gb&d Issue 66: Summer 2022

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Back to Work HOK is designing hybrid of fice experiences people can get behind.

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New Norway How startup culture in Oslo is burgeoning

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Designing Flexible Health Care Making patients feel at home in health care environments

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Patient-Centric Lighting Innovations from Visa Lighting provide more design possibilities.

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The Ultimate Outdoor Living Space How using western red cedar makes for beautiful, sustainable projects

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On the Road: Galápagos Islands A week in one of the rarest places on Earth

ON THE COVER Shiseido NYC Photo by Eric Laignel

PHOTO BY IVO TAVARES STUDIO

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Editors’ Picks High-tech solutions for modern problems

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IAQ Monitoring A closer look at five benefits of monitoring indoor air quality

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Vertical Museum The Munch Museum in Oslo is a clever design that brings people together.

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In Support of Modular A European hotel brand brings color and modular design to Seattle’s South Lake Union.

Two Places at Once How the hybrid office model helps people stay connected to nature and each other

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Doors of Possibility Inside the changing nature of workplace design with KLEIN

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First Impressions Matter HOK on what it means to design for hygiene in today’s office buildings

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Clean Design An expert’s guide to designing a happier, healthier restroom experience

Stephanie McDaniel New leadership at BWBR focuses on inclusive design.

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New Beginnings Inside the new Perkins Eastman Pittsburgh LEED Gold studio

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Julie Janiski The Buro Happold leader on how collaboration will move green building forward

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Nordic Pride A sneak peek at the new National Museum opening in Oslo

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A New Take on Recess In China, schoolchildren benefit from imaginative outdoor play and colorful design.

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Seeing Green Natural materials allow this home in Mexico to blend in effortlessly with its surroundings.

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The Tilt House A unique shape allows the designers of this home in Portugal to capitalize on natural light.

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contributors Editor-in-Chief Christopher Howe Associate Publisher Laura Heidenreich Managing Editor Laura Rote Art Director Kristina Walton Zapata Content Marketing Director Julie Veternick Marketing Coordinator Lark Breen Editorial Intern Yuyan Zhang Contributors Jennifer Askey Maura Keller J. Livy Li Matt Watson

ONLINE gbdmagazine.com gbdmagazine.com/digital-edition SUBSCRIPTIONS Online shop.gbdmagazine.com Email service@gbdmagazine.com gb&dPRO Online gbdmagazine.com/gbdpro Email info@gbdmagazine.com

SOPHIA CONFORTI (“New Era of Green Building,” pg. 128) is a Chicago-based writer and editor.

With a background at both agencies and print publications, her writing ranges from the built environment and manufacturing to health and travel. Outside of writing, Sophia is heavily involved in animal rescue and can often be found with a book in her hand—just not at the same time.

MAIL Green Building & Design 47 W Polk Street, Ste 100-285 Chicago, IL 60605

Printed in the USA. © 2022 by Green Advocacy Partners, LLC. All rights reserved.

Green Building & Design (gb&d) is printed in the United States using only soy-based inks. Please recycle this magazine.

The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of the publisher. The publisher is not responsible for product claims and representations.

The Green Building & Design logo is a registered trademark of Green Advocacy Partners, LLC.

JESSICA ZUNIGA (“The Tilt House,” pg. 54) is a freelance writer with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Indiana University.

Originally from the Midwest, she now spends most of her time on the move. She is often writing from her laptop in remote areas of National Parks. Her passion for sustainability comes from a love for being outdoors.

MIKE THOMAS (“The Way We

Work,” pg. 65) is a Chicago-based writer whose work appears regularly in Chicago magazine and gb&d, among others. He also spent nearly 15 years at the Chicago Sun-Times and is the author of two books. He has written about a wide range of subjects—from movie stars and bestselling authors to famous musicians and business leaders.

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surgery and emergency services.

The contractor, Rudolph and Sletten, will build the new facility along Lincoln Boulevard, allowing the existing hospital to remain fully operational during construction.

Designing Flexible Health Care, pg. 98

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IBOBI Super School in China was designed by VMDPE to encourage children’s freedom of play and imagination. Principal Designer Vinci Chan said the design firm wanted to make good use of the big outdoor space, which accounted for a large proportion of the site. He said the design should answer an important question: What kind of outdoor teaching spaces do children need? A New Take on Recess, pg. 36 4

While we feature the Munch Museum in this issue’s section of

5 Things We Learned Behind-thescenes tidbits and fun facts we discovered making this issue

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project profiles, it’s the National Museum, opening in June 2022 in Oslo, that’s actually home to Edvard Munch’s famous The Scream. Explore 47,000 objects at the National Museum, designed by architects Kleihues + Schuwerk.

It will be the largest art museum in the Nordic countries when it opens. Opening exhibits include Scandinavian Design and the USA, 1890–1980, which delves into how identity building, stylistic trends, and politics influenced perceptions of the objects we gather around us.

Nordic Pride, pg. 138 2

Cedars-Sinai Marina del Rey Hospital is expanding.

Construction has begun on the hospital that’s scheduled to open in 2026. The new nine-story building will augment and expand the hospital’s historical strength in

certified mass timber to build Casa El Pinar in Valle de Bravo in Mexico, saying the innovative engineered laminated wood for structural applications was breaking new ground across the world. In Mexico, they said most forests are not being sustainably harvested even when local communities are eager to incorporate responsible and sustainable practices. Thousands of hectares are still lost to agriculture or urban development every year.

Seeing Green, pg. 44 5

Tilt House in Portugal has many sustainable features, from devices for charging electric cars and LED lighting to high-density thermal insulation and window frames with thermal cut and double glazing.

The beautiful house also features a biomass sanitary water heating system, electrical equipment with top energy certification, and a borehole for watering the garden and more. The Tilt House, pg. 54

RENDERING COURTESY OF CEDARS-SINAI

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Architects César Flores and Mikel Merodio wanted to use

company index

directory ISSUE 66 • SUMMER 2022

ARCAT

pg. 140 arcat.com 203.929.9444

KLEIN USA

pg. 64, 72 klein-usa.com 973.246.8181

NeoCon

Armstrong Ceiling Solutions

pg. 63 neocon.com

ASI Group

New York School of Interior Design

GCP

Visa Lighting

pg. 2 armstrongceilings.com/commercial 877.276.7876

pg. 84, 91 asigroup.us 914-476-9000

pg. 12 nysid.edu 212.472.1500

pg. 18, 122 gcpat.com 617.876.1400

pg. 102 visalighting.com 414.354.6600

Jonti-Craft

Western Forest Products

pg. 8 jonti-craft.com 507.342.5169

pg. 10, 108 westernforest.com 604.648.4500

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YellowTin The YellowTin platform provides personalized recommendations to save money and cut carbon by switching to clean technologies like solar, EV, battery, induction cooktop, and more. “We provide our customers with the data they need to drive impact and measure results,” says Vishwas Ganesan, founder and CEO. YELLOWTIN.COM,

PHOTO COURTESY OF YELLOWTIN

NETZEROACCELERATOR.ORG

YELLOWTIN WAS PART OF THE 2021 COHORT OF USGBCLOS ANGELES’ NET ZERO ACCELERATOR COMPANIES. READ MORE AT GBDMAGAZINE.COM.

High Tech How new products and creative collaborations are changing the way architects design and build

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Modulize Modulize is an Oslo-based company that simplifies design, planning, and procurement for prefabrication in construction. Company cofounder Håkon Kalbakk says the offsite construction software contributes to building a world where construction is faster, cheaper, and greener without sacrificing quality or character. The green construction startup won Oslo Innovation Week 2021’s 100 Pitches competition, defeating more than 200 other companies from more than 40 countries. The market and the sustainability element of Modulize were key to their win. “They have a huge potential in two dimensions: large market in financial terms, where there is a need and potential for improvement with digital solutions, and large impact potential due to the carbon footprint of the target industry,” says Arne Tonning, head of the Oslo Innovation Week jury. MODULIZE.IO

IMAGES COURTESY OF MODULIZE, IRISVR

Prospect by IrisVR The leaders at IrisVR say virtual reality (VR) gives architecture and design teams the ability to immerse workers and stakeholders in buildings before they physically exist, making pre-occupancy evaluations possible. Prospect allows you to load 3D files in sectors, imports native BIM metadata into VR, and automatically optimizes geometry. A free 14-day trial is available on their website. Prospect by IrisVR is now part of The Wild, a recently acquired Autodesk company. “Autodesk’s acquisition ... could create an even more seamless integration of VR into the platforms we use, leading to wider adoption, more capabilities, and a shift from what was once sci-fi to a daily activity,” says Brian Melton, technology innovation lead at Black & Veatch, on the IrisVR blog.

IRISVR.COM

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Varig Varig is a sustainability software that makes it easy for building owners, managers, and tenants to work systematically to improve their portfolio’s climate footprint.

Launched in 2019, software translates building-relevant data into concrete measures linked to the UN’s sustainability goals. With a focus on sustainability, Varig provides documented insight for selected buildings in a complete and user-friendly overview, all converted to CO2 equivalents. Varig aims to increase the parties’ awareness of sustainability and motivate behavior change. VARIG.TECH/EN

Otovo

IMAGES COURTESY OF VARIG, OTOVO

Otovo is on a mission to bring solar energy to homes across Europe. “We wanted to make an e-commerce experience out of doing this home improvement because it’s quite cumbersome to figure things out,” says CEO Andreas Thorsheim.

