NMA Lunchtime Seminar: Focus on Breathable Building Materials

Dr Daniel Maskell

Senior Lecturer, Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering

Dr Dan Maskell is a Senior Lecturer within the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering and a member of IOM3. Dan’s approach is to consider holistically the use of natural building materials, investigating their material properties for structural properties and indoor environment regulation. He is leading projects funded by the European Commission and British Academy looking at natural materials and how they can be used within modern construction. 

: https://researchportal.bath.ac.uk/en/persons/dan-maskell

Fionn McGregor

Head of the chair ConstrucTerr (Earth Construction) E2S, SIAME Laboratory, University of Pau and Pays de l’Adour (UPPA)

No bio provided

Dr Giovanni Pesce

Associate Professor, Department of Architecture and Built Environment, Northumbria University Newcastle

Giovanni L. Pesce (Gianluca) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture and Built Environment, Northumbria University Newcastle.

Giovanni obtained his Master’s degree in Architecture (focussed on the conservation of historic buildings) in 1999 at the University of Genoa (Italy), with a thesis in building archaeology supervised by Prof. Tiziano Mannoni.

After graduation, he worked as a specialist in building pathology and building archaeology at the “Institute for the History of Material Culture” of Genoa and at Ipsilon p.s.c.r.l.

In 2006 he obtained a PhD in "Materials Engineering for the Science of Construction" (University of Genoa), with a thesis on the use of meta-kaolin as hydraulic additive in new lime-based construction materials.

From 2006 to 2010 he collaborated with the Department of Sciences for Architecture of the University of Genoa on a number of projects as a specialist in material characterization, building pathology and building archaeology.

In 2010 he moved to the UK where he studied the carbonation process in new lime-based construction materials. In 2014 he obtained a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Bath.

From 2013 to 2016 he worked at the University of Bath as a post-doctoral research associate on the EPSRC project: "Experimentally verified Atomistic modelling of lime in construction materials" (P.I. Dr. Richard J. Ball; C.I. Prof. Stephen Parker)

In 2016 he joined Northumbria University Newcastle as a Lecturer.

Giovanni is a member a various professional organizations such as the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IoM3), the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, the Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC), the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Architects Registration Board (ARB) and the Institute of Civil Engineering (ICE).

: https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/our-staff/p/giovanni-pesce/

Thomas Robinson

Founder, Adaptavate

Tom began his working life as an on-site builder and plasterer before studying for a Masters in Sustainable Architecture at the Centre for Alternative Technology. It was here that Tom developed what is now known as ‘Breathboard’ and from this he was encouraged to apply for an entrepreneur competition, winning him a place on the Climate Kic accelerator programme at Imperial Collage London. These experiences gave Tom the tools to go from on-site builder to company builder, and Adaptavate was born.

Since then, Tom has won a number of entrepreneurship awards throughout Europe and has built Adaptavate into a successful business run by a game-changing team of talented individuals. As the founder, Tom’s focus is on growing the business and cementing key strategic partnerships that strengthen Adaptavate’s ambitious strategy of developing the low carbon building materials of the future for the global market.

Outside of work, Tom is a dad of two and a keen mountain biker, climber, and surfer. However, a scale-up at work and a couple of human start-ups at home often get in the way of his hobbies!

: https://adaptavate.com/