Students entered the venue one after another before 2:00 pm. These students were from 7 countries, including Cuba, Colombia, Argentina, Indonesia, China, India and Taiwan. The seminar began with the self-introduction led by Miss Chen Chiu-yu, assistant to the head of the delegation. Then, Secretary General Huang Chin-ying led Mr. Lin De-en, Mr. Luo Yang-ching, Mr. Tsai Kun-hsien and Mr. Chung Cheng-hsin to start the keynote speech. Secretary General Huang Chin-ying took the lead with "Symbiotic Civilization" : "First of all, I would like to introduce an important formula for sustainable building (SB). This formula was the topic of the speech on New Sustainable Approach-Challenge of Subtropical Region. I gave at the special session of SB2002 Olso on behalf of the Archilife Research Foundation on September 25, 2002. Before the 1970s, people believed that there were rich resources on the earth and took sustainable development for granted. Similar models have long been developed by western countries according to the earth resources. Simply speaking, it was industrialization and urbanization. In industrialization, multinational trade was applied to exchange what one country has with what it hasn't, and countries in the world thus developed individual characteristics according to their comparative interests. However, due to the circulation of industrial products, similar urban civilizations were built across the world. The success of those advanced countries became the model of latecomer countries. Besides envying the convenient and rich lifestyles that brought industrialization and urbanization in western countries, latecomer countries wished to introduce various advanced materials into their everyday lives through industrialization, international division of labor, and international trade. With such a market mechanism, latecomer countries gradually developed urban areas in appearances similar to those of advanced countries. Following the assimilation of value and culture, whether or not buildings matched the local climate and geographical conditions was less of a concern. It was not until the oil crisis that people finally realized that major buildings in urban areas in different parts of the world long become homogeneous with the Western civilization due to international trade. Even worse, such homogeneity appeared to be so unsuitable for local conditions. In reality, instead of solving the heart of the living problems, these buildings have caused a waste and damage to resources, including energy consumption and material misuse. Speakers at the meeting agreed that Western civilization was not ideal for the subtropics, except for the cool and cold temperate regions. These speakers included Professor Kazuo Iwamura from Japan proposed "Movements of the Environmentally Symbiotic Housing - Theory and practices in Japan", Professor William Lim from Singapore proposed "Sustainable Environment for Whom - with special reference to cities in East Asia region" , and Professor Wan-ki Chow from Hong Kong proposed "Architectural Features for the Environmental Friendly Century". This has consequently caused the black-spot of energy consumption and material misuse in the subtropics, including Taiwan! It is wrong to model thecivilization of different geographical and climatic regions without adjustment. It is necessary to dialogue with the geographical and climatic regions where one lives, so that we can readjust the local form of architecture and settlement and develop the best practice through the accumulation of knowledge and technology as radical means to reduce the load of the environment and to eliminate the stress of resources and energy. It is becoming more obvious that we must adopt a symbiotic way to maintain a balance between human development and environmental preservation, and construct an efficient symbiotic circulation system to reduce the load on the environment from our everyday lives. We call this solution Symbiosis. That is to say, by making use of the reciprocity of co-existence in biology, we combine the foods we consume, green vegetables and fruits in particular, to everyday life with architecture in order to turn human outputs into plant inputs, and vice versa. This is an attempt to reduce the environmental load that is brought by everyday life by enhancing the circulation efficiency. Secondly, we also hope that the evaporation effect of green plants can help to reduce the high temperature on the outside walls of buildings. In terms of structure, we model the temperature and humidity control of indigenous people of the subtropics and the Romans, in an attempt to turn the common symbiotic relations in the biological world into the new relationship of our dialogue with the environment. In this case, green building and symbiosis will be the best practice toward sustainable building as revealed in our new formula: GB +Symbiosis = SB; i.e. Green Building + Symbiosis = Sustainable Building. Under this premises, we can draw up the following three major conclusions: 1. Localization: Buildings should have the ability to respond to its local environment and climate, while also providing for the comfort and health of its inhabitants. 2. Team Work: Sustainability is a complex issue. It needs to be discussed on many different levels and aspects in order to come up with a comprehensive solution. Moreover, real dialogue with our environment will require continued experimentation, refinement, implementation and feedback. 3. Symbiosis: Symbiosis is a micro-scale symbiotic approach with mimicry of nature. It requires that people establish an intimate symbiotic relationship with the biological world, and particularly with the vegetables and fruits. It is in order to minimize their impact on nature and ensure environmental sustainability. « 1 2 3 4 »

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