The latest keynote speaker to join CIB’s Don Ward in conversation ahead of the World Building Congress 2022 (WBC2022) was Professor Dongping Fang, Dean of the School of Civil Engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. He is a former Board member, Programme Committee Chair and Vice President of CIB, and will be re-joining the Board from June 2022. The conversation covered his research career, the topic of his keynote address, and the vital importance of the sector in building a better quality of life for society. As the recording demonstrates he will be a great asset to the Board and the strategic development of CIB.
Dongping’s research career started in structural engineering and the analysis of Chinese ancient timber structures, before focusing on construction safety for the last 20 years. In recent years he has widened his scope to address urban resilience, where he has been the CIB priority theme leader since 2013. His work is still focused on safety but at a larger community and cities scale, for example in the resistance and recovery of cities to natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes.
His keynote title at WBC2022 will be “Safeguarding the construction and operation of buildings and infrastructure systems for mega-cities”. In our conversation Dongping was very much focused on the end purpose of the industry, which is to deliver a better quality of life for people, through its end product and also the construction process, and this greater concern for society and community means we need a better understanding of how built environment interacts with society and people. A key theme of his keynote will be his ‘LCB’ approach of Leadership driven, Culture building and Behaviour improvement, addressing safety at site, enterprise, city and sector levels, and the next areas of research include ethical issues in safety leadership, the application of Artificial Intelligence to behavioural safety, and urban resilience. Dongping emphasized the importance of collaboration with industry to solve real sector problems, and felt that the ‘gap’ between researchers and industry is closing as both parties recognize the value of collaboration to address ever-higher societal expectations. His message for government policy makers was to recognize the importance of our sector to society, it will always be needed but more government attention and support is required to enable radical innovation in this traditional sector.
Dongping’s keynote address will be one of the highlights of WBC2022, and we look forward to welcoming him to Melbourne from June 27th-30th 2022. For more information on the programme for World Building Congress 2022 and how to register please see www.cibwbc2022.org.”