The company makes it easy for homeowners to get solar panels on the roof—without someone even having to visit their house. Otovo organizes more than 500 local, high-quality, and qualified energy installers and helps them scale their business. With proprietary technology, Otovo analyzes the potential of any home to find the best price and installer for customers based on an automatic bidding process between available installers.

OTOVO.COM

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5 Benefits of IAQ Monitoring Why IAQ matters more than you may know

BY LAURA ROTE

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PHOTO COURTESY OF POLYCOR

he air quality that’s inside—whether in schools, office buildings, or your home—has a massive impact on how you feel, your health, and your ability to concentrate,” says Lauren Pedersen, chief marketing officer at Airthings.

“Small changes in air quality can have a massive impact.”

Pedersen is referring in part to recent research and a book called Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity by the director of Harvard’s Healthy Buildings Program and Harvard Business School’s leading expert on urban resilience.

Airthings hopes to make buildings a little bit healthier with products like their View Plus, an easy-to-use indoor air quality monitor that tests for carbon dioxide, VOCs, humidity, virus risk, and more.

Their team is particularly interested in the growing data around air quality and performance in schools. “We monitor so many classrooms around the world. You see people sitting with several thousand PPMs of CO2, which means their cognitive performance is lowered by 20, 30, or even 40%,” says Airthings CEO Øyvind Birkenes. “They’re drowsy. They’re tired. Awareness around that has increased.” These are some of the benefits of using technology like View Plus to monitor indoor air quality.

PHOTO COURTESY OF AIRTHINGS

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1. KNOW WHAT’S IN THE AIR. Indoor air quality is especially important, the EPA says, as Americans, on average, spend approximately 90% of their time indoors, where the concentrations of some pollutants are often two to five times higher than typical outdoor concentrations.

For property managers, adding technology like Airthings allows them to view real-time and historical air quality data to manage multiple buildings in one place and identify any air quality issues and areas of improvement. Set up alerts, generate reports, and get tips based on your current air quality. You can also add a public dashboard display or QR codes so anyone in your building can check the air quality themselves.

2. SAVE ENERGY. Having a monitor like View Plus for business can help you reduce energy consumption and save money, as you optimize ventilation, heating and cooling, and light based on need instead of schedule.

Balance the pressure difference in your building to avoid energy leakage. Airthings’ technology can also help facility managers and building owners remotely monitor and optimize their buildings, so they’re always in the know.

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The View Plus air quality monitor includes a built-in display and sensors for radon, particulate matter (PM), carbon dioxide (CO2), humidity, temp, airborne chemicals (VOCs), and air pressure.

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View your data anytime, anywhere with this wireless and Wi-Fi connected device. Easily mount to the wall or sit on a shelf.

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All you have to do is wave in front of the monitor to view all pollutants outside the recommended levels.

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3. BE SMARTER.

PHOTOS COURESTY OF AIRTHINGS

Improved indoor environmental quality could boost decision-making scores by more than 100%, according to a study

by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. According to Airthings, reducing carbon dioxide levels in the typical office environment resulted in an improvement of up to 50% in cognitive skills for workers tested. And healthier staff could mean a more productive staff.

A 2018 report by the World Green Building Council suggested a healthier work environment could cut sick leave by four days per year per employee.

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4. FEEL BETTER. Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide can also cause headaches, restlessness, drowsiness, poor sleep, snoring, and other problems. The EPA says health effects associated with indoor air pollutants include irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat; headaches, dizziness, and fatigue; and even respiratory diseases, heart disease, and cancer. The link between some common indoor air pollutants—like radon, particle pollution, carbon monoxide, and Legionella bacterium—and health effects is well established.

Ventilation—even opening windows or vents for five to 10 minutes several times a day—is an effective way to reduce airborne chemical concentrations. Choosing household products with low-VOC toxicity, buying natural cleaners, detergents, and even used furniture can also help lower the total airborne chemical levels indoors, according to Airthings.

PHOTO COURTESY OF POLYCOR

5. EASY TO SCALE UP. Airthings is a scalable solution that works for multiple buildings. You can seamlessly integrate this technology into your building management system, whether you have 1,000 or 1,000,000 square feet of space to manage. Airthings’ solutions can also be customized to fit any space and portfolio.

The View Plus monitor is easy to use, as you simply wave your hand in front of the monitor for a visual indication of air quality levels. The red and yellow light indicate poor and fair levels, while the green light indicates healthy levels. g

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NORWAY’S CHANGING LIGHT INSPIRED THE DESIGN OF THE TOWER-SHAPED MUSEUM CLAD IN GLASS AND RECYCLED, PERFORATED ALUMINUM PANELS OF VARYING DEGREES OF TRANSLUCENCY.

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Vertical Museum The new Munch Museum in Oslo celebrates art and community with clever design that meets strict guidelines for sustainability.

WORDS BY LAURA ROTE

PHOTOS BY EINAR ASLAKSEN

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Low-carbon concrete and reinforced, recycled steel make up the main structure.

The architects focus on using Norwegian products where possible for the interior.

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The Munch Museum is a nod, a wave, a wink over Oslo. Its design respects the history of the area while celebrating meaningful development—like the Oslo Opera House and the new National Museum nearby—andthe natural beauty of the Oslofjord in front of it.

“This idea of bend was a gesture toward the city center, nodding toward the city center,” says Jens Richter, partner at EstudioHerreros, the architecture fi m that designed the Munch Museum, opened in October 2021.

“It’s a kind of wink toward all these important historic sites in Oslo.”

Richter, whose fi m has offices in Madrid, New York, and Mexico City, was honored when they won the international competition to design a prestigious Norwegian museum and immerse themselves in a different world. Instead of conjuring up images of traditional Norwegian architecture—perhaps a low structure made of wood, for example— they thought about what else makes the region special. “We wanted to see it from the outside with curious eyes. What does it actually mean to be in Norway and to look into the future?” Richter said.

They focused in part on the Norwegian light, and the result is spectacular. The tower-shaped museum is clad in glass and recycled, perforated aluminum panels of varying degrees of translucency, reflecting different ISSUE 66

lighting conditions. Edvard Munch, the famous Norwegian artist known for The Scream, donated more than 27,000 of his works to the city upon his death on the condition that they be accessible to all people of Oslo and the world in one place. The new museum also hosts major temporary exhibits exploring Munch’s influence on oher artists.

When the competition to design the museum launched back in 2008, the Oslo waterfront felt much more industrial; it was still home to many shipping containers. Richter says the fi m didn’t want to compete with the Snøhetta-designed Opera House nearby, now an award-winning fixtu e in Oslo, as it was the fir t building to reconnect the city center with the fjords. Instead, EstudioHerreros wanted to build on that beauty and excitement. “Now when you are there you see this beautiful promenade along the water. All this is following this idea of the fjord city, where people reconnect and rediscover this edge that was formerly occupied by the harbor.”

The competition focused a lot on how architects would imagine this very centrally located place, walking distance from Oslo’s busy Central Station and just in between the historic city center and Aker Brygge, now a popular pier and cultural center that hosts events and is populated with outdoor eater-

commercial

The project was built directly into the water, as the ground in the area— historically where the Norwegian

wood industry was based—was very soft. The building sits on more than 300 piles on the bedrock 200 feet below the building

in the water.

“Technically speaking that was quite challenging— to resolve this construction in the water.”

DRAWING COURTESY OF ESTUDIOHERREROS

FLOOR PLAN PROJECT: Munch Museum ARCHITECT: EstudioHerreros LOCATION: Oslo, Norway Completion: 2020 Size: 120,000 square feet Cost: ~$40 million Associate Architect: Angus Young Associates Electrical, Plumbing, and Structural Engineer: Angus Young Associates General Contractor: Corporate Contractors, Inc. Interior Design: Studio Gang Landscape Architect: Applied Ecological Services LEED Consultant: Angus Young Associates

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A compact shape, high-quality windows, and natural ventilation save energy. The building is connected to a district-heating system and a seawater cooling plant and features an energy control system that optimizes energy consumption. The building has no parking spaces, given its location close to the city’s largest public transport hub and 100 cycle-parking spaces.

ies. EstudioHerreros continues that feeling of community.

Richter says people today don’t just use museums to see an art exhibition, so museums themselves have to invent new programs to stay relevant and make sure the local population spends time there, too. They didn’t want it to be a once in a lifetime experience, but rather to design a place you’d want to go many times. The museum has an auditorium, a cinema, a vibrant children’s department with classes, a library, a cafe, a 12th floo restaurant with viewing platform, and, of course, a museum shop. “All these programs around the main lobby are accessible to everybody,” Richter says.

He says parts of the museum ensure Munch’s collection remains contemporary and relevant for today’s discussions. “The idea is of the museum as a house where everybody can come, where the threshold is so low people are not afraid to come in,” Richter says. “The whole vestibule section is open to the public. It is an extension of the public space, where you can meet a friend for coffee.

That was very important to us.”

Sustainability was also very important to EstudioHerreros, as the project was designed to meet passive house standards. “We have been working with strategies to reduce continued on pg. 27 ISSUE 66

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energy consumption of buildings and reduce the carbon footprints for many years. We try to apply this to all our projects, whether it’s a single-family house, an office building, or a museum,” Richter says.

