“Do it! Everything is possible!” – Message from the Active House Days
The First Active House Days took place on 23-24 June in Kiev, Ukraine, co-organised by Alexander Kucheravy, our member and Active House label-awarded architect. The event gathered building professionals from across the globe for an exchange of experience in implementing building projects which create optimal conditions for comfort, energy and environment. The best buildings of the sustainist era were also showcased for visitors at the Active House Best Projects exhibition. After the event, we asked Alexander about key take-aways and the future of the fair.
Q: What are the Active House Days and to whom is it dedicated to?
AK: The Active House Days is а few days event for architects, engineers, designers, builders and realtors, where experts share their experience on how to create optimal conditions of comfort, energy and environment in buildings. The format of the event is “edutainment” (education + entertainment), along which you can listen to cutting edge experiences in sustainable architecture at the lecture zone, find practical advices from producers at the exhibition zone, catch inspiration at the Active House Best Projects Exhibition, and even teach your child basic principles of sustainable architecture at Active House Kids area. This format and content proved to be so attractive that already ahead of the event it raised the interest of nearly 3000 thousand people, and around 2000 thousand actually visited the Active House Days during the weekend.
Q: From where does the idea come from and what has been the objective?
AK: When I realized the first Active House in Ukraine – Optima House, I understood that topics like energy efficiency, comfort of living and sustainability are very interesting to the Ukrainian society.
While having visited Active House Alliance events, I was always dreaming about a large scale Active House Days for thousands of people, where the audience could be inspired by best cases, change its way of traditional building design, borrow fresh ideas from projects and become inspired to do something truly sustainable.
Q: What were the key take-aways of the discussions with the buildings experts?
AK: ‘Do it! Everything is possible!’ – Active House is a quick and economically reasonable vision to improve our comfort of living, health and well-being, reduce our energy demand and energy costs in buildings and save our planet for the future generations. It’s easy: you just use a holistic approach, balance 9 parameters in your project and build, build, build…
Q: Were the Active House Days also feeding the increasing interest by the ‘laic’ audience e.g. users and private building owners? If so, how?
AK: Among others, private building owners also visited the Active House Days. They were interested in real solutions for their energy efficient projects and how they could improve their existing buildings. To all these, they found answers at the Active House Days in Ukraine.
Q: With regard to the success of the event, are you planning to make the Active House Days an annual event, which could eventually ‘travel’ to other countries?
AK: It is very obvious now! The Active House Days is very important and necessary to trigger change – sharing the experience in an easily perceivable way and gathering adherents together is essential. The event provides platform for inspired people to connect with each other and find better ways for the implementation of the Active House principles. It is a truly great and very efficient form of networking. I’m really happy that we launched this initiative in Ukraine and the team is already preparing for the next year’s edition!
