January 2010
Dear Colleagues,
On behalf of the CTBUH, I wish you and your family all the best in 2010. I am honored to send you New Year greetings as the new Chair of the Council. In Asia, 2010 is called the “Year of the Tiger.” Tigers are symbols of many things but the most important are courage and innovation. I hope the Council would progress with a positive drive towards courageous and innovative plans this coming year.
As I have already mentioned in my two-year plan, I intend in the coming year to induce activity and participation of Working Groups and Country Representatives. More memberships from the academy need to be encouraged, and my attention will concentrate on an educational program for advanced studies of tall buildings. For the first step of these plans, we are having a meeting with Country Representatives from Asian regional countries, including Japan and China, for two full days on 22nd and 23rd of January in the beautiful island of Jeju, Korea. We are delivering a concentrated meeting on how we could drive tall building experts plus architectural and construction companies within our countries to be a part of the Council. The new plans are going to be reported and discussed, and will be sent for approval of the CTBUH Board of Trustees during their meeting on the 2nd of February in Mumbai.
The recent conference of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen surely brought a matter of common interest amongst us all. 15,000 leaders from 192 countries discussed effective plans for climate control and, for the first time in history, every country around the world has agreed on keeping the average climate change of the earth within 2℃ of the pre-industrialization age. As a result, this will have a significant influence on our industry of buildings, since construction materials such as concrete and steel emit much carbon dioxide, and tall buildings are especially recognized for their additional use of energy. Thus we must pay our attention to “Low Carbon, Green Growth” within the industry of tall buildings as vertical cities. As this affects the work of our Sustainability Working Group’s activity, I have great expectations for their future progress and reports.
Most of the videos of speeches from the CTBUH Chicago Conference 2009 are now available on our website. I am sure many of these presentations, including that of Richard Tomasetti (Thornton Tomasetti) about the structural design of the Chicago Spire, will peak your interests.
The name of our journal (formerly CTBUH Journal) is changing to CTBUH Journal – International Journal for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, and will be published quarterly rather than three times a year. Moreover, I would like to welcome your opinions and suggestions on the development of the Council. Direct conversation between members and myself (sdkim@ctbuh.org) is always welcomed and greatly appreciated.
We now have only one month left until the Mumbai Conference, "Remaking Sustainable Cities in the Vertical Age". India is one of the largest growing business and building industry markets in the world. I hope many of our members will meet new colleagues, gain useful insights, and develop new opportunities through their participation in this conference.
I hope to see you soon in Mumbai,
Sincerely,
Sang Dae Kim