The museum is structured in three major parts—the lower part is the podium, then you have the museum tower, and then there’s what Richter calls the dynamic part, or the circulation area of the museum, with a large facade oriented toward the city. This separates the art from other areas of the museum and allows for a fluctuating temperature—those areas where people walk along the facade and enjoy views of Oslo. On the contrary, the humidity and temperature in the exhibition rooms must be 100% stable. In the circulation areas, EstudioHerreros used natural ventilation, taking advantage of the nice waterfront breeze when they can to cool the space, as slits open in the facade. The facades, finishedin perforated aluminum with different degrees of transparency, also offer an ever-changing view of the museum from the outside, as the building reacts to the changing light of Oslo.

The museum’s vertical design also avoids that often-experienced sensation of going from exhibit to exhibit without daylight, tiring visitors out. Instead, you move up the museum from exhibition to exhibition, each time reentering a front area lined with windows. “You always get back to the facade where you have these amazing views of Oslo.” g

Public spaces are an important part of the Munch Museum. Inside, you can go all the way up to the 12th fl or restaurant and viewing platform—free and open to the public.

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In Support of Modular Gensler’s Seattle citizenM suggests modularity as an urban solution.

WORDS BY J. LIV Y LI PHOTOS BY RICHARD POWERS

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Gensler designed the new citizenM hotel, a European brand, to blend in with its trendy South Lake Union neighborhood in Seattle.

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Tucked in Seattle’s trendy South Lake Union is a seven-story slate gray building built using modular construction. Designed by Gensler, it’s a foray into the West Coast by European hotel chain citizenM. The new building blends in well with the neighborhood, not obtrusive in size nor shape, and largely mirroring its surrounding buildings. But below its gridded facade are layers of impressive structural problem-solving, all fit ed into a steel cage body.

A bright, large-scale art piece wraps around the two street-facing facades of the building. Abstracted nods to pine trees and rain are rendered in magentas and turquoises. The piece, by Seattle-based artist Jesse LeDoux, features prominently in the concept renders for the building, where every window and their respective inhabitants are depicted in a myriad of colors.

On the ground floo , a similarly colorful

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mural wraps around the elevator core—a piece by local indigenous artist Jeffrey Veregge and a personal favorite space in the hotel, according to Case Creal, design manager and senior associate for Gensler Seattle.

All of the hotel’s public spaces are housed on the ground floor, which serves as a base for the steel cage supporting all private rooms above. The two murals highlight and, at the same time, bring a liveliness to their respective structure, harkening to the nine-square grid—that famous architectural exercise that teaches how to play within a structure.

Modular architecture is still a relatively new method of building. Despite its prevalence in postwar architectural theory when prefabrication came into being, modular buildings are still not that common to see in the wild—especially in seismic zones.

“Whenever we would go into a new juris-

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The Gensler hotel project was built using modular construction.

More than 200 modules were fully finished in the factory to reduce the environmental impacts of traditional construction due to traffic, air quality, and emissions. The hotel’s facade has large-scale artwork, punctuating the Seattle skyline with vibrant color, while its ground floor welcomes visitors with a comic book-inspired mural.

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diction that was a new challenge for them by and large. We had to work with [that jurisdiction] to craft a process for permitting and for inspections that the local and state jurisdictions could feel good about,” Creal says.

But citizenM’s model made modular building even simpler. Standard across their locations, the hotel chain offers one type of room—asingle, king-sized bedroom—andan accessible iteration. This allowed Gensler to quickly agree on what Creal calls a modular go or no-go process. “We commit to that really early. It’s a pretty deep dive, but we work together, commit to that, and don’t second-guess it as we go. When you step away from pursuing modularity as rigorously and quickly as you can, you lose all the benefitsof modular construction, chief of which is the schedule benefits.

Everything above the ground floor was built as units via citizenM’s longtime fabrica-

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tion partner Polcom in Poland, then shipped to Seattle. While the relatively long transportation route takes a toll from an environmental perspective, the design team says it doesn’t outweigh the environmental benefits that come from building in a factory (especially one already equipped to fabricate for citizenM), and especially when compared to the toll of shipping raw materials across the world as needed in a traditional site-built project.

Manufacturing the units in a factory setting has a myriad of benefitsfrom an environmental perspective; where the average building will involve shipping more materials than needed to any given site, the excess of which will need to be disposed of, a factory is able to aggregate materials and distribute them between projects as well as plan out what’s needed precisely, so waste is minimized.

The team designed for fabrication, transportation, assembly, and, final y, so each unit

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The citizenM took four months less to build than a traditional building project, with 60% less construction waste. Rooftop solar panels and sustainable design solutions—including efficient mechanical and electrical systems—helped this project achieve a 24% energy reduction.

Using such climate action strategies, Gensler’s hospitality

and sustainable design team helped the client achieve a LEED Gold-Certified for New Construction designation for citizenM’s South Lake Union location. The citizenM also features a designer living room for guests to kick back and relax. The stylish space includes worldclass art and plenty of books to browse through. iMacs are also free for guests to use.

The hotel lobby leads into an eclectic living room space featuring modern furniture, neon signage, and floor-to-ceiling windows. Nearby, an inviting bar with hanging plants and plentiful seating options beckons.

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PROJECT: citizenM South Lake Union ARCHITECT: Gensler LOCATION: Seattle

would perform well in a high-seismic activity zone. They had to design so the units could withstand the dynamic loads of transportation and the gravity loads that come with being picked up onsite, as well as in a way that was flexible enough to sway with the building in the event of an earthquake.

Modular building in seismic zones is rare; in this case, because the building isn’t low-rise, it was built with concrete cores that absorb the lateral, seismic forces from the units and carries them back into the ground. The payoff of all these design considerations is a project that took four months less than a traditional building project, and with 60% less construction waste. The shorter timeframe and fewer deliveries also contribute to less pollution “down to the number of Porta Potty visits, Dunkin’ Donut cups, and hours of idling vehicles,” Creal says.

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On top of those environmental benefits, the building also boasts solar panels on its roof as well as a heat pump, a measure that is rarely used for hotels. The result is a LEED Gold certification and a building that uses 24% less energy than otherwise.

Modular building, originally conceived of as a thing of the future, may be having its moment now. Increased globalization and the capacities of industry now allow prefabricated units to be produced on a scale never seen before. Creal is hopeful for the possibilities of modular. “I think we need to start taking on a different approach to building. We often think of these buildings as bespoke creations, and I think if we can get away from that and think of them as a series of products that go together, we’ll really be able to bring the efficiency, effectiveness, and reduced environmental impact onto projects.” g

Rooms at the new citizenM hotel feature extra-large, king-size beds with European cotton sheets and colorful mood lighting.

Choose a room with a view and sleep well with soundproof windows and blackout blinds.

DRAWING COURTESY OF GENSLER

Completion: 2020 Size: 82,000 square feet Engineer: ARUP Contractor: Mortenson Interior Designer: concrete Amsterdam Furniture Supplier: Vitra Modular Fabrication: Polcom Group Awards: LEED Gold

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A New Take on Recess VMDPE Design created a haven for schoolchildren in China.

Designed by VMDPE, the IBOBI SUPER SCHOOL is in Dachong, the tech hub of Shenzhen.

The project is located on the terrace of the second floor of a mall—one of few places in the area with large

WORDS BY MAUR A KELLER PHOTOS BY ZC STUDIO

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outdoor space. The outdoor terrace and the indoor space are well connected, forming an enclosed site. All of the spaces are flexible in design, offering up multiple functions for imaginative students.

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When children at the IBOBI Super School want to compete in sports, they can use the entire space to run and play.

The VMDPE design team fully took into account the different types of sports and safety based on

the function of the different outdoor areas. In addition to functional flexibility, VMDPE wanted to provide flexibility in thinking. In contrast to specific games on the playground, the teaching area is designed to allow

children to use their own imagination in a playful way. Some children’s seating areas can be used to play pretend as single-plank bridges or boats. All arrangements feature both specific functions and flexibility.

China’s dense metropolitan areas means its schoolchildren often attend schools that lack outdoor green spaces for learning, exploration, and play. However, in Dachong, the technology hub in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, you will find Children’s Paradise Downtown – IBOBI Super School.

Designed by VMDPE Design, the original vision of IBOBI Super School was to create a comprehensive kindergarten that integrates art, science, and sports education. At the same time, the VMDPE Design team wanted to create a place of community where everyone can come together and celebrate work and play within the tech hub. “That is to say, our goal is to create an open-spirited kindergarten,” says Vinci Chen, VMDPE’s team design director.

The IBOBI Super School site in Shenzhen is surrounded by a dense residential and commercial zone, busy with high-tech companies, and the area had no kindergarten with enough outdoor space for children. VMDPE took advantage of a second-floor area of a shopping mall with a huge outdoor plaza to bring their design concept to fruition.

“Our key design elements are the redefinition of outdoor functionality, creating not only spaces for sports but also social interaction areas, hand-craft activities, outdoor STEAM courses, and greenhouse functionalities,” Chen says.

The entire field needed to be a place where kids could run and play while at the same time offering a rich and varied environment with unlimited recreational opportunities.

The indoor space and outdoor terrace are combined into an enclosed space, offering a haven of sorts for the schoolchildren.

“We didn’t want to create any space restrictions with walls, but to create visually understandable partitions for different areas using iconic structures and interactive installations, such as a windmill, robot, and weather meter,” Chen says.

