Mr. HAN ADMIRAAL

Owner and managing director of Enprodes Management Consultancy BV, Netherlands

URBAN INTEGRATED UNDERGROUND SPACES

In this keynote, Han Admiraal will look into the contemporary use of urban underground space and argue that we need to leave the age of single use spaces behind us. As we enter the Anthropocene, the era representing humankind’s interference with the natural processes, we need to find new ways of using underground spaces. This requires these spaces to be used for multiple uses, contribute to preventing overshooting the ecological ceiling, contributing to the social foundation of cities, and be part of circularity. It will be argued that if underground space use has a role to play in the future of our cities, that role must be one of helping cities meet the challenges they face. The keynote will draw on examples and principles given in the book ‘Underground Spaces Unveiled: Planning and Creating the Cities of the Future’, which Han Admiraal co-authored together with Antonia Cornaro.

HAN ADMIRAAL – SHORT BIO

Han Admiraal (1959) studied Civil Engineering at the University for Applied Science in Rotterdam. He obtained a MBA from Twente University. He worked for the Netherlands Government for 20 years, and was Project Manager for the first TBM driven tunnel in soft soil in the Netherlands. Han Admiraal became Executive Director of the COB knowledge centre, and stayed there for 10 years. At the same time, he was a part time professor of Underground Space at Zeeland University of Applied Science in Vlissingen. In 2008, he founded Enprodes Management Consultancy and is based in Delft. He is a strategist & thought leader on the use of underground space. In March 2018, his first book ‘Underground Spaces Unveiled’, written together with Antonia Cornaro, was published. He is co-chair of ITACUS, the ITA Committee on Underground Space.

Monique LABBÉ, architecte

ACUUS, AFTES, Ville 10D-Ville d’Idées, France

Underground space: at the crossroads of technical and social disciplines

More than any other building space, the underground needs to be approached with interdisciplinary methods, from the inception of a project through its successive stages, its evolution and ulterior uses.

Contrary to the traditional view of the city as a zoned space made of mostly monofunctional areas, this keynote proposed a diverse and mixed city in full command of its resources, a major one being subsurface space.

But there is a prerequisite: it is to conceive the underground as a human space and work on it at the fertile junction of technical expertise and social studies.

Monique LABBÉ

Monique LABBÉ has been running her own architecture firm based in the Paris area for 30 years. The firm is specialized in public facilities (such as school buildings), large environmental infrastructure (water and waste treatment facilities), business parks, and logistic buildings, all devised to be at one with their specific site as well as adapted to their users’ life and movement.

This personal approach deepened her interest in underground works. As AFTES past-President of the Underground Space Committee, and an active member of ACUUS (Associated Research Centers for Underground Space), she is now a recognized figure in this field and gives regularly lectures at international conferences and higher schools.

She founded and is leading the Ville10D-Ville d’Idéesapplied national research project, which aims to bring about the conditions for a new type of city planning promoting a wider and more efficient use of the underground.

Professor Xiongyao XIE

Tongji University, China

Smart Technology for Settlement Control Towards Zero Deformation Shield Tunneling

Settlement control has always been the first concern for all the participants of shield tunneling construction when the shield TBM passes through sensitive buildings, especially in urban areas. This keynote presents the practice of smart settlement control technologies in shield tunneling construction, including the ground penetrating radar (GPR) based tail void grouting detection, deep learning based tunnel face pressure prediction, and real-time sensing the tunneling parameters as well as the settlement. Morever, the applications of shield TBM passed through raily trakcs, adjacent buildings, power tunnels and operation subway tunnel are demonstrated, which achieved nearly zero settlement control.

Professor Xiongyao XIE

Xiongyao Xie is graduate of Tongji University. He is a professor at Tongji University, and now is the vice dean in the School of civil engineering in Tongji University. Prof. Xie also serves as the director of the committee of young scientist of Chinese Rock Mechanics and Engineering Society.

Xiongyao Xie is strongly involved in academic research (120 journal papers), as well as in partnership with companies and local government in the field of non-destructive test, structural health monitoring and smart underground construction.

Professor Levermore Geoffrey

Professor, The School of Mechanical, Aerospace & Civil Engineering (MACE) University of Manchester, UK

More smart underground space and infrastructure to mitigate and adapt to climate change

As global temperatures increase with climate change, developing countries develop and urban populations increase so the demand for air conditioning increases. The air conditioning, although improving in efficiency with time, will require more electricity which in turn needs more infrastructure and without care could mean more fossil fuel consumption. This is important as already buildings contribute over a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. One possible solution is to have more underground buildings or use more earth sheltered buildings to reduce the need for air conditioning. This paper explores the background, the latest developments to thermal comfort and air conditioning and the driving forces of climate change and the urban heat island. It then examines the hypothesis for more underground buildings and whether it could reduce the need for air conditioning.

