland China & Beyond - will be aimed at shedding some ‘green' light on solutions that South Africa can learn from the Asian region on high-density urban and residential areas.

Kam Sing Wong is the Chairman of the Professional Green Building Council (PGBC) and the Vice-President of the Hong Kong Institute of Architects (HKIA). He was the founding Chairman of the HKIA Committee on Environment & Sustainable Development.

In practise, Wong is the director of Sustainable Design at Ronald Lu & Partners (Hong Kong) Ltd. He heads his studio on projects ranging from master planning and urban design to a wide spectrum of building projects that apply the principle of sustainable design in the high density urban context of Hong Kong and Mainland china. He also spearheads the sustainability Steering Group (SSG), creating transformation of the 300-person architectural office towards sustainability. By the end of 2008, 20% of it's professional staff had acquired LEED AP qualifications.

Wong states that "the future of our built environment faces three key challenges. Sustainability is definitely the keystone. Urbanisation is a global trend; more than half of the world's population now live in cities. Last but not least, Densification is advocated as a sustainable urban design approach: less is more."

Wong will be demonstrating this in his presentation - High Density Sustainable Urban Design: Hong Kong, Mainland China & Beyond - at the Green Building Conference 2009, which will be held the 7-8th of July 2009 at the Sandton Convention Centre.

He will look at Hong Kong as a hyper-dense city to illustrate the lessons of high density sustainable urban design. Selected examples in mainland China, as well as other Asian countries like Singapore and Japan will further illustrate the relevant emerging ‘green' trend. In turn, this will aim to inspire professionals and property owners/developers to move towards low-carbon yet highly liveable, climate adaptive urbanisation.

Wong will be joined by other leading international speakers such as Emilo Ambasz - Emlio Ambasz Associates, Inc - who will be presenting on "Green Over Grey" and Tiffany Tsui from the DHV/SSI group, who will be presenting on "Business Cases of Building Green: in Good Times and Bad Times - Cross Country Perspectives and Case Studies."

The Green Building Conference and Exhibition is geared towards architects, engineers, property owners and construction professionals and seeks to provide valuable and applicable insights from a select group of local and international speakers to present on the future of ‘green' building, within the South African scope. The conference hopes to achieve this through case studies, spreading the knowledge on the practise of ‘green' building and giving the latest on national and international trends, technologies and materials available in the green building movement.

For more information, please visit - http://www.greenbuilding.co.za/greenevents.html

Green Building Media and Conferences hosts the Annual Green Building Conference in South Africa,. Their website is fast becoming the green information portal, containing all news-related information, case studies, and information on sustainable living. They also have an extensive directory listing on all "green" buildings within each sector of the industry.