Timor-Leste Accelerator Lab proudly presents its first workshop on green building design challenge Standard Guidelines. The workshop is held in Dili at Timor Plaza (Suai Room) from 16^th until 18^th December 2019.  Why Green building concept is considered important in Timor-Leste? The concept of green building design is used to stimulate ideas among participants so that they can establish similar new concepts that are more relevant to Timor-Leste local context.

Buildings are human creation in which people dwell thus in-depth consideration on how buildings should perform is essential. Things to consider include the impact of buildings to climate change and how to address comfort while preserving local natural ecosystem. It is no doubt that climate change is real time issue that needs to be addressed collectively. Thus this initiative aims to inform member of public as well as government representatives and private sectors on new ideas how our buildings in Timor-Leste should be designed and perform. Co-creating sustainable buildings design principles in Timor-Leste will help the country mapping its potential solutions.

The objectives of this workshop is to collaborate with multiple stakeholders to co-create green building design challenge standard guidelines prior to developing the prototype of the green building, to share and gain insights from each other related to green buildings, to identify, unlock and harness the grassroots capacity and knowledge among the stakeholders to collectively layout the processes to design the challenge for green building, as well as to introduce accelerator Lab’s innovation tools and techniques for data collection.

The workshop consists of interactive learning activities where participants from various stakeholders including private sectors, international NGOs, Chamber of Commerce, University Faculty and Students and youth group will be the main actor of identifying key challenges, drivers of issues behind these challenges, mapping relevant stakeholders as well as finding opportunities within challenges that need to be addressed using green building design principles. A set of questions will guide through the workshops lead by accelerator lab team and nominated guest speakers.

There is need of mutual agreement sourced at grassroots level to better understand the challenges and identifying solutions that are already in place but under develop. For Timor-Leste context buildings for housings and offices are mostly built using concrete material that stores lots of heat. Applying new design principles can help Timor-Leste to not only relying on single construction material but creating alternatives that are not only safer for people but for the environment as well.

The 3-day workshop will assist participants who will be interested in submitting their application for Accelerator Lab first green building design challenge. All members of community are encouraged to submit their application which will be announced for public in later phase. Please contact accelerator lab team via emails: grazela.albino@undp.org   and francisco.dearaujo@undp.org