Kelly Shannon

Professor, KU Leuven, Belgium

Kelly Shannon is a Professor of Urbanism at the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, KU Leuven and program director of the post-graduate Master of Human Settlements and Master of Urbanism, Landscape and Planning. She is a member of the research group OSA (Research in Urbanism and Architecture). Her research and teaching are at the scale of urban and territorial design and is at the cross-roads of urban and landscape analysis and design. Within this broad spectrum, she is specifically engaged in landscape urbanism from the particular perspective of how landscapes can be designed to guide future (de)urbanization. Intensive fieldwork, interpretative mapping and projective cartography are key instruments in her research and teaching practice. The evolving interplays of infrastructure, landscape and urbanism is her primary concern, with focus on innovative water management and the manipulation of micro-topographies and creation of new ground conditions and with them, new public spaces. A great deal of her research / teaching / consultancy (societal services) has a specific focus on dynamic non-European contexts of rapid urbanization and limited means (in South and Southeast Asia and particularly Vietnam). 

She has written extensively about design as medium to integrate engineering, ecological and site and context-responsive approaches for dealing with major societal and ecological challenges. Her research and teaching actively engages in the world of ideas and attempts to be critically constructive and take stances locally, nationally, and globally through teaching, the iteration between fundamental and applied (design) research, consulting with municipalities, ministries and other stakeholders, capacity building projects and through more precisely defining the fundamental agency of urbanism and landscape. Over the decades, she has facilitated the involvement of nationally and internationally recognized practices in design research, breaking the more conventional academic modes of design research in architecture schools; the collaboration with practice ensures engagement with real issues, best practices, and new insights. Her teaching champions the relation of intensive research and education—including working with students in a laboratory-like atmosphere with societal and scientific relevance of the “new” issues, including the disciplines role in addressing social and environmental justice and climate change. She has been a principal protagonist of the international development of “landscape urbanism” and both the approach and the term “water urbanism,” now globally utilized, she co-developed with a colleague in OSA. 

Kelly Shannon

The Necessity of Design Research to Address Global Warming

Learning from the Mekong and Saigon-Dong Nai Deltas

Worldwide, the consequences of global warming are becoming ever more apparent. From extended territories to cities to neighborhoods to rural hamlets, higher temperatures and more serve floods (and droughts) are wreaking havoc on settlements, productive landscapes, infrastructure, and health (of human and non-human species). In Vietnam, concurrent with the climate crisis are a cascade of other crises—socio-cultural, ecological, and spatial—that stem from its accelerating development boom. The tried-and-true system of master planning based on monofunctional land use planning, is incapable of responding adequately to the contemporary context. A paradigm shift, where ecology and landscape systems are the framework for urbanization, is needed. The presentation will focus on distilling lessons from the Mekong and Saigon-Dong Nai Deltas. It will reveal the inherent intelligence in the longue durée of the ‘as found’ territory where nature was the structure ‘for people passing by’ with settlements embedded in the landscape. Critically unravelling the subsequent modern times, it will expose the often-devastating effects of humankind’s structuring of nature, the engineering of flows and the hierarchical transformation of territories. In conclusion and turning to immediate history, it will plea for design research and bold visions to create neo-natural structures that re-capitalize on locational assets and create qualitative human-non-human relationships.

Kim Rasmussen

Professor, University of Sydney, Australia

Dr Kim Rasmussen is Challis Professor in the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney. His main research interests are theoretical and experimental structural mechanics and structural stability analysis with particular application to steel structural members and systems, cold-formed steel structures, stainless steel structures and aluminium structures. His current research activities involve the testing, analysis and design of 3D printed steel structural components and built-up cold-formed steel mid-rise structures, as well as the development of analysis-based design methods and associated system reliability analysis. He also leads projects related to full-range behaviour of connections including fracture analysis and buckling-induced morphing of structural elements.  