Professor Levermore Geoffrey

Prof G Levermore,Emeritus Professor of Manchester University, author of about 100 refereed journal papers, 44 invited papers and lectures and 25 book chapters and books. Investigator on grants worth £14.53m,  17 with UK Research Councils worth £12.75m, PI on 12 worth £2.27m. In 2007 he was one of the Lead Authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Chair of the Task Group and editor of CIBSE Guide A Environmental Design, Chapter A2  External Design Data 1999, 2006 and 2013. From 2002 to 2009 he was cpordinator of Working Commission W108: ‘Impact of climate change on the built environment’ of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB). In 2010 he was awarded a CIBSE Silver Medal. He was Principal Investigator (PI) for EPSRC Scorchio (EP/E017398/1) which investigated the impact of climate change on vulnerable people and buildings. He was also PI for EPSRC COPSE ((EP/F038178/1) which developed future weather years, based on the UKCP09 climate projections, for building simulation. COPSE also analysed the urban heat island effect for Manchester. Prof Levermore is still researching, analyzing the urban heat island and its effects and giving lectures but on a part-time basis.

Sebastien Stormacq

Amazon Web Services (AWS) evangelist

Smart Cities in the cloud 

Public clouds allow to collect, aggregate and analyse data at any scale.  From IoT to data lake, from data analytics to machine learning, learn how today’s Smart Cities can leverage cloud based infrastructure to be more agile, more efficient and smarter.  

Thorough this talk, we will explore some the AWS services available around the world to solve today’s and tomorrow challenges.

Sebastien Stormacq

Sebastien Stormacq is writing code since he first touched a Commodore 64 in the mid-eighties. He is inspiring builders to unlock the value of the AWS cloud, using his secret blend of passion, enthusiasm, customer advocacy, curiosity and creativity. His interests are about software architectures, developer tools and mobile computing.

Before joining the AWS Evangelist team, Sebastien Stormacq built & lead the AWS technical training team in EMEA, and the Alexa solution architecture team in UK, France, Italy and Spain.

Dr. Katia LAFFRECHINE

assistant professor at the University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, director of the Urban Engineering Department.

Urban underground spaces: functional and multidisciplinary approach

 This keynote presents the way in which a multidisciplinary and functional approach makes it possible to understand urban issues relating to the relationship between the top and the bottom of the city. Two research projects are mentioned, one concerning the coverage of transport infrastructures, the other the guided transport infrastructures themselves. In the first case, an external functional analysis makes it possible to show the impact of the coverage on the functioning of its urban environment according to the design choices. In the second case, an internal functional analysis makes it possible to compare the resilience of the infrastructure with the risk of flood depending on the choice of location (underground, surface or overhead).

Dr. Katia LAFFRECHINE 

Katia Laffréchine holds a doctorate in Civil Engineering from the University of Bordeaux  (France). She is a assistant professor at the University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, researcher at the Lab’Urba laboratory and director of the Urban Engineering Department. Her methodological research activities focus on urban infrastructure and are conducted in a multicritecria, multidisciplinary and systemic way.

Professor Jingfeng Wang

Executive Dean of School of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, China

Progresses on intelligent construction and operation maintenance of urban under-lake tunnels

China is currently at an important stage of urbanization. In recent years, the number and scale of under-lake tunnels in southern cities of China are growing consistently, which brings opportunities and challenges in intelligent construction and operation maintenance. Due to the long length of the under-lake tunnel, the large volume of concrete to be cast, the complex environment of the buried section and the underground environment of the lake bottom, the hydration heat and stress crack have been the main challenges of the under-lake tunnel engineering in crack control and waterproofing aspect. Simultaneously, with the development of big data, intelligent construction, information technology, and other techniques, these techniques are gradually applied to the whole life cycle of tunnel engineering including survey, design, construction, operation, and maintenance. The construction of the lake tunnel project is setting off a new round of technological innovation. This paper systematically summarizes the technical breakthroughs and application of technologies such as intelligent construction and information technology in the construction of under-lake tunnels in China, and puts forward reasonable suggestions on the key technologies of intelligent construction and operation maintenance for urban under-lake tunnel engineering.

