Compass stage
Build for Life Conference 2021
The Compass Stage will be dedicated to forward-looking building strategies that support human well-being and environmental responsibility. Rather than broadly addressing the climate crisis or sustainability, the conference’s speakers and discussions will open up a conversation centring on seven key industry challenges phrased around the following opening questions:
Are our buildings sufficiently flexible to adapt to change? Does quality of design matter? Can buildings help regenerate the environment? Can buildings support our personal health and wellbeing? Can buildings help strengthen communities? How does contemporary building design support local, cultural contexts? Do our buildings help make everyday life affordable for ordinary people?
Compass Stage keynote speakers will address these seven important questions in a variety of ways, while also offering their insight into and ideas for possible solutions on how we can work together to ensure a better, more sustainable future.The goal for the Compass Stage is to encourage a positive dialogue and a forward-thinking discussion of how buildings can help connect people and the planet.
Meet the Moderators
The Compass stage will be moderated by Ane Cortzen from the main stage in Copenhagen. Ane is an architect, graphic designer, entrepreneur, and award-winning TV presenter. Ane will be joined by the following co-hosts: Marcus Fairs, Editor-in-Chief of Dezeen, will broadcast live from Dezeen’s studios in London. Pernille Berg, Head of the Science Programme at BLOXHUB (Nordic hub for sustainable urbanization), will moderate a session from BLOXHUB. Christina Yao, editor of Dezeen China, will host a Shanghai panel.
Ane Cortzen
Ane Cortzen is an architect, graphic designer, entrepreneur, and award-winning TV presenter. Born in 1974, Ane graduated from Denmark’s Royal Academy, School of Architecture before beginning her career as an art director for Bodum Design Group in Switzerland.
Marcus Fairs
Marcus Fairs is founder and editor-in-chief of Dezeen. He is the first digital journalist to be awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects. The honour, for "the enormous contribution he has made to architecture," was bestowed in January 2017.
Pernille Berg
Pernille Berg, Dr. Fil., is a passionate scientific innovator who facilitates academic knowledge to create new, cross-disciplinary solutions within the built environment. Heading the Science Programme at the Nordic hub for sustainable urbanization, BLOXHUB, Pernille aids a holistic approach, bridging the newest scientific insights, commercial opportunities with policy influence.
Christina Yao
With over ten years of design journalism experience, Christina Yao is the China editor of Dezeen, responsible for all of Dezeen’s Chinese-language content. She previously lived in London for over six years as foreign correspondent where she produced a series of exclusive interviews with world-renowned architects and designers, before moving back to China in late 2019.
Compass themes
The Compass model is a system developed by VELUX, MOE and EFFEKT architects over the past two years. It serves as a strategic tool that outlines seven points of relevance to guide the process. Together, the seven relevance drivers enable collaborators across sectors to discuss an easy framework development of homes for the future that benefit both people and the planet.
01.
Flexible
A flexible building can undergo modifications and support changes of function with limited structural interventions.
People should be able to actively shape their home, environment, and community to everyday needs through a dynamic envelope and responsive climatic tools and systems.
Homes must be able to adapt to seasons, life patterns, situations, and needs. People must be able to personalize and shape their homes and make use of relevant services and opportunities.
A flexible home is designed to change over time, with adaptive floor plans, indoor climate zones, and general functionality.
02.
Quality
A good quality building is designed and built to last. With the typical user in mind, homes should be designed for longevity, using aesthetics and functional design to enable easy maintenance and durability.
Durable, quality materials, detailed solutions, and choice of assembly enables longevity, a sense of home, and belonging.
More than just meeting specifications and building norms, quality in building design is about giving shape to aspirations, with a high degree of performance, durability, and functionality.
03.
Environment
Resource conscious design is about reducing negative impacts and striving to create lasting positive effects on our climate and natural environment.
Our homes, and the way they frame our lifestyles, should therefore be designed, delivered, and maintained in respect for planetary boundaries.
The footprint of a home must adhere to best practice targets in all aspects and must account for total service life of a building, including the impact of emissions and consumption. An environmentally friendly home preserves precious natural resources, with a regenerative mindset.
04.
Healthy
People spend a great deal of time indoors and at home. This reality directly affects
our physical and mental health. Enabling an optimal indoor climate is an essential aspect of house design.
Designing for health and wellbeing is not only about reducing discomfort but it is also about minimizing negative impacts. Healthy building design must incorporate a holistic understanding of the parameters that influence indoor environmental quality of the spaces we inhabit. A healthy indoor climate doesn’t just alleviate chronic diseases and allergies; it enhances occupants’ safety, productivity, and well-being.
05.
Community
Beyond walls and the surrounding plot, buildings affect the communities and the environment all around them. A healthy community is one that continually creates and improves its physical and social environments, offering common resources and spaces that enable people to mutually support each other.
A healthy community supports all the functions of life by enabling growth and optimization. Homes should be designed as a part of a community, where people can connect and engage, share, and support one another.
Communities designed in this way can provide benefits in relation to social contact, sharing of spaces and resources and a reduction of negative environmental impacts.
06.
Local
Vernacular architectural typologies, traditional construction methods, and local building materials make up a diversity of building cultures across the world. Careful consideration of local context, identity, and heritage is therefore crucial to building culturally sensitive, aesthetically pleasing, and enduring buildings.
Homes should include contemporary and innovative approaches to traditional building designs, materials, and crafts. It is therefore important to apply materials, technologies, and solutions proven valuable to a given locale over time.
Shaping homes with solutions from local building and climatic traditions, is the foundation of successful design and a key to the long-term acceptance of a building with regards to the local community and context it has become a part of.
07.
Affordability
For any housing type to be affordable, an occupant must have sufficient disposable income left for other essential items which are a part of daily life (ie: food, recreation, and health care).
It must be economically feasible for the average citizen to live in a home that supports their personal needs while also being socially responsible.
Homes should therefore be designed to be healthy, sustainable, and cost-effective in order to give access to safe, quality spaces without having to compromise the impact on people, society, and the natural environment.
Speakers and Talks
Join us as we bring together more than 90 speakers from a variety of backgrounds in research, architecture, engineering, business, the construction industry and education. These speakers will be giving presentations at two main event stages: the Compass Stage and the Daylight Symposium Stage. They will draw on their professional expertise, personal insight, and innovative ideas to inspire and challenge conference participants as we consider healthier new ways of living and building in the 21st century.