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Sustainable, child-safe materials were used throughout the project. Inside the school you’ll find various base layer materials, including E0 grade environmental protection boards, moisture-proof plaster boards, environmental protection paint-free boards, water-based paint boards, thermal transfer printing over aluminum material, inorganic protective coating (conversion layers), and vinyl flooring. Outside you’ll fin plastic wood flooring,thermal transfer printing over aluminum material, stainless steel paint, and EPDM rubber flooring One of the key challenges of transforming the space into an exceptional learning environment was determining how to make the partitions for different areas, as well as how to differentiate the design content for the different activities while keeping an in-

tegrated structure and still having movement for sports.

“The site itself is in a hard and irregular state,” Chen says. “We hoped to use the different unique elements for each area to create imaginary lines that lead to the sense of different partitions maintaining a soft and natural environment for the whole space.”

The outdoor teaching environment boasts structures that allow children to play and interact however they choose. “The school has had a very good enrollment of new students,” Chen says. “Also during the construction phase, the whole site attracted a lot of attention and discussion from the surrounding residents, and it was even recorded daily on the school’s own social media. Now everyone is happy to have an awesome kindergarten.” g

The design is based on Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives.

VMDPE aimed to practice the psychomotor theory proposed by this design philosophy in the design of children’s space.

Above, the kitchen is equipped with a transparent window for children to look inside, so the students can observe as the food

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they eat every day is prepared. Boundaries between indoor classrooms and outdoor spaces are blurred by porches that allow people to enter and exit adjoining spaces freely under different weather conditions. The corridor is elevated to the same level as the classroom, forming a platform for easy accessibility.

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While staying consistent with the main design philosophy, VMDPE’s design aims to offer an enriched experience for children. For example, they arranged a “kinder art gallery” in a corner to present the

school’s highlights on campus. The team says it’s elements like these that make the children feel respected, and it strengthens the connection between families and the kindergarten. “We want children to

be in a space that encourages curiosity so they are always ready to explore,” says Vinci Chen, VMDPE’s team design director. The spaces are also dominated by splashes of color and plentiful natural light.

DRAWING COURTESY OF VMDPE DESIGN

SITE PLAN PROJECT: IBOBI Super School ARCHITECT: VMDPE Design LOCATION: Shenzhen City Completion: May 2021 Size: 15,350 square feet Construction: Qianlima Constructions Company Metal Fabrication: Shenzhen Shengjing Furniture Company

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Seeing Green How architects César Flores and Mikel Merodio design not just a house—but a home

At the other end of the volume, a concrete bungalow is connected to the bay through the covered terrace, which features a jacuzzi.

This bungalow houses the TV room and an additional

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bedroom with its own bathroom, responding to the need for a more private space for possible visitors.

Like the main bungalow, it opens to the south, connecting the interior with the exterior.

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“Keep it simple” has long been the philosophy of CF Taller de Arquitectura (formerly Taller Paralelo). “As architects we are used to designing nonstop and, in the process, we may complicate things,” says founding architect César Flores.

For the Casa El Pinar residence, designed

by CF Taller de Arquitectura and Merodio Arquitectos, Flores, alongside architect Mikel Merodio, wanted to make sure they followed that creed. “We kept a clear concept and a simple perspective from the beginning, setting the framework for the rest of the project to fl w naturally.”

Surrounded by tall trees, Casa El Pinar is an oasis in the heart of a forest in Valle de Bravo, about two hours west of Mexico City.

The design team set out to create a home that lived in harmony with nature without getting lost or simply blending in. “The biggest challenge was to create a subtle object within a complex topography, where trees and context were the protagonists,” Flores says.

The team faced challenging terrain but managed to respect the location of pre-existing trees—staggering the program to take advantage of the slope and avoid excavating and leveling the terrain as much as possible.

The built footprint was kept to a minimum, allowing the forest itself to be the “wow” factor. Since the project concept was governed by simplicity, Flores says it was only natural to take advantage of the materials found onsite in their design. They used volcanic stone found both on the site and throughout Valle de Bravo.

“We managed not only to create an aesthetic element but also to eloquently generate something more than a house, something that only time can show—a home, ” he says.

Mass timber is another star of the design, as Flores says wood is critical to the future of construction. “It is one of the few renewable materials available,” he says. “We need to raise environmental awareness and acknowledge wood as a versatile material that

can be used on any scale. In Mexico, and in the world, we need to be committed to promoting sustainable timber forests to eradicate clandestine logging; if we regulate its consumption, we can stimulate a cyclical and responsible industry. In addition to this, forests capture and absorb CO2, so they should be considered as an instrument in the battle against climate change.”

FSC-certified, laminated pine was used, and a rainwater harvesting system and wastewater recycling treatment plant were installed to irrigate green areas.

A central courtyard with a glass-enclosed sweetgum tree fills the atrium with natural light and physically separates the two main public areas, yet visual connection remains through the glass, creating a sense of spaciousness. South-facing windows and a central courtyard create a space that is light and cool, maintaining a comfortable temperature.

Inside, the design uses a neutral, calming color palette against a polished concrete floor and fair-faced concrete on certain walls as well as pine wood along with black joints and black glasswork. “Greenery predominates. It can be seen from any point, always accompanied by ocher colors in wood and monochrome in stone, concrete, and steel.

This chromatic harmony fosters a natural and welcoming environment,” Flores says.

The trunks of pine trees frame the forest views from any point in the house. Wherever you look, you see green. Clean lines and sparse materials make the house an understated retreat.

Again, Flores emphasizes how simplicity and nature set the tone throughout the design. “We started from this to find harmony in the materials, particularly with wood and greenery,” he says. “In order to complement them we chose materials with a low contrast to allow the timber and vegetation to maintain their prominence, hence the use of concrete.” g

CF Taller de Arquitectura and Merodio Arquitectos designed the home using mass timber.

FSC-certified, laminated pine was used, and a rainwater harvesting system and wastewater recycling treatment plant were installed to irrigate green areas. The interior was decorated using a neutral color palette against wood and concrete.

CROSS SECTION

PROJECT: Casa El Pinar ARCHITECT: CF Taller de Arquitectura + Merodio Arquitectos LOCATION: Valle de Bravo, Estado de México Completion: 2020 Size: 4,600 square feet Lightning: ILWT Water Collection System: SPL Sistemas Pluviales Water Treatment System: Tecnologías Integrales Medioambientales

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Simple materials and exposed finishes were chosen—mixing concrete, steel, local stone, and structural pine wood.

At right, the south facade is made up of floor-to-ceiling windows and black aluminum frames, guaranteeing natural light and capturing maximum warmth to counteract the cold climate. The constant visual connection with the forest contributes to the tranquil atmosphere.

The roof is made of IPR beams that form a large frame with a slope that responds both to the heavy rains in the area and the desire to capture the sun’s rays. This large

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frame supports a Novidesa high-density expanded polystyrene (EPS) panel system that is light enough for the roof and provides thermal and acoustic insulation inside the house.

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Natural light is a major player in the design of Casa El Pinar. “In addition to providing an infinite spectrum of atmospheres, natural light relates us directly with nature and the outside, thus making it part of the project as a whole,” says César Flores, one of the project’s architects.

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The Tilt House This home’s unique shape creates privacy without sacrificing natural light.

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Facing the challenge of designing a home that resides between streets of varying elevation, the designers chose to give the house two front sides. The pedestrian entrance has a grand stone staircase and vertical wood beams that grow taller in size as you ascend.

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Tilt House and all its elegant angles stand out on a residential block in Gondomar—amunicipality outside the coastal city of Porto, Portugal. Many of the houses surrounding it were built in the 1980s, a time when functionality was often favored over aesthetics in the area.

“During that time engineers had the opportunity to work in architecture, and many of the designs lacked inspiration,” says Daniel Capela Duarte, CEO of Mutant Architecture and lead architect on the Tilt House project.

But this home’s design is both functional and eye-catching. The tilt in its name refers to the sloping rooftop that creates sharp angles and strong geometric shapes.

The contrasting black and white color scheme pops against exposed wood pillars that guide you up a stone staircase to the front door. The house is reminiscent of a modern art installation from afar. Yet the peculiar shape meets the clients’ needs and more by creating privacy while maximizing natural light.

Duarte and his team factored in the sun’s rotation throughout the day when they laid out the design for Tilt House. Bedrooms are on the east side of the home, where the sun rises and where the access road with the least traffic is positioned. The sitting and dining rooms are on the west, where the tilt, and therefore the privacy, is the most dramatic. Duarte says one of the biggest challenges the team faced was working with the six-floor multi-residential building across the street. Tilt House’s owners wanted privacy not only from surrounding homes and traffic but also from neighbors with a higher vantage point.

Tilt House’s interior resembles its exterior, with sleek decor and a neutral color palette. While the house is certainly modern, natural elements in the home make it feel cozy and intimate, too. Duarte and his team highlighted all local materials in their construction. “At this moment in Portugal, people want more sustainability in construction,” Duarte says. “Using what is nearby improves the character of the design.”

The lustrous wood flooring is just one of the sustainable building materials used, as it’s composed of one centimeter cork and three millimeters of wood. Including a layer of cork improves the acoustics in the home and limits the amount of wood used in construction. Portugal is one of the largest producers of cork, which is harvested and replenished at a much faster rate.

Many of the home’s interior spaces feel open, with large glass windows that look out on an outdoor garden and pool area.

