International Students visit Erne Campus to learn more about Sustainable Construction

South West College welcomed a number of Humber exchange programme students and a faculty member to the award-winning Erne campus building in Enniskillen for a two-day Building a Sustainable Future Conference and week-long series of sustainable design and construction themed meetings and training workshops.

Professor Kerry Johnson, along with three final years students, Joshua Canuel studying Sustainable Energy and Building Technology and Meriam Khan and Heesu Hong, studying Architecture at Humber College in Toronto, travelled to the Erne campus building in Enniskillen to learn more about energy-efficient construction and Passive House principles from design and construction to testing and certification.

‘Building a Sustainable Future’ Conference

During the week, they were joined by international delegates from twenty countries and participated in both the ‘Building a Sustainable Future’ Conference hosted in association with Fermanagh and Omagh District Council and supported by Encirc along with the International Passive House Association (IPHA) Camp. Humber representatives spent six days visiting Enniskillen and participated in various cultural activities, including a tour of Castle Coole, an early morning hike along the Cuilcagh Mountain boardwalk, and a boat trip to Devenish Island.

Speaking about the transformative learning experience, Heesu Hong said: 

“It was a great moment to visit the Passive House Conference at South West College as an architectural technology student. I have learned international expectations of the passive house model that we can save our energies and reach the net zero carbon goal.”

Joshua Canuel said:

“South West Colleges’ involvement in their local and international community sets an example of how the built environment and sustainability is imperative in our futures success.”

This visit, followed on from an educational trip by South West College to Toronto earlier this year. As part of the Alan Turing scheme, the UK’s global program for studying and working abroad, South West College sent three faculty members to deliver a high-performance construction programme to Humber’s Global Summer School and had eight South West College students participate in the summer school programme.

Due to the success of this collaboration, South West College invited Humber faculty and students to attend the conference at South West College’s Erne Campus, which is the first educational building worldwide to achieve the highest international standard in environmental construction – PassivHaus Premium.

Dr Barry McCarron, Interim Head of Business Development for South West College, said:

“It was a pleasure to welcome these Humber students and staff to the college and our conference. It consolidates our relationship which we have forged with Humber College. This summer we have been able to work with Humber to double the student opportunity from 8 to 16 for this summer participation in the Humber global summer school. 

To see first-hand the benefits for our students last year was very satisfying and we hope to keep building this link with Humber College for many years into the future.”