Carlos Gonzalo
Interview with Carlos Gonzalo
This interview is with Carlos Gonzalo, a Senior Lecturer in Civil and Building Services Engineering for the School of Built Environment and Architecture. Carlos is jointly delivering a session at the first event on the impact of lift use on energy in high rise buildings and will be running a project looking at the sustainability of the lift use in Keyworth Centre once we are back on campus…
Carlos, thank you for taking the time out to take part in the interview and for agreeing to deliver a session at the conference. To begin, can you let us know what you do and why you’re involved in the event series?
It is my pleasure to collaborate, thanks to the organising team. Briefly, my educational background allows me to collaborate in Civil and Building Services Engineering. Moreover, I am very fully committed to sustainability with a holistic view, always trying to cover the main themes of the subject. To cite some examples, I am deputy director of CEREB; I lecture Sustainable Construction for civil engineering cohorts and used to lecture renewable energy technologies for building services engineering cohorts; and all my students projects are based on sustainable matters for supervision.
Can you tell us a bit more about the project you were hoping to work on before the campus closed and what we can expect from it when it takes place?
The project, which is ready to go with most of the technology in place, will look at the misuse of the lifts in a daily basis. We will try to demonstrate that, through the use of other alternative building vertical transportation, we will be able to save energy; save money via energy and maintenance; and, more importantly, to educate people to adopt healthier habits with lift use that are more cost and time effective.
Tell us about how you came to work in your field?
Well, I should not say this but it is quite likely that many of my colleagues would say that I am quite of an active “persona”. This is one of the many “battles” I am involved with, so I tend to get involved in many different fields of engineering, not just lifts.
What is the proudest moment of your career to date?
As a natural link with the previous question, and focusing on my 3 years at LSBU, the first is the delivery (hopefully successful) of a Patent Cooperation Treaty, leading a team of other two academics on fire safety, furthermore very connected with the sad events of Grenfell. Secondly, the design, development and implementation of the apprenticeship strategy for the division of civil and building services engineering where we currently have 400 apprentices, and this number is growing.
What message would you give to our staff and students who are trying to adopt more sustainable habits and behaviours?
COVID 19 times are a sad and unfortunate situation after a century with no pandemics. However, it is important to look at some of the positive impact that has come from it - to realise that it may be the time for the real and actual change. My political opinions aside, it feels like this may be time to make change happen and within the 3 themes: environmental, economic and social sustainability.
Finally, what are your hopes for the conference and more importantly, for the future?
I hope it will be good fun with very interesting sessions, combined with a great audience of academics, industry practitioners, alumni and current students (we will be using material from their projects that they have collaborated on!)
Carlos will be delivering his session on the conference day devoted to ‘Energy’ taking place on 24th June.
For more information and to register for this event, which will be delivered online, visit the event page.
We look forward to ‘seeing’ you there!