One of our favourite conferences came to the UK

We were all sat in a café when I found out that we were going to attend CITC11. It was amazing to think that all the research we had done over the year would make it into a conference that has some of the most prolific speakers in the construction industry. I went on the website and I was taken aback at the places it had been held – Sri Lanka, Dubai, Bangkok! I was so excited, what exotic place would it be held this year!? The announcement came… London.

Okay look it’s a great place for a conference but I was going up to London every week for meetings and I kind of had my fingers crossed for Las Vegas or something. Either way I was dead wrong, it was remarkable…

Presentation day:

Unfortunately, we couldn’t make the opening session, but we did make it for the first day of speakers. The event was hosted in the RICS headquarters in London, (Side note: if you’re into architecture I’d highly recommend a visit, it’s a beautiful building right next to the houses of parliament and you won’t be let down). We started the day in the lecture hall, some great presentations all round, our favourite of the day (and as designers probably a very biased choice) was a presentation on the management of green-blue roofs which we’re slowly seeing being adopted by some savvy builders out there. Simon presented in the second session and I presented in the third, both well received and with some great questions from the audience. 

One question asked about the GPS signal out in the field of the AR model, which would be a problem for remote utility works. If you’ve ever tried to message someone from the middle of nowhere you know what I’m talking about, same principles apply for GPS and AR. Great questions like this helps highlight the ‘deeper’ problems that make using AR as a tool much harder than as an advisory platform. Read more about AR for utilities in our recent blog post.

Evening dinner cruise:

I think one of the big things I got wrong about London was how good it looks at night while you’re going up and down the Thames. Luckily we got to do exactly that after the conference that day. Again, if you’re into architecture, I’d highly recommend doing this too. The variety of architecture up and down both sides of the Thames really is a sight to behold, especially when you get up and close to Canary Wharf.

Another thing I got wrong about cruises was the fact you could also eat, dance and drink on them, which goes down well at any event I’m sure. After a lot of that, we went back to our hotel (which seems like a silly thing to mention but I’m only doing so because I wanted to mention that over summer some universities in London open up their student halls for really cheap, our top tip for visiting London for any conferences you might attend yourself). 

The second day: 

Not as hungover as we thought, we also attended the second day. Again, some very  inspiring speakers, I didn’t ask what Simon’s favourite of the day was but my personal favourite was a presentation by Chris Blythe (CIOB Chief executive) about modern slavery in construction. If you get the time, have a read through this,

I think the thing that made this my favourite was just how clueless everyone was about what’s going on ‘behind the hoarding’. Unfortunately, we didn’t make the tour of the houses of parliament either, but we had the pleasure of being jealous of everyone’s photos.

Conclusion: 

Overall, a great conference, a special thanks to Professor Syed, who runs the conference, a truly well done event as always; fantastic keynote speakers, a wide variety of national and international presentations and great choice of location. We’re looking forward to CITC12 (Las Vegas fingers crossed)

See the pictures here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/universityofwolverhampton/albums/72157711259435191/page2