Kim Rasmussen is chair or member of numerous national and international standards committees related to Steel Structures, Stainless Steel Structures, Aluminium Structures, Scaffolding Structures and Steel Storage Racks. He has undertaken numerous consultancies for industry and is an active consultant advising on structural analysis, design and collapse.  

Kim Rasmussen

Recent Research on Built-up Cold-formed Steel Structures

The paper describes the main outcomes of a recently completed project on built-up cold-formed steel structures, including experimental, analytical and numerical advances. The project covers columns failing by distortional buckling or interactive global-local or global-distortional buckling, and laterally restrained and unrestrained beams. The cross-sections studied feature two, three or four component sections, arranged to produce singly or doubly cross-sections, including open sections and sections with closed loops. The paper first summarises the main experimental observations and results, then analytical solutions for determining the flexural and torsional rigidities of built-up sections, followed by recent finite strip analyses to determine the buckling loads of built-up sections accounting for discrete fasteners, including the Compound Strip Method and the Modal Finite strip Method for determining the pure modes of built-up sections. Lastly, the paper summarises proposed provisions for the design of built-up sections with two or more component cross-sections, covering columns and beams failing by local, distortional and/or global modes as well as combinations of these modes.

Lyesse Laloui

Professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

Dr Lyesse Laloui is a chair professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL, and a member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences. Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment journal, he is a leading scientist in the field of geomechanics and geo-energy. He has written and edited 13 books and published over 350 peer reviewed papers; He has given keynote and invited lectures at more than 40 leading international conferences.

Dr. Laloui is also active as consultant and advisor in several international projects in civil, geotechnical and geothermal engineering, including legal and arbitration cases.

Lyesse Laloui

Unlocking Renewable Energy in the Urban Subsurface

The rapid evolution of digital technology, robotics, and AI is reshaping society alongside resource consumption. Concurrently, our planet faces climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions and resource depletion. Shifting to a sustainable, low-carbon economy is imperative. Construction consumes 34% of global energy, making the sector a prime target for change. Urban subsurface energy presents a widely untapped opportunity, which nonetheless plays a key role for the decarbonization of the built environment and the construction sector. This lecture will focus on an innovative technology that can efficiently and eco- nomically tap renewable energy from the urban underground: energy geostruc- tures. These innovative technologies merge geotechnical engineering with energy efficiency, offering both structural support and heating/cooling functions for buildings and infrastructures. The performance of these technologies is governed by multiphysical interactions and phenomena driven by thermal and mechanical loads. Three decades of research have explored the fundamentals of the behavior and performance of energy piles, walls, and tunnels, yielding a variety of tools that can currently serve their analysis and design. This work encompasses this knowledge and eventually transitions from research to practice showcasing the cost-effective implementation of energy geostructures. These developments un- derscore the central role of this solution in reducing fossil fuel dependence and contributing to environmental sustainability.

Van Thanh Van Nguyen

Professor, McGill University, Canada

Dr. Nguyen is currently Brace Endowed Chair Professor of Civil Engineering at McGill University, Canada. At McGill, he has served in several leadership positions including Chair of Civil Engineering Department, Director of Brace Centre for Water Resources Management, and Associate Director of Global Environmental and Climate Change Centre. Dr. Nguyen is widely recognized for his novel research in Hydrologic Engineering and Water Management that has significantly impacted engineering practices worldwide with over 250 peer-reviewed publications. More specifically, his pioneering research covers a remarkable range of topics including climate change impact and adaptation, modelling of hydrologic extremes, and watershed modelling for sustainable water resource development. He has been invited to serve in numerous national and international expert committees to develop multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary teaching and research programs as well as to develop influential technical guidelines for engineering practice in Canada and worldwide (e.g., technical guides by the Canadian Dam Safety Association, Canadian Standards Association; and World Meteorological Organization). In addition, he has been invited to deliver prestigious lectures at various national and international scientific conferences and has served in editorial boards of several renowned scientific international journals. He has been also Invited Professors at universities in Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Furthermore, widely known for his international professionalism, since several years Professor Nguyen has actively contributed at leadership levels in several professional associations in the development of international co-operation activities with colleagues in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions. Finally, as a professional engineer, he has served as technical expert in several engineering projects with consulting companies in Canada and in other countries..  

