Friday, November 11:  Cornell Tech

8:00–8:45am
Welcome Remarks

  • Michael Samuelian, FAIA, AICP, Founding Director, Urban Tech Hub, Cornell Tech;
  • Theodore Liebman, FAIA, Principal, Perkins Eastman, GUD Senior Fellow and New York Coordinator, and CSU Board Member;
  • Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, CSU President, and GUD Senior Fellow;
  • Jane Katz, GUD Vice Chair and Washington Coordinator, UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign Steering Committee Member, and Urban Representative, UNDRR/Sendai Stakeholder Engagement Advisory Group;
  • Dr. Marc Weiss, GUD Chairman and CEO;
  • Chris Williams, Director, UN-Habitat New York Office.

8:45–9:30 am
Opening Plenary
Keynote Speakers: Dr. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director Emeritus, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and GUD Advisory Board Member (33-minute video about “Bauhaus Earth“: the Urban Built Environment as a Carbon Sink); and Vishaan Chakrabarti, FAIA, Founder and Creative Director, Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU) (11-minute TED talk)

9:30–11:00am
Roundtable on New Technologies, Materials, and Methods
Moderator: Dr. Marc Weiss
Speakers:

  • Dr. Banning Garrett, GUD Vice Chair and Berlin Coordinator
  • Vlada Kenniff, Senior Vice President for Sustainability, New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)
  • Sam Ruben, Co-Founder and Senior Sustainability Advisor, Mighty Buildings, and GUD Senior Fellow
  • Michael Blanford, Research Engineer, Affordable Housing Research and Technology, US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
  • Mark Reed, Founder, Contact Fund
  • David Smith, Founder and CEO, Affordable Housing Institute

11:00am–12:30pm
Roundtable on Sustainable Innovation Communities
Moderator: Lance Jay Brown
Speakers:

  • Jane Katz
  • Theodore Liebman
  • Sri Husnaini Sofjan, Senior Program Administrator and Strategist, Huairou Commission, Co-Chair, UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign Steering Committee, and GUD Advisory Board Member; and Shorai Chitongo, Programs Officer, Huairou Commission
  • Edgar Westerhof, Vice President and North American Adaptation Solution Lead, Arcadis
  • Peter Cavaluzzi, FAIA, Principal, Perkins Eastman
  • Dr. Marc Weiss

12:30–2:00 pm
Lunch Plenary and Urban Lab hosted by Shibumi International
Moderator: Nicholas Billotti, Managing Director, Shibumi International, and GUD Senior Fellow
Keynote Speaker: Jean-Daniel Kuhn, Co-Founder and Managing Director, XtreeE, and GUD Senior Fellow.

2:00–3:30 pm
Roundtable on Policy, Financial, Legal, and Regulatory Challenges
Moderator: Jane Katz
Speakers:

  • Olivia Caldwell Nielsen, Associate Principal, Miyamoto International, and GUD Fellow;
  • Stewart Sarkozy-Banoczy , Global Director, Policy and Investments, Resilient Cities Network, and GUD Advisory Board Member;
  • Brian McLaughlin, President, Enterprise Community Development, and President, Community Development Division, Enterprise Community Partners;
  • Sam Ruben;
  • Judy L. Baker, Global Lead, Urban Poverty and Housing, and Lead Economist, Urban Africa; World Bank (invited);
  • Dr. Edmundo Werna, Associate Professor of Construction, Property, and Surveying, London South Bank University, and GUD Advisory Board Member (invited)

3:30–4:15pm
Roundtable on Sustainable Housing Design
Moderator: Theodore Liebman
Speakers:

  • Emily Billheimer, Sustainability Project Manager, Socotec, and GUD Fellow;
  • Lois Arena, PE, Director, Passive House Services, Steven Winter Associates (invited);
  • Wids DeLaCour – Principal, DeLaCour, Ferrara, and Church Architects (DFCA)

4:15–5:00pm
Urban Thinkers Session and Closing Plenary

5:00–6:00pm
Urban Lab: Walking Tour of Roosevelt Island Affordable Housing
Led by Theodore Liebman

5:00–8:00pm
No-host Reception at Cornell Tech

Saturday, November 12: Brooklyn

11:00am–4:00pm

  • Urban Lab tour of Brooklyn examples of affordable housing technologies
  • Visit to development site(s) led by Peter Bafitis, AIA, Managing Principal, RKTB Architects; and a potential visit to the Pratt Institute’s Consortium for Research & Robotics (CRR) at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Supporting Organizations

Sponsored by UN-Habitat, Urban Thinkers Campus, World Urban Campaign, United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction Learning Lab, Global Urban Development, Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization, and Cornell Tech

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