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The designers of Tilt House were mindful of the sun’s rotation when they finalized the home’s layout.

The bedroom areas face the east, where the sun rises in the morning to greet you. Sliding glass

doors are the only thing separating the master suite from the pool and patio space.

Like the rest of the home, the area uses a blending of both stone and wood materials with strong geometric shapes.

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The design utilizes all modern and energyefficient appliances, including car charging ports for electric vehicles. This is a growing trend in construction, as Portugal has seen some of the highest electric vehicle sales in Europe.

Lustrous flooring made largely of cork creates a cozy feeling. The cork is not only a more sustainable option; it is a natural sound insulator.

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The tilt in this house’s name refers to the sloping rooftop that creates sharp angles and strong geometric shapes.

The contrasting black and white color scheme pops against exposed wood pillars that guide you up a stone staircase to the front door. The peculiar shape gives the project a museum feel while creating privacy and maximizing natural light.

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PROJECT: Tilt House ARCHITECT: Mutant Architecture & Design LOCATION: Gondomar, Portugal Completion: Summer 2020 Size: 4,306 square feet Engineer: Massa Cinza Contractor: Inovag Interior Designer: Mutant Architecture & Design Landscape Architect: Mutant Architecture & Design Water Features Consultant: Massa Cinza Windows: Cortizo Cor Vision

The outdoor space itself is strategically positioned to be away from traffic and neighbors. From the dinner table, the view of the lush, private yard creates an intimate, secluded feeling. Inside the master suite you’ll find a large sliding glass door that leads you from bed to patio if you want to lounge by the pool. All of the glass windows and doors in the home are double glazed to improve energy efficiencywithout sacrifi ing the natural lighting.

Modern technology has allowed these homeowners to live comfortably without an exuberant carbon footprint. When the sun goes down, LED lighting keeps rooms bright, and high-density thermal insulation in the walls keeps the home warm. The owners can even charge multiple electric vehicles at home at once.

Outside the home is a borehole—a deep and narrow well that taps into large amounts of water in the ground. It’s the main source of water for Tilt House and keeps the outdoor garden area verdant during dryer months. By sustainably utilizing this natural water source, the homeowners rely less on the national water supply. g

Tilt House also features sustainable features like high-density thermal insulation in the walls to keep the owners warm. They can charge multiple electric vehicles from home at once, too.

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS MATTER PAGE 78

CLEAN DESIGN PAGE 84

The Way We Work From what motivates people to go into work to ensuring clean, healthy spaces, architects and designers are rethinking the modern office.

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Two Places

How the hybrid office helps people stay connected to nature and each other

RENDERINGS COURTESY OF HGA

By Mike Thomas

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OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS a global shift to remote work has emptied out offices around the world. In the process workers have grown accustomed to the comforts and familiarity of home. And while many companies are increasingly requiring employees to be onsite at least part of the time, not everyone is enthusiastic about returning. As one recent headline summed up the situation, “Going Back to the Office: It Has to Be orth It.” Companies know that. In response, more of them are designing communal spaces that enhance employee connection and collaboration. Technically they’re offices, yes, but they’re nothing like the cubicle-filled holding tanks of old. Ideally they’re places people want to go rather than have to go.

But creating more alluring environments—and they very much are environments—involves a lot more than simply rearranging the ergonomic furniture. That’s where hybrid office specialists like the design, architecture, engineering, and urban planning powerhouse HOK comes in.

“Workers are being asked to break their routine and go back to something that is unknown and unstable, and that is something most people aren’t comfortable with,” says Kay Sargent, director of HOK’s global workplace practice.

“Right now, in addition to a variety of work styles, we’re experiencing a wide spectrum of comfort and sensitivity. Everybody has a heightened sensitivity to their surroundings. Some are comfortable coming back together at the office; some aren’t ” The key, Sargent adds, is to create “enticing experiences” that make the office a meaningful destination. Employees can do focused, inspiring work with the right design model in place—and that includes making sure they feel safe, whether that’s because they’re protected behind beautiful glass walls or working productively and happily outside in nature.

Enticing experiences, Sargent says, includes a full spectrum of design considerations. “That means the arrival experience, the food and beverage experience, how you’re being treated within the space, the atmosphere, the mood, the vibe, the branding,” she says. “And also how easy it is to navigate the space. We need to consider all of those different factors in creating great workplaces going forward.”

There are even “lifestyle studios” where people can play with their pets, paint, do yoga, cook—anything they’d do at home during or after the workday. That way, nothing is left behind.

But even the most beautifully designed offices are falling short when it comes to taking that sort of ultra-holistic approach, Sargent says. Because workers have been away for many months, “there isn’t a lot of energy or buzz, so offices are very sterile, they’re very cold, they’re under-populated, and they just don’t feel right.”

HOK is working to remedy that. One of its most recent designs, the Stanford Center for Academic Medicine in Northern California, seen at right, successfully marries form and function in a state-of-theart space that’s welcoming, energizing, practical, and sustainable.

Seamlessly connected to its natural surroundings, the striking structure includes a west office wing that’s lifted above the ground to form a large, two-story porch below. That porch links the property’s Fredrick Law Olmsted-designed arboretum to Stanford Medicine’s hospitals and school.

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The HOKdesigned Stanford Center for Academic Medicine in Northern California includes a west office wing that’s lifted above the ground to form a

large porch below.

The building massing serves as a threshold between the Stanford Medicine academic and clinical campus in Palo Alto and the

adjacent Frederick Law Olmsteddesigned arboretum.

Three narrow, interconnected office wings rise above a landscaped courtyard planted with native species.

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“You don’t find a lot of white boxes in nature,” Sargent says.

“We like organic spaces, we want to feel that connection, which has repeatedly been shown to help people feel healthier and more engaged, or to enhance creativity and set a positive mood. It’s water elements, it’s natural sounds, it’s natural materials, it’s organic shapes, it’s fractals. All of those things we find in nature create much richer experiences. We really need to start thinking about how we can better incorporate them to create more thriving workspaces.”

From productivity-enhancing laptop tools to bigger teleconferencing screens to more robust wireless networks, technology also plays a central role. But it should complement the environment so as to foster connection rather than encourage isolation. More than anything else, in fact, connection—to nature and to each other—is the ultimate goal.

“We’re social creatures. We thrive off being around other people. I can’t really invite clients or co-workers to my house, so it’s important to have a place where we can gather and connect.”

Amenities and services should serve the same purpose. Offering a variety of work settings, for instance, encourages movement and

OTHER NOTABLE ATTRIBUTES INCLUDE • 20% of the built program repurposed

outdoors through balconies, patios, and landscapes.

“microclimates” that enable • Fine-tuned comfortable outdoor environments year-round to reduce building size.

narrow, interconnected office • Three wings that rise above a central landscaped courtyard, forming a U-shaped building that provides views to nature from all vantage points.

narrow internal wings • Intentionally with workspaces that are no more than 30 feet from a window for uniform natural light exposure.

access through an open-air • Public breezeway, and connection to the arboretum’s trails.

access from the office wings • Outdoor via walkways overlooking the courtyard, and bridges that traverse the courtyard edges. outdoor spaces for working, • Multiple socializing, and relaxing amid trees, landscaping, and public art.

building design, including • Aa sustainable curtain wall that minimizes glare

while optimizing indoor thermal comfort and daylight.

design inspired by the oak • Biophilic tree, whose foliage blocks direct

sun while allowing filtered light and breezes to pass through.

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At left, Shiseido’s New York City headquarters incorporates multiple terraces, which show how access to the outdoors can be incorporated in dense urban centers and highrise buildings. At right, this project for Patelco illustrates how access to outdoor environments in which people can work and socialize has become increasingly important.

These informal spaces encourage interaction, help build relationships and provide important access to fresh air and daylight.

staves off the stagnancy that comes from sitting in one place all day. Easy access to tech specialists reduces computer and network issues that can interfere with workflo . In general, Sargent says, it’s all about helping people to better integrate with their company’s culture and brand by offering them things they can’t get at home. Because if you have everything you need at home, “You don’t ever need to leave it,” she says.

One thing HOK learned during the pandemic is that clients who had already embraced a “free-choice” environment fared much better than those who hadn’t. Not only did it become difficul to create any kind of meaningful social distancing in spaces that were essentially cubicle farms, but there were far fewer options for how and where to work. Right now, Sargent says, most of the fi m’s clients “are looking to create environments that enable personal choice and options.” Besides there being “a wide spectrum of comfort and sensitivity” to consider, she says there’s a tremendously empowered workforce that’s more focused on what’s right for individuals over companies.

“The C-suite doesn’t want to be unsympathetic; they want to show empathy. But it’s also about balancing the needs of the business. In order to innovate, many of them really need to have people back in those places.”

With the help of HOK, they’re striving to make that transition pleasant rather than painful. g

PHOTO, ABOVE: ERIC L AIGNEL. RIGHT: DAVID WAKELY PHOTOGR APHY

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How sliding glass doors and wood panels make a difference in today’s changing workplace design

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A DA PTA B L E . S U STA I N A B L E . D U R A B L E . B E AU T I F U L .

KLEIN’s revolutionary sliding glass, wood door, and partition systems embody all of those things. It’s one of many reasons why the company is still going strong after nearly 90 years.

Founded in Barcelona and headquartered in New Jersey, KLEIN guides customers through the life of a project from design to execution.

