Keynote Speakers

Design Keynote

Materializing the Future; New Materials Serving Our Needs For The Future
Els Zijlstra
MATERIA, Enter, The Netherlands
Thursday September 27, 9:30 AM - 10:30 AM
Keynote Theatre

Stronger, lighter, sustainable, inspiring and surprising – those are just a few of the qualities associated with the latest architectural materials. No one has a better grasp of the proliferating material options than Materia’s Els Zijlstra. Since 1998, Materia has been collecting, recording and analyzing information about the material needs of interior designers and architects. At Materia’s Inspiration Centre in Enter, The Netherlands, design professionals have access to more than 1,500 innovative materials. Worldwide, more than 34,000 designers rely on Material Explorer, the search engine that Materia offers free to the design community. Whether the perfect material for a project is a newly engineered alloy or something as organic as abalone shells set in a matrix of chestnut lacquer, Materia has information about its sensory and technical properties. In her IIDEX/NeoCon Canada keynote, Els Zijlstra will look at key developments that have shaped the evolution of materials and set out a vision of what is to come.

After studying architecture at the Delft University of Technology and working for several years with an architectural firm in Rotterdam, Els Zijlstra founded Materia in 1998. She has also served as vice-chairman of Booosting, a foundation promoting the design, development and research of industrial building products that can improve the quality of life in built-up areas. Companies registered at Material Explorer include Philips and GE; design firms registered to use the search engine include Foster and Partners and Marcel Wanders Studio.

Lighting Keynote

Iconic Lighting: Ordinary to Extraordinary
Jean Sundin and Enrique Peiniger,
Office for Visual Interaction, New York City
Thursday September 27, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Keynote Theatre

Illumination is the only thing that can transform space without physically changing it. New York City-based Office for Visual Interaction, Inc. (OVI) has made inventive use of this powerful design element on high-profile projects ranging from The Parliament of Scotland (architects: Enric Miralles - Benedetta Tagliabue) to Zaha Hadid’s Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio. As OVI’s body of work demonstrates, dramatic lighting designs that enhance space and perception don’t have to be complicated – the firm’s designers have often achieved spectacular effects with simple techniques and fixtures. Principals and co-founders Jean Sundin and Enrique Peiniger will discuss the inspiration and methods behind OVI’s lighting designs for major recent projects, including Pei Cobb Freed & Partners’ U.S. Air Force Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, and midtown Manhattan’s New York Times Building, a sustainable skyscraper designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop. For more information on OVI please visit their website at www.oviinc.com.

Elected to the Lighting Industry Resource Council steering committee, Jean Sundin, IESNA, IALD, PLDA, has also served as a New Product Showcase judge at Lightfair International and as a U.S. Green Building Council panelist on energy-efficient lighting. Enrique Peiniger, Dipl.-Ing., M.A., IESNA, PLDA, entered the field of lighting with a focus in luminaire manufacturing and technology. He has taught at the University of Berlin and served as a UNESCO lighting expert in Kuwait. In 2006 Jean Sundin and Enrique Peiniger were appointed as Distinguished Faculty Members in the Department of Lighting at Parsons School of Design.

Facility Management Keynote

Managing for Conservation and Energy Efficiency
Peter Love, Chief Energy Conservation Officer, Conservation Bureau,
Ontario Power Authority
Friday September 28, 8:30 AM- 9:30 AM
Keynote Theatre

To ensure that every person, business and institution in Ontario will continue to enjoy a reliable and secure supply of electricity in the future, we must conserve electricity now – our quality of life, our environment and our economic activity depend on it. In any building, electricity is a significant cost item, and conservation and energy efficiency can reduce those costs. The Ontario Power Authority’s Peter Love will discuss why energy management is critical to cost-effectiveness and competitiveness, and what can be done to reduce facilities’ energy consumption.

In the early 1970s, while at Pollution Probe, Peter Love was part of the team that developed the concept of “reduce, reuse and recycle.” A founder of the Summerhill Group, he has served as executive director of the Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance and president of Enerquality Corporation. In 2005 he became the first chief energy conservation officer of the Ontario Power Authority’s new Conservation Bureau. The bureau’s mandate includes developing, co-ordinating and implementing conservation demand management programs and working with the Ontario government to reduce electricity demand growth.

Environment Keynote

Challenge What We Know – and Learn from Nature
Joe Van Belleghem
Managing Partner, Developments and Consulting,
Windmill Development Group Ltd., Vancouver, BC
Friday September 28, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Keynote Theatre

In Natural Capitalism, environmentalists Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins point out that the Industrial Revolution occurred when natural resources were abundant and labour was scarce – and that most businesses still operate according to that world view today, despite the planet’s dwindling natural resources and burgeoning population. The authors argue that the next Industrial Revolution will be led by companies with a new business model that reflects these new realities. Windmill Development Group is one such company. The 15-acre Dockside Green mixed-use development in Victoria, BC, a joint project of Windmill and Vancity, is aiming for LEED Platinum certification through measures including biomass heat generation and water conservation. “Natural Capitalism was an enormous wakeup call for me,” says Windmill’s Joe Van Belleghem. “It made me appreciate the value of our natural capital and the tremendous opportunity we have to look to the environment for solutions in how we run or business or develop our buildings.” In his IIDEX/NeoCon Canada keynote, he will explain how environmental techniques such as construction waste management and a natural systems approach to storm water management pay off economically.

Joe Van Belleghem, CA, LEED AP, is managing partner of developments and consulting for Windmill Development Group Ltd. He has two decades of real estate development and financing experience on projects such as Victoria’s Vancouver Island Technology Park, which attained a Gold ranking when it became Canada’s first LEED-certified project, in 2002. In addition to being Windmill’s partner-in-charge on Dockside Green, he is a founder and former vice-chair of the Canada Green Building Council and he serves on the board of directors for the United States Green Building Council.

“>

Architectural Keynote

Resonance: Echoes Along a Personal Journey
Michel Rojkind, rojkind arquitectos, Mexico
Friday September 28, 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Keynote Theatre

Rock band drummer to architect is an uncommon career path, but steering clear of convention has worked out well for Mexico’s Michel Rojkind. A decade ago he was touring with Aleks Syntek y la Gente Normal, a Mexican group that cut four albums with Virgin Records. In 2002 he founded rojkind arquitectos in Mexico City; three years later Architectural Record named the studio one of its top 10 Design Vanguard firms. In addition to completing several incisively original residences and commercial buildings in Mexico, rojkind arquitectos has been shortlisted for high-profile international projects ranging from the Absolute condominium tower in Mississauga to a vast, mixed-use master plan for Dubai. Michel Rojkind’s keen interest in structural innovation is tempered with a desire to create projects that are in every sense contextual. For him the design process is “a conversation that includes clients, users, the landscape, history, and our values and hopes projected into an ever-present future.” He promises that his IIDEX/NeoCon presentation on his work will include “a few short stories, with moments of enlightenment.”

Michel Rojkind studied architecture and urban planning in his native Mexico City. He was a partner in Adria+Broid+Rojkind before founding rojkind arquitectos, in 2002. He is a co-founder of MXDF Urban Research Center, a non-profit organization that engages in wide-ranging fields of study with the aim of modifying the production of urban space in Mexico.

Sponsored by:

Keynote Theatre Advertising Opportunity

IIDEX/NeoCon Canada leads the way once again by showcasing the latest in plasma screen technology. Our partner, Advanced Products Group will be featuring an infinite plasma screen that is 20’ x 25’H to broadcast our keynote speakers. Exhibitors interested on the largest screen at IIDEX should contact Advanced Products Group at 1-800-436-6239 or download APG Media Kit for more details.