CIBSE’s recent conference, Building Performance Reimagined – What’s Next?, brought together engineers, architects, digital construction specialists and policymakers at the Royal Society in London to examine the shifting landscape of building performance. With a clear focus on practical action, the event aligned with 2024–25 CIBSE President Fiona Cousins’ theme and explored how the sector can strengthen sustainability, energy efficiency and occupant wellbeing through measured, evidence-led approaches.
The agenda centred on four areas shaping current debate across the built environment: thermal comfort, energy saving, data measurement and retrofit. These themes continue to influence digital construction strategies, particularly as organisations seek reliable performance data, effective retrofit frameworks and scalable models for low-carbon delivery. Throughout the day, speakers shared case studies that demonstrated emerging building performance metrics, new technical solutions and retrofit outcomes grounded in real operational data. The emphasis on actionable insight also opened the door for industry partners to contribute their own case studies as part of future CIBSE sponsorship opportunities, a clear signal of the growing demand for transparent, replicable performance evidence.
Exploring fabric, research, policy and people-first approaches
The conference offered three sessions, each addressing a different dimension of building performance and its role in digital construction and building services engineering.
Session one: Fabric first
Chaired by Sasha Krstanovic of mstep, this session examined decarbonisation and climate resilience through a fabric-first approach. Contributions from Kathryn Dapre (CALA), Tom Smith and Ola Bialas (Hoare Lea) highlighted the challenges of reducing emissions and mitigating overheating in new developments. Their examples from the housebuilding sector demonstrated how careful fabric design and early-stage modelling can support measurable energy savings and improved thermal comfort.
Session two: Research, policy and future planning
Led by Sam Baptist, CIBSE Head of Government Affairs, the second session explored how research and policy frameworks influence long-term building performance. Speakers including Becci Taylor (Arup), Lewis Turner, Dipo Lafinhan and Andrew Wholley discussed affordability within planetary boundaries and the implications for future housing delivery. Their insights underscored the importance of integrating environmental limits into digital construction workflows, performance modelling and strategic planning.
Session three: People first
The final session placed building occupants at the centre of performance assessment. Presentations from Tom Randall, Jon Belfield and Vic Tink (InTandem Systems) demonstrated how user behaviour, system interaction and operational data shape real-world outcomes. Their case studies reinforced the value of people-centred design and digital monitoring tools in improving building performance.
Driving progress across the built environment
Building Performance Reimagined – What’s Next? brought together practitioners and decision-makers for a day of focused discussion on the future of building performance. The event strengthened CIBSE’s mission to advance quality, promote data-driven methods and support industry-wide efforts to address sustainability, efficiency and wellbeing challenges.
By showcasing practical examples, highlighting technical innovation and encouraging cross-sector collaboration, the conference set a benchmark for future CIBSE events. Its outcomes will continue to inform the digital construction sector as it works to deliver buildings that perform reliably, support occupant needs and meet the environmental expectations of the coming decade.
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