SBSE Mini Retreat 2026
We’re pleased to invite you to the 2026 Society of Building Science Educators retreat, which will take place at Biosphere 2 just outside Tucson, Arizona. It’s a remarkable setting for a few days of conversation, reflection, and shared work. We are excited to see you there!
We’ve confirmed lodging and catering, and the program will include a guided tour of Biosphere 2. Retreat costs are $550 per person for double-occupancy and $650 per person for single-occupancy, covering lodging for Friday, May 29 and Saturday, May 30. We’ll plan to begin Friday afternoon and wrap up Sunday morning.
For travel, Tucson is the closest airport; Phoenix is another workable option if you don’t mind a longer drive.
Lovely meals will be provided by Gallery of Food Catering, with three meals on Saturday and a snack box to send you on your way Sunday morning. Participants will be on their own for dinner Friday evening—we’ll help coordinate carpools and small groups so that they can double as an informal start to the retreat.
This year’s retreat will run alongside an optional after-conference workshop and writing retreat for participants in the 2026 Comfort at the Extremes Conference. We’ll share meals across the groups, which both helps keep costs down and opens up opportunities to connect with a broader community.
Our aim is to use this time together to think concretely about how SBSE can better support connection, exchange, and collaboration in a moment when many of our institutions feel increasingly fast-paced and resource-constrained. Some of the ideas we plan to explore include:
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informal, low-barrier spaces for ongoing conversation (a kind of virtual “water cooler”)
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affinity groups around emerging topics such as AI and new building technologies
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more effective ways to share teaching materials across institutions
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regional SBSE hubs for in-person meetups
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expanding SBSE’s international reach and engagement with policy audiences
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strengthening support for graduate students and postdocs
REGISTRATION
If this sounds like something you’d like to be part of, we’d be glad to have you join us. Registration is being handled through a University of Arizona system shared with the CATE conference. Please note that you do not need to register for the CATE conference to register for the SBSE retreat.
We hope to see you at Biosphere 2!
—The retreat committee: Jonathan Bean, Alex Rempel, and Bruce Haglund