Professor Jingfeng Wang

Prof. Wang was awarded as the outstanding talent in the new century of the Ministry of Education, the first batch of professors of Huangshan Young Scholars, and the leading talent for Anhui province steel structure.His main research interests include steel structure and composite structure, intelligent construction and assembly technology, and seismic damage prevention of engineering structures. He has published more than 180 academic papers, including more than 50 papers in SCI-indexed journals and 38 patents (14 invention patents). He has published 2 monographs, 9 textbooks, and compiled 24 national, industry and provincial-level standards (atlas). He was awarded the first (one item), second (two items) and third (one item) prize of provincial and ministerial-level science and technology awards. He is a member of the editorial board of the International SCI-indexed Journal “International Steel Structure Magazine”, the editorial board of the Chinese core journal “Progress in Construction Steel Structure”, the deputy director of the Steel Structure Professional Committee of Anhui Civil Engineering Association, and the vice president of Anhui Steel Structure Association. He has presided over nearly 30 national and provincial scientific research projects. He is also an expert in the evaluation of international science and technology cooperation projects.

Dr. Reza TAHERZADEH

Tractebel Engie, France, reza.taherzadeh@Tractebel.engie.com

“How to govern the main challenges in the conceptual design of a metro project”

This keynote aims at presenting the main issues to take into account in the conceptual design of an underground metro project.  It is shown that how the application of some tools such as the advance numerical modeling in geomechanics, the Geographic Information System (GIS) and the Building Information Modelling (BIM) lead to govern the major challenges : geotechnical/hydrogeoliogical issues, vulnerability analysis of the buildings, orchestrating a multidisciplinary project and balancing risks, costs and delays for an optimal design.   

Dr. Reza TAHERZADEH

Reza Taherzadeh graduated in civil engineering from the University of Tehran and in soil and rock mechanics from the Ecole CentraleSupelec Paris. He was awarded a Ph.D by the Ecole CentraleSupelec for his research on seismic soil-structure interaction analysis.He has involved as expert or project director in the major underground projects around the world in hydropower, rail and road transportation and geological storage wastes sectors. He teaches Tunneling and underground structures for French universities and conducts some Ph.D thesis, particularly in two major research topics : Squeezing rock behavior and stochastic vulnerability analysis of the buildings due to tunneling in urban areas. His professional and research works resulted in the publication of several papers in international journal and conferences. He is member of the technical committee of French Association of Tunneling and Underground Spaces and the chairperson for some international conferences.

Dr. Marwan Al HEIB

Institut national de l'environnement industriel et des risques (INERIS), France

Pros and cons of smart valorisation and re-use of abandoned underground cavities

This Keynote lecture deals with the sustainable development of abandoned cavities and underground structures. We discuss the pros and cons of such actions. In fact, France has had a significant historical underground activity. These cavities must be intelligently managed and valued. Cavities should not only be considered as a source of nuisance or risk but may also be an element of sustainable development. The challenges of the society including climate change, energy and ecological issues, calls for a change in the organization and physiology of the city in order to move towards a more sustainable city model. The underground space can contribute to make the city sustainable.

The keynote presents some strategic orientations of valorisation of abandoned underground excavations: visits, storage, etc. We present the conditions and the urbanistic modalities of smart re-use of the underground “Brasserie” limestone exploitation(Paris – France) and discuss how these valorisations may contribute to the maintenance of voids and risk prevention.

Dr. Marwan Al Heib

Marwan Al Heibobtained his Master’s degree in Civil Engineering in 1983. He holds a PhD (1992) in Rock Mechanics and numerical modeling from Nancy University, and a Habilitation (2009) (highest academic qualification after a PhD in European countries) in Modeling in Rock Mechanics Applied to Mining from the Polytechnic National Institute of Lorraine. He works at the INERIS (Institut National de l’Environnement Industriel et des Risques), as a project leader and research program coordinator. Throughout his career, Mr. Al Heib has investigated scientific problems related to underground cavities. He is an expert from the European Community. He has published more than 200 scientific papers.

Professor Isam Shahrour

Laboratoire de Génie Civil et géo-Environnement- Lille University

Use of the smart city concept for underground space resiliency

The keynote presents first challenges related to the underground space hazards, which are related to natural disasters as well as construction, industrial and human hazards. It shows how resiliency could help to improve our capacity to cope with these challenges and then how the use of the smart city solution through smart monitoring, advanced data analysis using artificial intelligence and control system could enhance the underground space resiliency.

Professor Isam Shahrour

Isam Shahrour is graduate of the High School of Bridges and Roads (Paris). He is professor at Lille University, director of the Civil and geo-Environmental Engineering Laboratory. He is the founder and coordinator of  “SunRise Smart City” initiative, which aims at building large-scale demonstrators of the Smart and Sustainable City. 