Van Thanh Van Nguyen

Linking Climate Change to Urban Water Infrastructure Design: Recent Advances and Shortcomings in Downscaling Methods

Most countries in the world have significant investments in urban water infrastructures (e.g., storm drainage and flood management systems). Every day, people rely on these systems to protect lives, property, and natural water environment. These infrastructures have reduced the vulnerability of the cities, but at the same time could make them more vulnerable to climate extremes, due to the lack of consideration of what might occur when the design criteria are exceeded. Furthermore, recent assessment reports on climate change have indicated for the late 20th century a worldwide increase in the frequency of extreme weather events because of global warming, and this trend would be very likely to continue in the 21st century. Consequently, research on developing innovative approaches for limiting and adapting climate change impacts on urban water infrastructures is highly critical due to the substantial investments involved. However, it has been widely recognized that the main difficulty in dealing with climate change impacts for urban water infrastructure design is “how to estimate accurately the changes in the extreme rainfall processes at the urban basin scale projected by global/regional climate models because these models do not contain an adequate description of the hydrologic governing processes at relevant high temporal and spatial resolutions as required by the impact and adaptation studies”. This necessitates some form of downscaling of the climate model simulations from a coarse spatial resolution (20 – 250 km) down to much finer spatial grids, and even point values if changes in local extreme rainfall processes are to be assessed. In addition, the required time scales for assessing the climate change impacts on the urban hydrologic processes are usually less than one day. Therefore, the overall objective of the present paper is to provide an overview of recent advances and shortcomings in the downscaling of extreme rainfall processes in the climate change context from both theoretical and practical viewpoints. In particular, another focus of this paper is on the recently published technical guide by the Canadian Standards Association to provide some guidance to water professionals in Canada on how to consider the climate change information in the design of urban water infrastructures..

Ngo Viet Nam Son

President, NgoViet Architects & Planners, Vietnam

He has been an architect and planner with more than 35 years of professional and research & teaching experiences in Pacific Rim Countries, including Vietnam, The United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, …

He has been member of the Vietnam Association of Architects VAA (Board Member), Vietnam Urban Planning and Development Association VUPDA, Vietnam Green Building Council VGBC (Board Member), American Institute of Architects AIA, American Planning Association APA, and Asian Cultural Landscape Association ACLA (Board Member).

He received a doctorate degree from University of Washington, and a master degree from University of California at Berkeley.

He has been the Principal of many planning and architecture projects in Vietnam and abroad. This CIGOS article was written from practical research experiences during his time serving as Chief Planning Advisor in the Planning of Khanh Hoa Province for the period 2021-2030, with a vision to 2050, in cooperation with Chief Planning Consultant McKinsey & Company (USA). This General Planning was approved by the Prime Minister in March 2023.

Ngo Viet Nam Son

New Sustainable Development Strategies in the Provincial Planning of Khanh Hoa

Khanh Hoa is perhaps one of the most attractive provinces of central Vietnam, with historic landmarks, beautiful natural landscapes and beaches, especially great development potentials of its three-bay areas, including Van Phong Bay, Nha Trang Bay, and Cam Ranh Bay. Still, recent hasty developments during the recent decades have put many serious threats to the sustainability of those areas.

