Record-breaking 9th WOOD CONFERENCE
12.04.2019 WOOD Conference
Following the initial 70 participants at the first WOOD CONFERENCE in 2010, interest in participating in the conference, which is now well established in South Africa, is growing year by year. This positive interest confirms on the one hand the continuous commitment of the initiator George Kuratle to promote sustainable building with wood in South Africa and on the other hand to have developed the right vessel for it. The WOOD CONFERENCE is one of the most important conferences in sustainable building and the Green Building concept in South Africa.
The neutral networking platform for the regional and international exchange of knowledge and ideas offers interested people from architecture, investment, the public sector, politics, universities, timber construction and the student body exclusive contents and insights into building methods with timber.
Sustainability, ecologically valuable and energy-efficient building, but also new concepts and designs are at the forefront of every conference. Under the patronage and with the support of «forum holzbau», this year’s conference was also enriched with internationally representative projects and lectures by well-known speakers. We would like to thank Prof. Dr. h.c. Heinrich Köster, Ms Lore Köster and Mr Uwe Germerott for their valuable contacts and insightful input on well-known projects.
However, as stated in the WOOD CONFERENCE concept and based on feedback from direct target group surveys, the main part of the conference content consists of know-how transfer and examples from various South African countries. Accordingly, the daily programme for 2019 was designed and primarily showed practical examples, which were presented by speakers from the region.
Roger Kuratle opened the 9th WOOD CONFERENCE by welcoming all the guests, the speakers and the Swiss Consul General. He thanked the organisation team under the leadership of Zaida Davids for the planning and organisation of the conference. After the official opening, Andreas Maager, Swiss Consul General, addressed greetings to the plenum, thanked the initiator for his many years of commitment and mentioned in particular that he was looking forward to next year’s tenth anniversary and that he was convinced that the 10th conference on 26 February 2020 would certainly reach over 1000 participants.
Hannu Garny led through the day’s programme, which was divided into three sessions, skilfully and professionally. In addition to the presentations by Max Renggli and Stefan Rubner on the advantages of modular construction, the participants were given a wide range of insights into the modern timber construction of regionally implemented projects.
The organisation team is proud to have held a highly professional conference with a lean organisation for the ninth time. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our market partners for their support, without which such an event would not have been possible.
The planning for the organisation of the 10th WOOD CONFERENCE on 26 February 2020 is already underway. We are convinced that an informative programme with renowned speakers from the industry will be of interest and that the record number of participants will be exceeded once again.