He is strongly involved in academic research (120 journal papers and around 30 invited conferences), as well as in partnership with companies and local government in the field of smart and sustainable cities and infrastructures. He is associate editor of Infrastructures Journal (MDPI) and Smart Cities Journal (MDPI).

Professor Xiaojun LI

Tongji University, China

Underground space development with digital and smart services

This keynote first reviews trends and challenges related to underground space development. To address these challenges, the application of digital technologies will be introduced, with Shanghai city underground development be an example. Then this keynote will present a general framework for upgrading underground space development from digital to smart. The framework is a smart service system designed for integration of lifecycle data acquisition, processing, representation, analysis and service of infrastructure, namely, infrastructure Smart Service System (iS3). The objective and composition of the iS3 will be discussed and applications will be introduced.

Professor Xiaojun LI

Dr. Xiaojun Li is a full professor in the College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, China. He is also vice-director of the Office of Research Administration, Tongji University. His research interests include civil-informatics, science and technology in green underground engineering, and AI application in tunnel engineering. He is one of the key founder of “infrastructure Smart Service System (iS3) Consortium”.

He has been a visiting scholar in the Cambridge University (2009), and in the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2010-2011). He has published more than 100 papers in leading international and Chinese journals. He is now a core member of the Innovation and Development Committee (IDC) of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), a core member of the Joint Technical Committee 2 (JTC2) of the Federation of International Geo-Engineering Societies (FedIGS), and the Secretary General of the Chinese Institution of Information Technology and Application in Geo-Engineering, CSRME.

Jean-Michel PEREIRA

Professor, Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées

Big data and Machine Learning in geotechnical engineering:
where are we? what’s next?

Nowadays, data is massively produced by the more and more systematic presence of sensors in daily life activities. Combined with the continuous increase of computing power, and the improvement of Artificial Intelligence tools, the availability of such big data lets foresee the ideal conditions for an efficient use of Machine Learning tools in many areas and particularly in engineering applications. In civil engineering, monitoring of construction works and structures during their exploitation is becoming usual. In this keynote, we will present a state of the art of the use of Machine Learning technologies in civil engineering in general and in geotechnical engineering in particular. We will also discuss potential future applications of these technologies in these fields.

Jean-Michel PEREIRA

Jean-Michel Pereira graduated from ENTPE, Lyon. He is Professor at École des Ponts ParisTech, where he is deputy president of the Department of Civil Engineering. His research focuses on geomechanics for energy and the environement, with experimental, theoretical and numerical developments towards applications such as CO2 geological storage, ECBM, radioactive waste disposals, geothermal structures, etc. He co-authored more than 65 journal papers and holds a strong track-record of partnership with companies.

Michel Gérard

Utility corridors for sustainable cities

Given their advantages, particularly in the social, economic and environmental domains, the utility corridors (utilidors), mainly situated in underground spaces, should be seen more and more as backbones for sustainable cities.
This keynote shortly presents the results of the Clé de Sol research about the implementation of utilidors in towns. It stresses on the most difficult question: financing the compartment. We will present the method suggested by the Clé de Sol Guide with a concrete example in Nanterre, near La Défense.

Michel Gérard

Michel Gérard is a town planner, graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. He worked for long time mainly on urban and territorial issues in the public sector but also in the private sector, at all scales and on many continents. Among others, he ran for six years the office of planning of the Ile-de-France Region (IAURIF), and, for five years, the sector “general strategy/commercial strategy/projects of new lines” of the Ile-de-France main transportation company (RATP). At the end of his civil servant career, Michel Gérard initiated and mounted a national collective research project (roughly 100 participants) about utility corridors (utilidors) in cities which was materialized in a practical handbook (technical, economical, financial and legal,) for mayors, urban managers, technicians, risk managers, lawyers, financial advisers (Editions TechniCités 2005 and 2008).

Charles-Edouard

Utility corridors for sustainable cities

Given their advantages, particularly in the social, economic and environmental domains, the utility corridors (utilidors), mainly situated in underground spaces, should be seen more and more as backbones for sustainable cities.
This keynote shortly presents the results of the Clé de Sol research about the implementation of utilidors in towns. It stresses on the most difficult question: financing the compartment. We will present the method suggested by the Clé de Sol Guide with a concrete example in Nanterre, near La Défense.

Charles-Edouard Delpierre

Charles-Edouard Delpierre is General Manager “Urban” in Tractebel, and member of the Executive Committee. Prior to joining Tractebel, he was the head of the Cities Key Program for ENGIE. He has been speaker in 60+ conferences on smart and sustainable cities, and has been selected as a Young Leader for the World Cities Summit in 2018. He is graduated in urban planning from Paris-Sorbonne University in Paris, and in public administration from Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, France.