The first Heritage Forum was held on October 15, 2015 at the Discovery Centre at Carleton University with more than 40 people participating. The Forum is an annual one-day symposium sponsored by the NSERC CREATE Heritage Engineering Program to bring together research professors, industry collaborators and students to discuss gaps and issues in the practice of heritage conservation. Students will use the Heritage Forum to help select and refine their research topics.
The day began with introductory remarks and congratulations by Carleton’s new VP (Research & International) Nimal Rajapakse and Carleton’s Dean of Engineering and Design, Rafik Goubran. The new President of ICOMOS Canada, Christophe Rivet, brought greetings from the Canadian chapter of this important heritage organization. Mario Santana, Program Director, introduced the program and its components.
Panelists were organized into four panels according to the three research tracks of the program: Building Rehabilitation, Building Digitalization and Building Sustainability Simulation.
Speakers on Building Rehabilitation included presentations from private sector architecture and engineering firms (Mark Brandt, MTBA; Tom Morrison, Heritage Standing; John G. Cooke, J.G. Cooke & Assoc.; Victoria Angel, ERA Architects; James Maddigan, Robertson Martin Architects) as well as Public Works and Government Services Canada (Doug Stephenson, Heritage Conservation Directorate) and the National Trust for Canada (Jim Mountain).
A joint presentation on Building Digitalization was given by Stephen Fai, Director of Carleton Immersive Media Studio, and Chris Ouimet, a sessional lecturer at Carleton and a member of the Heritage Conservation Directorate, Public Works and Government Services Canada.
The last panel of the day featured three Carleton research professors speaking on Building Sustainability Simulation: Jeffrey Erochko (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering), Susan Ross (School of Canadian Studies) and Liam O’Brien (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering).
NSERC CREATE students recorded the Forum and will report their findings to the research professors as part of the development of their research topics.