When it comes to enhancing spaces with exciting designs and high-quality materials, KLEIN is in a class by itself. With an ever-expanding product line that’s designed by architects for architects and backed by rigorous R&D, the company is widely respected by countless clients in the commercial, residential, health care, and hospitality industries.

“We have a lot of architects who work daily with other architects and interior designers,” says KLEIN Managing Director for the Americas Lluís Ferrer. “Whether we do the design or the client approaches us with something in mind, we first ask them how they’re going to use their space—how they imagine themselves living in it.

That way we can give them the best system for their specific and unique needs. And we can customize almost all of our products to suit any space.”

A Gallup.com article published last spring, “Going Back to Work in the Office: It Has to Be Worth It,” included some pointers for business leaders who want their employees back in the office on a full- or part-time basis. Before that happens, the story noted, several questions need to be addressed. Among them: “What is our workplace value proposition?” In other words, “How do we get people to want to work onsite? What does our workplace offer that enhances the employee experience?”

Those questions are key to KLEIN’s current work. In creating interiors that reimagine today’s workspaces, KLEIN’s goal is to offer people more than what they previously had at the office or currently have at home. Something that’s both functional and inviting.

“Just imagine you’re going to the office again and suddenly you’re in this huge space. It might be an amazing space, but you don’t have this domestic scale you’ve become used to during the pandemic,” Ferrer says. “We’re able to bring this domestic scale into retail, hospitality, and office areas just by moving, opening, and closing our panels. That way people can work the way they want—collectively or individually—in a place that’s both safe and flexible ” A great example of KLEIN’s cutting-edge form and function in action is a recent renovation of the Sunstone Hotel headquarters in Irvine, California. Working alongside architects from Gensler, KLEIN designed the space to achieve a large open work space, with extensive intra- and inter-departmental visual communication, without barriers between the different levels of function and assignment.

In order to accomplish those things and maintain the desired open aesthetic, they installed KLEIN’s Rollglass+ with a black matte finish The result is a space that’s both beautiful and practical.

SLID is a sliding door system design for wooden and metal doors. Using this modern system, you can easily divide rooms in high-end residential, commercial, and hospitality projects. SLID utilizes bi-parting or bi-passing wooden and metal doors to optimize clearance while utilizing a minimalist design.

FLEXIBLE DESIGN KLEIN’s contemporary mobile and sliding glass or wood designs are all made with this phrase in mind: long life, loose fit. That means being highly adaptable to ensure maximum functionality and longevity as spaces evolve to serve different needs.

“If you’re working for an established company or corporation, it’s very likely that you spend the majority of the week at an office ” KLEIN notes in a recent blog post. “In the process of sending emails, attending weekly meetings, and racing to meet deadlines, have you ever stopped to think about how your environment is influencing your work and productivity?

“In a well-designed space, we don’t really notice the subtle details that make us feel good. We just know that the environment makes us feel happy, and that we are motivated to do our work. A workplace that is not well designed might elicit the opposite feeling. At KLEIN we have learned to pay extra attention to how our products ISSUE 66

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influence and function in the workplace, because we know how interior design affects our workplace interactions.”

Their product NATURE, made with oak wood to give a feeling of warmth, provides additional well-being to workers. Say an offic wants to host a large networking event or enhance inter/intra-departmental communication. Simply roll open KLEIN’s telescopic Extendo line of sliding glass doors, and in seconds there’s plenty of room to roam, connect, and collaborate. On the other hand, if the goal is to section off smaller areas for private meetings, video conferencing, or individual work that requires more concentration, Rollglass+ has it covered. Interior wood partitions and movable walls have the same effect.

SUSTAINABILITY There’s a strong sustainability component as well. NATURE is Cradle to Cradle–certified and, in the cases of Extendo and Rollglass+, nothing blocks the flow of natural light. That means lower energy costs and a constant feeling of openness—even in enclosed areas.

As for the wood panels and partitions, there are no materials more sustainable than those made from nature. At KLEIN, environmental impact and human wellness are central to everything they do. “As an architect, you’re designing spaces that will have a huge impact on society,” Ferrer says. “Architects who want to work with us can be assured they’re getting a product that was designed with the future in mind.”

Klein is actively committed to protecting the environment; that’s why they also have a policy of constantly reducing their impact by improving production processes (ISO 14001) and designing products that have a positive effect on people and the planet.

At PMMT Forward Thinking Healthcare Architecture in Barcelona, transparent and wood-framed glass panels and glass and wood sliding doors were installed to facilitate maximum efficiency, communication, and more.

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CASE STUDY Perhaps the most ambitious and impressive project of KLEIN’s is the recently completed headquarters of PMMT Forward Thinking Healthcare Architecture in Barcelona. KLEIN’s transparent and woodframed glass panels, glass and wood sliding doors, and other inventive features were installed throughout the space to facilitate maximum efficiency and communication, optimum circulation, and mixed spatial organization flows.

“The biggest challenge was figuring out how to adapt the space to our business model, which is centered around encouraging collective intelligence and innovation processes, and how to make sure the office truly reflected our values,” says Patricio Martinez, CEO of PMMT. “The sliding tracks allow us to play with a large work area, shared by the whole team, and a set of defined-use spaces that support team members’ different needs, depending on the circumstances.”

The firm’s 5,500-square-foot floo , designed to ensure everyone has full access to every room and feature, includes a non-hierarchical transversal space for team gathering, adjacent smaller rooms that are more private, and a brainstorming room. The brainstorming room has large sliding whiteboards that stack up on one wall and allow team members to express their thoughts visually while conserving space. Another large sliding panel, perpendicular to the whiteboards, acts as an entrance/exit and can also be written on if more surface area is required.

“At KLEIN, we’re proud of providing an excellent client experience over the past 90 years,” Ferrer says. “That includes creating PHOTOS BY TK TK

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First Impressions Matter What it means to design for hygiene in today’s buildings.

By Mike Thomas

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IMAGINE THIS: YOU MEET WITH A PROSPECTIVE CLIENT AND REALLY HIT IT OFF, talking about all the ways your future partnership will benefit their compa y. But after they take a break to use the restroom, they return less enthusiastic than before. At first, you can’t figure out y. Then it hits you: the restroom. It’s hygienically questionable (at best), poorly lit, and stylistically outdated. But you never thought it mattered that much.

On the contrary, it matters a lot. First impressions are crucial.

That goes for places and people alike. “Bathrooms​​are a reflection on the brand and the entire space,” says Christine Vandover, a senior project interior designer at HOK. “So you want them to feel comfortable, not cold and institutional.”

When HOK is brought in to design new restrooms or give old ones a major facelift, they work with all of this in mind. There’s always a blend of form and function—the former sometimes getting extra attention depending on which client-side person spearheads the project. One CEO, Vandover recalls, personally hosted separate planning meetings on restroom design to review all toilet accessory styles and materials. He also wanted to make sure the stalls were full height, felt private, and the restrooms looked first-class to match the design level of the rest of the space. Other company leaders, Vandover says, have taken a personal interest as well.

That’s how crucial restrooms are.

At White & Case, HOK made high-end toilet partitions from quarter-sliced European oak veneer with an easy-to-clean matte finish. The partitions feature rust-proof Rockwood brushed stainless steel door pulls that stand up to sanitizing.

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TILES & GROUTING Then, of course, there’s the ongoing global pandemic. More than two years into it, cleanliness—perceived and actual—has never been more important. It’s the main reason why, for instance, HOK uses darker-colored grouting that doesn’t show dirt as easily. And since larger tiles require less grouting, Vandover explains, they’re very popular right now for both walls and floors. The largest tiles can measure eight or nine feet high by three or four feet wide.

DURABILITY & MATERIALS Like its wall counterpart, floor tiling must also be anti-slip and able to withstand years of abuse from user traffic and—this is key—repeated deep cleaning. Counters, too, are made from durable and germ-repelling non-porous materials (engineered stone, for instance) that hold up well under frequent scrubbing and near-constant wetness from sink splashing.

HANDS-FREE On the subject of sinks, hands-free faucets are becoming the standard. So are soap and paper towel dispensers. Another hands-free paper towel dispenser typically is installed near the exit, along with a trash receptacle, so people aren’t forced to grip the door handle with just-washed hands (or stretched-out sleeves).

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THOUGHTFUL DESIGN Toilets also are hands-free and, especially in higher-end restrooms, located in stalls with partitions that extend all the way to the floo .

Vandover says some clients (like the aforementioned CEO) have requested elegant stall walls rather than metal doors for a more luxurious feel. And the stalls are always equipped with at least one hook so occupants never have to set personal belongings on the floo . (No matter how clean a restroom is, the floor inside a stall is never pristine.) Foot pedal-operated entrance and exit doors are growing more common, too.

WHY IT MATTERS Despite the hygiene-centric functionality of these spaces, Vandover says, they’re almost always designed with human psychology in mind. That extends beyond germs to what she describes as “a hospitality experience.”

In addition to quality materials and smart design, creating a hospitality experience requires well-positioned lighting with a color temperature of between 3000- and 3500w. You don’t want a clean restroom to appear dirty. It’s also important for occupants to look their best. Because if you look good, the saying goes, you’ll feel good. “You want the light to face you, so you have fewer shadows on your face,” Vandover says. “You look healthier, and it makes you feel better when you see yourself. In corporate offices people are often getting ready for a presentation or a meeting. If the lighting is bad, they leave feeling less confident ”

At right, HOK designed the bathroom at LaGuardia terminal B. Above, the White & Case bathroom also has storage lockers made from germ-repellant Hollman Model Z back-painted white glass.

