Smart Practice Conference

Smart Practice is RIBA’s annual national conference for practitioners. With a forward-looking, strategic focus, Smart Practice is designed to appeal to architects working in practices of different scales across sectors.

The intention is to provide a highly informative and insightful day. The conference aspires to give practitioners the headspace, the fuel and the ideas for moving things on and continual improvement – at the project and the practice level.

The theme for this year’s Smart Practice Conference is creating sustainable outcomes through crafts and materials.

Over the two days we will explore key topics such as embodied carbon, retrofitting, net zero and rammed earth through talks, case studies and conversations. These will be led by architects in the field who are pushing our understanding of sustainable design and construction in different ways.

The conference will provide you with inspiration and practical advice to enhance your practice.

21 November: Specifying for the future

• 9am - Introduction and keynote by Jess Hrivnak, RIBA
• 9.25am - Embodied carbon - Simon Sturgis, Targeting Zero
• 10am - Using MMC to bring down costs for natural materials - Louisa Bowles, Hawkins Brown
• 10.30am - Global supply chains for the 21st century - Paul Priest, Hannah Newcomb (Stronger Together), Patricia Carrier (Coalition to End Forced Labour)
• 11.15am - Break
• 11.30am - Social empowerment as a key to sustainable outcomes: Nourish Hub case ctudy - Anthony Staples, RCKA
• 12.15pm - Specifying social, health and environmental outcomes for the future - Azim Jasat, Autodesk
• 12.45pm - Retrofitting with bio-based materials: Entopia Building case study - Wendy Bishop, Architype
• 1.15pm - Closing words by Jess Hrivnak, RIBA

22 November: Working towards net zero

• 9am - Welcome by Jess Hrivnak, RIBA
• 9.15am - In conversation: Delivering Passivhaus at scale - Kirstin Assheton, Architype
• 10am - Net zero's frontiers - Phil Obayda, SOM
• 10.30am - Introducing natural materials: In conversation with ACAN Natural Materials Group - James Rixon, Rixon Architecture + ACAN
• 11am - Break
• 11.15am - Driving innovation in practice: Re-introducing structural stone -Amin Taha, Groupwork
• 11.45am - Adopting Building/Material Passports in the UK; tbc, Autodesk
• 12.15pm - Rammed Earth: BusheyCemetery case study - Andrew Waugh, Waugh Thistleton Architects
• 12.45pm - Sustainability Surgery - with Architype & Co.
• 1.15pm - Closing words by Jess Hrivnak, RIBA

This conference is RIBA CPD certified, and the two online half days total eight hours of structured CPD. Buy your tickets now.