Last week’s international ENERGY FORUM on Solar Architecture in Bressanone, Italy, brought together more than 200 architects, engineers and representatives from the solar industry and research institutes; another 120 participants attended the various workshops. It was the first time the meeting was held in English with participants from the United States, Canada, South America, Africa, the Middle East, the Far East and most European countries.

“The main objective of the ENERGY FORUM is to contribute to a multidisciplinary, integrated planning approach among architects, engineers, scientists and manufacturers,” says Andreas Karweger, managing director of the Economic Forum LTD, the organizer of the event. “The overall goal is to improve the energy performance of buildings by integrating renewable energies into multifunctional building envelopes.”

As in recent years, a central theme of the conference was building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). “The ENERGY FORUM has developed into a meeting for BIPV professionals,” says Max Radt of Hydro Building Systems in Barcelona, “where I can stay in touch with my colleagues from the international BIPV community.”

Thomas Hausser, of the Austrian M-Systems agrees, “The B2B opportunity is an important aspect of this conference and exhibition. We are subcontractor to a number of exhibitors and welcome the opportunity to meet our partners here.”

Hydro Building Systems and M-Systems were some of the companies that participated at the exhibition that was organized in conjunction with the ENERGY FORUM.

“At the ENERGY FORUM you will not only meet people from industry and research institutes, you also have a large number of architects and engineers that contribute to a multidisciplinary dialogue among the different parties,” comments Udo Berger of the Germany-based Odersun.

In fact, when session moderator Dieter Moor of Ertex Solar asked for all architects, engineers and planners in the conference hall to raise their hands, more than 50 percent of the participants identified themselves as being part of this group. “The ENERGY FORUM is unique in that it’s the only solar conference with such a high number of architects and engineers participating,” says Andreas Karweger.

Reinhold Huber, director of architectural solutions of Schott Germany, adds, “The audience is highly professional with a special focus, and this is very interesting for the exhibitors.”

Michael Garrison from the School of Architecture in the University of Texas, and a member of the Conference Committee of the ENERGY FORUM, describes the ENERGY FORUM as “the BIPV conference”, explaining that “the conference focuses on a special aspect of the building envelope, and this is something we architects really like.”

“The Conference Committee of the ENERGY FORUM” says Karweger, “has decided to organize next year’s event around the topic of Solar Skins, because we want to keep our focus on the architects as our main target group. This topic will also appeal to façade engineers,” he explains. “The ENERGY FORUM is attracting companies such as Gartner, Permasteelisa, AGC Flat Glass, Arup, Aedas and Aecom, because these companies are concentrating more and more on energy façades,” Karweger adds.

Conference Committee member Helmut Hohenstein, an expert for energy-efficient buildings in emerging markets such as China and the Gulf, expressed the need for holistic planning and concepts for building integrated solutions beyond solar technologies. “That is why the next ENERGY FORUM will be summarized under the title Solar Skins,” Hohenstein says.

The Conference Committee of the ENERGY FORUM comprises members from international research institutes and universities that focus on sustainable and energy-efficient architecture, such as the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Systems in Germany and the Architecture Department of MIT in Massachusetts.

The next ENERGY FORUM is scheduled for December 2-3, 2010, with workshops on the preceding days.

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