Keynote Speakers
Barbara Dai Bo Zanon
Rise with the Challenge: Realizing floating projects with a positive impact
Barbara is architect and project leader at Blue21, a Dutch multidisciplinary team of experts in water-based urban development. She graduated in 2010 from the IUAV University of Venice (Italy) with a master's degree in Sustainable Architecture. Since 2011 she has been working on research and concept design for several (inter)national projects related to floating development. Her research focuses on environmental design, urban metabolism and resource efficient systems in water-based urban development.
Edmund Penning-Rowsell
Don’t sterilise our floodplains: Use them creatively
Edmund has over 40 years’ experience of research and teaching in the flood hazard field, analysing floods and investment in flood alleviation, river management, water planning and landscape assessment. He is full professor at Middlesex University, UK and founder of Flood Hazard Research Centre (FHRC), as a specialist Centre where they focus on the socio-economic and policy dimensions of floods. This Centre must be one of the oldest of its type in the world. He is also a Distinguished Research Associate at Oxford University Centre for the Environment.
Rolf Kuhn
Floating buildings fit to the Lausitz Lake District
After the reopening of the Bauhaus in Dessau, Rolf Kuhn was appointed director in 1987. After German reunification, the "Bauhaus Dessau Foundation" was established. Rolf Kuhn was director of the foundation from 1994 to 1998. In 1998 he moved to Großräschen to take over the management of the preparation company for the IBA Fürst-Pückler-Land. From 2000 to 2010 he was managing director of the IBA Fürst-Pückler-Land. The ideas of the IBA continue to be supported by the Association for the Promotion of the Lausitz Cultural Landscape in the IBA-Studienhaus e.V.
Colin Ashby
Amphibious House Built in New Zealand.
Colin Winslow Ashby is now a semi-retired New Zealand Chartered Professional Engineer, born and educated in New Zealand he gained a Bachelor of Civil Engineering at Auckland University. He has broad experience across a number of fields including roading and waters, having worked for Government, Local Government, and Engineering Consulting firms in the North Island, before setting up his own general practice consulting firm but tending to specialise in geotechnical and structural residential work. When the Canterbury Earthquakes occurred, Colin volunteered to go to the South Island and assist Civil Defence. However, after the immediate crisis was delt with, there was a need for engineers to assist with the rebuild so Colin moved down permanently and opened up a branch of his consultancy in Christchurch.
Through his Geotechnical and Structural experience, he was asked to assist with redeveloping a residential site. However from his broader experience he recognised the risk of flooding, and offered to design an amphibious house if the client were prepared to build it.
