We can tailor talks and training to your requirements around the subject of sustainability in the built environment.
Steven Harris as a long experience of providing training, public speaking and chairing events and seminars. He has spoken at diverse events from training local housing associations about energy efficiency to being the key note speaker at two international conferences in Namyangju, South Korea on designs for a new eco city. He has also spent three years as a Senior Lecturer in Energy and Environment at the University of East London School of Architecture.
Here are a few examples of speaking engagements.
In 2020, together with Catherine Roberts, Steven presented a review and commentary of the metered energy performance of their zero energy home over the last 10 years for the Royal Society of Architects in Wales annual conference.
In 2019 he provided a talk and seminar to the Abergavenny Civic Society on why there wasn’t more Zero Carbon Housing.
In October 2014 he provided two workshops for the annual Centre for Alternative Energy conference on Smart home technology. The first was on the implication of smart technologies for privacy and conversely how it can help deliver Zero Carbon Britian, the second being more practical on what technology is currently on the market and how to use it.
In July 2014 he provided a seminar for the annual Association of Environmentally Conscious Building (AECB) on passivhaus and smart technologies titled, ‘In a passivhaus would my smart thermostat be bored?’
In June 2014 he delivered two talks for Severn Wye Energy Agency. The first on retrofitting existing homes as part of the Vital Villages project, the second on pragmatic zero energy homes as part of the SustianCO project.
At the beginning of 2013 for the Building Centre, he took part in their energy conversations debate series talking about people, and their power over smart energy consumption. (Big Brother, Clever Uncle or Grumpy Dad?)
Towards the end of 2012 he delivered a half day lecture series on the background to sustainability theory in the built in environment in the UK, testing the technologies and monitored case study results for the Beijing Municipal Institute of City Planning and Design, hosted by UEL.
...We are pleased to say that we practically always score 4 or 5 out of 5 in all categories of delegate feedback...
The following talks are immediately available having been prepared and presented for a full day RTPI masterclass. These would be refreshed to include recent events and announcements.
1. The state of sustainability overview
•An update of current thinking in the industry
•Speculation on Governments current direction
•Speculation on what ‘sustainability might become to mean this year
2. An introduction to Building Physics and Zero Carbon Building
•Why does a building need energy
•Which heat losses are inevitable, which can be avoided
•How energy issues may change the way our buildings look
3. Renewable energy in the built environment
•What are the different renewable technologies you will find in the built environment
•What do they do and do they work
•Do they have to look the way they do
•The problem with district heat
4. Understanding Zero Carbon – What is Carbon Compliance
•History of the code for sustainable homes
•How this has moved to become Carbon compliance
•Potential issues that may now arise
5. Introduction to Smart home energy management - Big Brother, Clever Uncle or Grumpy Dad?
•What is Smart Home Energy Management
•What effect this may have on the built environment
•How municipal government can take advantage of ‘city knowledge’
6. Understanding the principles behind the green deal
•How the green deal fundamentally changes the way debt is organised
•What is the golden rule
•When might your house not let you in!
7. Building our Zero Carbon home
Over the past 5 years Steven’s family have been building a zero carbon house. This less technical talk will look at how they lived through this. Starting with finding the site, raising the money and applying for planning permission it will go through the trials of the caravan, the fun of self installing microgen and the lessons you only learn when you become a builder and pay for it yourself. And finally – does it work? Satisfy your inner geek and enter a world of monitors and spread sheets.