Fabric or heat pumps first? AECB conference heads to Manchester to unpick the debate

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The Association for Environment Conscious Building (AECB) will hold its flagship annual conference on Friday 25 September at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, under the banner "Fabric Matters: Unpicking the Interplay Between Envelope and Energy Supply."

The one-day event will combine lectures, panel discussions and breakout workshops, with the familiar AECB emphasis on creating buildings that prioritise environmental responsibility without compromising design quality, occupant comfort or health. Organisers promise plenty of scope for questions and lively debate as delegates examine what it really means to deliver fabric-first, energy- conscious construction.

Setting the historical scene, architectural and energy historian Barnabas Calder will take the long view of how humans have balanced fabric adaptations against energy inputs in the pursuit of healthy living conditions, in both hot and cold climates. Calder, who heads the History of Architecture Research Cluster at the University of Liverpool, is the author of Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency and co-author, with Florian Urban, of the newly published Form Follows Fuel. His talk will propose a powerful, cheap and simple tool for radically reducing the environmental harms caused by buildings and their energy use.

Professor David Glew, director of the Leeds Sustainability Institute at Leeds Beckett University, will argue that retrofit and heat pumps must go hand in hand. His presentation will explore the concept of "peak heat" and the risk it poses to heat pump rollout in the UK, drawing on his leadership of major building performance evaluation projects for government — including DEEP, the largest research programme of its kind into making retrofits of solid-walled homes effective and safe.

A familiar voice joins the discussion in the form of broadcaster and economist Evan Davis, presenter of BBC Radio 4's PM and The Bottom Line, and former host of Dragons' Den. Davis, who co-hosted The Happy Heat Pump podcast in 2025 and presented a Radio 4 series on heat pumps this year, will examine why the technology is still often perceived as a luxury good for wealthier, environmentally conscious households, as well as what stands in the way of rolling it out at scale.

Cutting through the fabric-versus-systems argument altogether, Marianne Heaslip and Helen Grimshaw of Manchester-based People Powered Retrofit will make the case for putting people, context and understanding first. Their session will use case studies to explore what a people-first approach means across a range of homes, and its implications for policymakers and practitioners alike.

The breakout workshops offer something for both the technically and the interpersonally minded. Passive house pioneers Nick Grant and Jon Broome will road-test ideas from their forthcoming Good Building Book, using real-world examples of highly praised but poorly functioning buildings to ask why affordability, performance and beauty are so often treated as mutually exclusive. Business psychologist Sarah Naidoo-Banks will run a practical session on collaborative conversations, equipping delegates with tools for handling challenging workplace interactions with empathy and assertiveness. Meanwhile, the AECB's Tim Martel will host an open question-and-answer session on PHPP, PHribbon and CarbonLite certification.

The venue sits in Manchester's Castlefield district, a short walk from the Deansgate- Castlefield Metrolink stop. The museum has no on-site parking and delegates are encouraged to travel by public transport. Tickets are on general sale until 23rd September, priced from £214.80 for AECB members to £298.80 including VAT for non-members, with the day running from 9am to 5pm.

To see full programme details and book tickets visit: aecb.net/aecb-2026-annual-conference/