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CASE STUDIES A couple of HOK’s recent projects include restroom redesigns for New York City-based White & Case law firm as well as the Trammell Crow Center in Dallas.

At White & Case, HOK fashioned high-end toilet partitions from quarter-sliced European oak veneer with an easy-to-clean matte finish. In addition to custom millwork, the partitions feature Rockwood brushed stainless steel door pulls that are both rust-proof and stand up to repeated sanitizing. Flooring is Stone Source Merida Fog porcelain tile that can endure endless mopping, and storage lockers are made from germ-repellent Hollman Model Z back-painted white glass. Even the narrow bench in front of them is topped with bacteria-resistant non-porous Dupont Corian in Glacier White.

Other hygiene-friendly materials include Tydix-brushed stainless door pulls on the lockers, Daltile Unity porcelain floor tile in unpolished ash gray, and laminated glass entry/exit doors with a frosted interlayer that’s non-corrosive and mold-free.

For the post-modern Trammell Crow Center’s renovation and expansion, HOK incorporated materials from a previous design and gave the hygiene-focused space a more boutique feel using wood and wood tones, plus full compartment toilets and shower facilities.

Though they’re designed differently, the spaces have two things in common: cleanliness and comfort. “Restrooms are one of the main places where people want to feel safe,” Vandover says. “How you care for your bathrooms conveys how you care for your company, your people, and your brand.” g WINTER 2020

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Clean Design

An architect’s guide to designing a happy, healthy bathroom

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By Mike Thomas

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ASI offers an integrated privacy system for stainless steel or powder-coated metal partitions that eliminate the need for retrofitted components.

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WHEN PEOPLE TAKE CAR TRIPS, they often plan stops around rest plazas, which have the cleanest restrooms. When commercial buildings rent out space, floors that h ve the nicest restrooms often rent first and for a higher price.

In other words, restrooms (or washrooms) matter—a lot. That’s certainly true at businesses of all kinds, whether office buildings, schools, hospitals, or restaurants, among others. Messy and unhygienic washrooms reflect poorly on management and owners. If so little care is given to the product selection and design of these highly trafficked places, how must they treat their customers and employees? Safety and comfort in the restroom reflect well on everything else that surrounds it—and conversely could detract from it.

“Restroom square footage itself may not generate revenue, but it surely accentuates the experience of the building, which in turn enhances revenue generation,” says Cyrus Boatwalla, head of global marketing and operations for ASI Group, the world’s leading manufacturer of commercial toilet partitions, washroom accessories, lockers, and visual display products. “I think people are recognizing that, but we’re also trying to educate them about why it’s important. Perception is a funny thing. If you walk into a five-star restaurant and the bathrooms aren’t up to par, studies have shown that people don’t return to those restaurants. They also talk about them negatively to family and friends.”

There are a few keys to making these important but often under-considered spaces inviting: Aesthetics, hygiene, and layout as well as product type and material selection —which are often closely interrelated. But it’s never a one-size-fits-all solution, Boatwalla says. Everything from fixtures to flooring must be determined on a case-by-case basis. What worked the last time or the time before that won’t necessarily work again, particularly if the spaces are vastly different in terms of who uses them and how.

“This is a space where you spend a lot of private moments,” he says. “Paying thoughtful attention to the design of the restrooms shows patrons we care about them enough to make this place comfortable, safe, hygienic, even aesthetically pleasing—all the things you would want out of your own living room.’”

Regarding private moments, Boatwalla notes that privacy is more important than ever. “It’s not optional anymore; it’s standard.” Well aware of this societal shift, ASI offers an integrated privacy system for stainless steel or powder-coated metal partitions that eliminate the need for retrofitted components. That saves clients time and money. Here’s how it works: The integrated privacy components—built into the door during manufacturing—overlap the pilaster on the hinge and latch sides and allow the door to close flush with the pilaster, making sure all sightlines into the stall are blocked.

As for key accessories like soap dispensers, touchless technology remains extremely popular. Some ASI models multitask—delivering both soap and waterless hand sanitizer. These dispensers are not limited by propriety consumables or brands and are therefore less vulnerable to supply chain disruptions, which have proven to be disastrous during the pandemic. That has an impact on both user experience and hygiene—not to mention profits from saving money on supplier contracts that may include more expensive consumables than what one would find in the open market.

Touchless paper towel dispensers (both recessed and surface-mounted) in every capacity and non-propriety paper config ration, from ASI’s different collections like Profile™, Simplicity™, Piatto™, or ROVAL™ model, are other favorites.

For the more ecologically minded, ASI offers an elegant and ultra-hygienic way to dry hands sans paper. The high-speed and ADA-compliant Turbo-Pro™ Automatic Hand Dryer features a HEPA filter that purifies the air before it dries. Housed in a separate

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ASI’s Velare collection is a behind the mirror system designed to conceal clutter. The stainless steel cabinet houses a hands-free automatic soap dispenser and your choice of a paper towel dispenser or high-speed hand dryer, with a HEPA filter.

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chamber, the filter is easily removable and replaceable. Additionally, both air temperature and speed can be customized by the owner for optimal functionality and energy efficienc . Or maybe a hybrid model is better. Enter ASI’s Piatto 3-in-1 towel dispenser, dryer, and waste receptacle. (By the way, ASI has lots of waste receptacles to suit every need, from giant stadium bathrooms to small private ones.)

Increasingly, Boatwalla says, countertops are clear of dispensers or clutter of any kind; everything is hidden in mirrored cabinets and other sleek storage areas. That means less mess—and fewer germs—to clean. Clients are also opting for brighter colors on the walls, stalls, and doors to create a more inviting atmosphere. Bye bye, beige.

Besides what they contain, well-designed restrooms consider who they were built for and why while optimizing flow—or how occupants move around in the space. People should be able to dry their hands very close to where they washed them, for example, rather than walking several feet away and creating a potential slipping hazard by dripping water onto the floo . Likewise, lockers—available in a multitude of colors, styles, and materials from ASI Storage Solutions—should be close to showers. And if you’re going to install a paper towel dispenser near the door for more sanitary handle-grabbing purposes, make sure there’s a receptacle nearby to catch the refuse.

In the future, Boatwalla says, smartly designed restrooms may get even smarter—literally—by being connected to the Internet as many manufacturing plants are now. That way businesses will be able to more efficiently pinpoint resupply needs (in part by eliminating time-consuming manual checks) and more quickly

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ASI’s stainless steel metal partitions are manufactured with Integrated Privacy™ and complement any design scheme. By adding a textured finish, increased resistance to vandalism can be achieved.

Available in all four mounting styles with stainless steel hardware.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ASI

respond to problems that arise by merely looking at a screen. But that’s down the road. Right now it’s about intelligent design, architecturally speaking.

“People often don’t understand how they’d benefit from better restrooms,” Boatwalla says. “And frankly, more often than not, it doesn’t have to cost more. It just has to be thought through. Architects are especially busy today, and so they may use a specificatio that worked the last time or the time before. But buildings today are completely different than 20 or 30 years ago. You must use a fresh set of eyes, throw away your old specs, and start anew.”

ASI’s deep and varied product line provides what amounts to a huge palette for design creativity. As Boatwalla and any of the company’s experts would tell you, it’s just a matter of re-imagining how this often overlooked space can be a great asset rather than a major liability. That starts with knowing what works best for each individual client.

The common thread is vibe—how a restroom feels. No matter how they’re designed or where they’re located, restrooms should be oases of sorts—even, as the name connotes, restful. Because happier employees and more content customers translate to a healthier business and, ultimately, to a better bottom line. g

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WHAT THE WORLD CAN LEARN FROM OSLO’S APPROACH TO SUSTAINABLE TECH STARTUPS

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N E W N O R W A Y

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BY LAURA ROTE

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BY TKOF TK MESH

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COWORKING SPACES, STARTUP ACCELERATORS, MAKER SPACES— today’s offices are more collaborative and creative than perhaps ever before. Once known by many for its oil and fishing industries, Norway is reinventing itself with innovation and a bustling startup culture. The excitement was clear on a recent quick tour of the Mesh Community coworking space in the heart of Oslo.

“The big shift now is that international investors are really looking at Nordic startups,” says Håkon Kalbakk, cofounder of Modulize (pg. 11), a building solution for offsite construction that started in November 2020. “The technology is great, and valuations are much lower than in the US, Israel, and even a lot of Europe like Berlin, London, Stockholm. It’s radically different than fiv years ago. There’s much more money, and investors are looking for great teams.”

Kalbakk calls himself a serial entrepreneur, having started his first company after business school in 2007. Modulize, based out of the Mesh space, is his fourth tech startup based in Norway with a global focus.

The city of roughly 700,000 has a lively startup ecosystem, with more than 50 startup accelerators, incubators, and clusters, according to the Oslo Business Region. In 2019 you could find 2,200 startups in Oslo—50% more than 10 years ago. “In 2022 there are even more startups,” says Siw Andersen, CEO of Oslo Business Region. “Oslo has been the underdog of European startup cities for a while now, but we see a rapid shift in the volume of successful startups coming from Oslo. In 2021 the investments going into startups increased by 260% from the year before.”