Examined using an interdisciplinary qualitative method, focusing on analyzing and synthesizing information sources, to answer the questions of What, Why, and How to promote sustainable development in the urban areas of Van Phong Bay, Nha Trang Bay, and Cam Ranh Bay, this paper has synthesized five strategic directions for sustainable development, to be integrated into the General Planning of Khanh Hoa Province for the period 2021 - 2030, vision to 2050, specifically: (1) Developing green zones in separation with brown zones; (2) Promoting Transit-Oriented-Development Model to boost motivations and feasibilities for new urban projects; (3) Enhancing regional connection and socio-economic cooperation; (4) Preserving natural and urban heritage, while promoting new urban development with new identity of the 21st Century; (5) Applying interdisciplinary approach to planning and management to enhance the sustainability and feasibility of infrastructure projects.

The integration of the five strategic directions for sustainable development into the General Planning of Khanh Hoa Province for the period 2021 - 2030, vision to 2050, has been useful to reduce environmental issues and to create many new development opportunities for the province, “without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

These directions would unlock the potentials to explore many new forms of management and development in Khanh Hoa, such as Environmental Zoning, Transit Oriented Development, Airport city, regional cooperation programs, ... These experiences could become good references for the goals of promoting sustainable developments in many other seaside provinces in Vietnam.

Johann Plank

Professor, Technical University of Munich, Germany

Prof. Plank holds a Ph.D. in chemistry. From 1980 – 2000 he held positions as Research Group Leader, Director of Research “Construction and Oilfield Chemicals” and finally General Manager of SKW Polymers GmbH, Trostberg where he invented numerous concrete & mortar additives and oilfield chemicals. Since 2001 he is Full Professor of Construction Chemistry at Technische Universität München, Department of Chemistry. His current research is focused on novel low carbon “green” binders, polymeric admixtures (esp. polycarboxylate (PCE) superplasticizers) for concrete and mortar, CO2 footprint of concrete admixtures, nanoparticles, organic-inorganic hybrid materials, 3D printing and energy harvesting floors. Prof. Plank has published over 500 scientific papers, holds 40 patents, has guest professorships in Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing and Iraq, is member of numerous professional organizations including GDCh, RILEM, SPE, API, recipient of the A. Aignesberger Award from CANMET/ACI and a “1000 foreign expert” in China. Since 2021 he is TUM Professor of Excellence, a member of TUM´s Senior Excellence Faculty and in 2023 was elected into the German Academy of Sciences.

Johann Plank

“Greening” the Construction Industry: Sustainable Alternatives to Conventional Cements Made Possible Through New PCE Superplasticizer Design

Concrete is the most commonly used man-made material globally. Regretably, cement - its major ingredient – exhibits an extremely high CO 2 footprint. However, substituting cement clinker with supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) that possess a low carbon footprint can substantially decrease CO 2 emission. The two main alternatives to clinker which are currently under investigation include calcined clay and slag (GGBFS). A prominent example of a low carbon binder based on thermally activated (calcined) clay is LC 3 which contains 50% clinker, 30% calcined clay, 15% limestone and 5% gypsum and exhibits a CO 2 footprint of 550 - 600 kg CO 2 /ton. Advanced chemical admixtures are indispensable to achieve sufficient workability (especially slump retention) and – depending on the composition of the raw clay – high early strength. The second concept involves clinker substitution by incorporating slag from the iron industry and – at high clinker replacement rates – an alkali activator. An extreme example of such alkali-activated slag cement comprises 15% clinker, 82% slag and 3% alkali activator. This binder allows to reduce CO 2 emission from ~ 825 kg CO 2 /ton for OPC to ~ 220 kg CO 2 /ton for this slag cement. Despite the remarkable progress achieved in reducing CO 2 emissions through the use of low carbon substitutes for cement clinker, the problem emerged that these binders often exhibit much inferior rheological properties and low early (1d) strength. Consequently, substantial research efforts have been made to develop suitable superplasticizers and accelerators. This article presents about novel polycarboxylate admixtures (PCEs) for low carbon binders and innovative new materials which can greatly promote early strength. Finally, some still unresolved problems are addressed and the decisive role of chemical admixtures in the transition process to “green” binders is evidenced.