Help New York City tackle extreme heat

November 12, 2015

The last decade was the hottest on record worldwide, and large cities are warming faster than the planet. Extreme heat events—already the most deadly of disasters, more than from all other weather-related events combined—are predicted to be more frequent. Extreme heat also reduces productivity, exhausts greenery, compromises infrastructure, destroys property, and strains the economy and resources alike. Extreme heat also reduces productivity, exhausts greenery, compromises infrastructure, destroys property, and strains the economy and resources alike.

Extreme Heat: Hot Cities – Adapting to a Hotter World

Building industry takes on the threat of rising temperature, a major issue for cities

November 12, 8:30am to 7:00pm
Venue: 536 LaGuardia Place in New York
7.0 AIA HSW LU, 7.0 GBCI CE, and 7.0 LA CES PDH/HSW are available.
Registration available throughout. Walk-up registrations will be welcomed if space permits.

The New York City Panel on Climate Change [NPCC], a full-spectrum independent body that officially advises the Mayor, considers higher temperatures to be as great a risk as coastal flooding. NPCC projects up to a 5.7 °F rise by mid-century, and anticipates that by the 2080s, there will be a rise of up to 8.8 °F plus 50 degree-days/year above 90 °F.

Extreme Heat invites architects and landscape architects, planners, engineers, and allied professionals; government; foundations; scientists and researchers; students – in fact, all interested stakeholders to discuss essential information and insights on the topic. The symposium will cover topics ranging from urban climatology to building materials, case studies to recommendations for the future. It will revisit prior extreme heat events such as the 1995 Chicago and 2003 Paris category-defining heat waves, and what has changed since then.

Extreme Heat: Hot Cities – Adapting to a Hotter World will be a unique, day-long symposium to address this increasing threat. A broad constituency involved in building and urban design, science, research, policy, innovation, mitigation and adaptation will come together to discuss how to address this increasing risk through planning, design, and construction.

Panel 1 - Building - 10:10 am - 11:30 am

Technical building experts, an urban heat island expert, and current architecture and engineering practitioners from around the world offer their perspectives on the connections between a building and its region’s temperatures.

BASF's Amy Patel, AIA, LEED® BD+C, will be speaking on this panel - right after the opening keynote. In her presentation, she will share BASF's work in terms of heat mitigation and how the organization is addressing climate change with a focus on the science and trends. She's be joined by:

Jeffrey Raven, FAIA, Associate Professor and Director of the MS in Architecture, Urban and Regional Design program at NYIT
Jason Vollen, PhD, AIA, Principal in the High Performance Building Group at AECOM
Chris Benedict, Principal at Architecture & Energy Ltd.
Wolfgang Rieder, CEO and Founder of fibreC
Kurt Shickman, Executive Director of the Global Cool Cities Alliance

Who will be presenting?

Confirmed speakers include Grimshaw Architect’s Andrew Whalley; NYIT’s architect and urban extreme heat expert Jeffrey Raven, FAIA; Fatal Isolation: the Devastating Paris Heat Wave of 2003 author Richard Keller; NASA’s Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig; Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago author and NYU Institute for Public Knowledge Director Dr. Eric Klinenberg; Georgia Tech Professor and Urban Environmentalist Brian Stone; NYC Department of Health Lead Scientist Katie Lane; and Global Cool Cities Alliance Executive Director Kurt Shickman.

Keeping the conversation going

The symposium’s mission is to promote awareness of the dangers, illuminate best practices, and share knowledge. To make this information available to as great an audience as possible, there will be a complete video record available on Vimeo, through designforrisk.com (DfRR’s website). The day’s outcomes will be collected into print and on-line executive summaries, and there will also be an e-publication.

Registration is currently open and available online