Oslo now has six Unicorns—Kahoot! (an edtech platform widely used in the US), Gelato, Oda, Duune Analytics, Cognite, and Autostore, all of which came about in the last three years, Andersen says. Unicorn is the term used in the venture capital industry to describe a startup company with a value of more than $1 billion.

Andersen says Oslo is a great place for startups because a lot of founders, investors, and incubators focus on impact. “Solving global challenges is the main business model for most of our startups and the support system around them. We know we need to move much faster if Oslo is going to be emission-free by 2030 as declared in the municipality’s Climate Budget and Norway’s green transit. Here startups will play an important role.” She says most investors are seeing that impact is the only way ahead, and many available funds in Norway are only available if the business supports clean, green initiatives.

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The design and architecture sectors are strong in Oslo, and there’s a genuine interest in a sustainable and circular economy.

To meet the city’s emission-free goal, Andersen says construction companies have had to develop new solutions and products like all-electric excavators, all-electric mixer drums for concrete mixer trucks, and more. “By using its buying power, Oslo can escalate the green transition, and these products can then again be exported to accelerate a global change,” she says.

STARTING SMALL Lucas Carstens, cofounder and CEO of Modulize, lived in London before making the move to Oslo to work. “Part of what’s great about Oslo is that it’s not that big,” he says. “You get a really nice balance. There is some culture, there are nice restaurants, there is a scene for whatever scene you want to have, but you don’t spend one-and-a-half hours commuting each way.”

Carstens says the city’s size makes it much easier to network as well as get access to relevant people—rather than being fiv steps removed from who you actually want to talk to. “I feel like Norway has turned into this test bed for a few application areas,

PHOTO COURTESY OF OSLO BUSINESS REGION

“Oslo has been the underdog of European startup cities for a while now, but we see a rapid shift in the volume of successful startups coming from Oslo.”

Oslo Business Region celebrates sustainable startups as part of Oslo Innovation Week (OIW).

In 2021, Modulize took home ​​the event’s 100 Pitches competition, defeating more than 200 other companies from more than 40 countries.

This year’s annual event takes place September 26 to 29. “Sustainability has been a core value of OIW since 2018. All the events need to address at least one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals,” says Siw Andersen, CEO of Oslo Business Region.

and construction is one of them. EVs is another,” he says. “Maybe there’s a little bit more open data, there’s a little bit more collaboration, a little bit more willingness to try a few things.”

The country’s size allowed Modulize to quickly gain coverage to reach Norwegian manufacturers, and many already use their solution today. “If you want to know somebody in Norway we probably know them, whereas in the US that’s probably really different,” Carstens says. “That’s another potential benefit—we pick a small market, and we figure it out. Rather than trying to do everything all at once and have millions of potential customers and users, where you will always be this tiny fish in a big pond.

Maybe in Norway we can be a medium size fish in a smaller pond more quickl .”

What could be viewed by some as a disadvantage—not having a large client base of a particular type—can also be an advantage, according to Renate Straume, CEO and founder of Varig (pg. 13), a sustainability software company for commercial real estate that started three years ago. Varig also works out of the Mesh coworking space. “In the US you could build a product just for office buildings larger than 40 square meISSUE 66

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ters. You really don’t have that in Norway,” she says. “Your client base, even though you can be fairly specific, is going to be fairly diverse. That means that when we have something that works, something that’s ready to scale, it’s a very mature product compared to a lot of other marketplaces where you just don’t get to that place without having a fully fl dged product that a lot of stakeholders and types of clients have tested and found worth paying for.”

Andersen says testing a product or service in a smaller place fi st can certainly be an advantage for some startups, but it’s not the only advantage. “In health care we have very good testing facilities because of the good public-private collaboration—between companies, hospitals, and R&D—and because the Norwegian health care system is very much digitally advanced. In other areas like mobility, Norway has long been a leader in electric mobility. Half of the cars sold in Norway are electric. My point is that mobility startups can test their solutions easily in Norway not only because of regulations but also because of our closeness to wild nature. If your product works under Norwegian conditions in the Norwegian weather, it will work anywhere.”

COLLABORATION IS KEY Sharing knowledge and experience is part of the coworking experience, too. “Even if we’re competitors we try to make each other good because everyone wins if we move forward,” Straume says. She says having the shared space has also been convenient for bumping into like-minded people and continuing to network.

Carstens agrees. “They do have events here (at Mesh, seen at left), and then for us it’s first and foremost the ability to recruit and retain talented people. When you’re a small company, you can’t provide cool office space and a nice restaurant with an Italian chef.”

Kalbakk says Mesh’s central location also helps, as it’s easy for talented young people to reach. “That’s the first priority, and the second priority is networking,” he says.

Straume says that’s part of the reason why Varig decided not to have their own offi e.

Instead they share space with another startup that has some of the same owners as Varig.

Both Varig and Modulize, like many other startups they know, are actively recruiting globally. Modulize now has employees from across 10 nationalities. “We convince them to move to Oslo from India, from Brazil,” Carstens says.

MORE BENEFITS Straume says she thinks Norway’s startup culture is also thriving because of its digital

Norway’s small size, robust digital infrastructure, plentiful data, and enthusiasm makes it a great place for new business, says Renate Straume, CEO and founder of Varig.

“Everyone is slightly hungry.

Everyone is raising the bar.”

infrastructure and access to data. For example, they have things like Elhub, a central IT system that supports and streamlines market processes like electricity sales. “All the electricity data from every electric meter in the entire country is collected in one central hub you can build an API to and, as long as the person who owns the electricity meter says, ‘Yes, this company can have access to my data,’ you can have access to any electricity meter in any building in Norway,” Straume says. “It digitizes and streamlines things in a very predictable way. You end up with good systems that aren’t going away.”

Of course, Norway’s welfare system is another benefit. “Norwegians can take a risk of starting a company and still have a system that will catch them if they fail,” Andersen says. The country’s stable economy, highly educated population, and innovative business culture also make it a great place for startups, she says.

So what does the future hold? Andersen hopes it will include looking at urban development, architecture, design, and construction more holistically. “One of the topics at this year’s Oslo Architecture Triennale (September 21 to 25, 2022) is neighborhoods, which describes an important part of the future of buildings that has really not been addressed. What about the spaces between all the buildings? And who takes responsibility for facilitating the zones in between?” g ISSUE 66

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Designing flexible environments for patients

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THE RIGHT COLORS, COMFORTABLE LIGHTING, AND ACCESS TO THE OUTDOORS are some of the ways the design team at Cedars-Sinai makes patients feel at home in their designs.

“We want our patients to feel comfortable and confident when they walk into a Cedars-Sinai facility, knowing they’re going to receive the highest and most advanced level of care,” says Zeke Triana, vice president of facilities and design at Cedars-Sinai.

Triana worked as an architect specializing in health care design for many years before joining Cedars-Sinai nearly 15 years ago.

PART OF THE COMMUNITY Triana says the design team puts patients at the center of everything, and they want their locations to feel true to the neighborhoods they’re in. A new urgent care facility in the Los Feliz/Silver Lake area—a lively retail area—is one example, he says. “Cedars-Sinai wanted to be part of that neighborhood and to feel like they truly belonged there,” he says.

As such, the new building’s architecture makes reference to some of the area’s known monuments—like the Griffith Observatory and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House. “We created our own block pattern inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright and the Hollyhock House, and we used some of the colors from the Hollyhock House to color this block. It’s sort of a greenish-blue color, something Frank Lloyd Wright never did, but we combined color and the textile block pattern to create the base of this urgent care.”

The new center also has a mural from a local artist inspired by the indigenous people who lived there and the local flo er marts. “Cedars-Sinai envisioned a building that is grounded in the neighborhood,” Triana says. “You could never duplicate that building elsewhere in the community. It’s rooted in the Los Feliz/Silver Lake area and inspired by some of the beautiful architecture.”

Triana says the hospital’s designs celebrate the region’s diversity, as each facility is designed to belong. “When you walk in, you feel the total environment has been curated for you, and the details really matter,” he says. “From how you access the campus to how you park to how you get to your destination to the artwork, landscaping, lighting—everything has been curated so you get that total experience. That really does create, we believe, an environment where healing can take place.”

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Adult waiting rooms are infused with soothing lighting and seats safely distanced from each other.

PATIENT-CENTRIC DESIGN In all of its designs, Cedars-Sinai strives to think about the patient.

At the new urgent care center, high ceilings and plentiful windows provide a feeling of openness with views of the observatory.

Cedars-Sinai is also building a new hospital at Marina del Rey to replace an existing hospital there. The new design was inspired by the colors and landscape of the coast. The exterior’s windows appear in different colors, so when the sun hits the glass, the building exterior almost appears as waves or a beautiful sunset. “It’s that local context that we felt was important. It makes it of the neighborhood,” Triana says. “That level of what I’ll call design sophistication is what we are after—where people then begin to feel proud of their health center in their community. It’s not cookie-cutter.”

Using local colors, inspiration, and even materials also helps to ground the project in the neighborhood while reflecting the hospital’s values. “It’s timeless, it’s diverse, it’s advanced and sophisticated. That’s the total environment we’re trying to portray.

We hope that makes people at ease, makes them a little bit more comfortable, and reduces anxiety,” Triana says.

TESTING PATIENT DESIGN For the new Marina del Rey hospital, architects had the rare opportunity to build a hospital from scratch and get feedback with mock patient rooms. That feedback ranged from layout—staff stood inside an ER exam room and asked architects to rotate the bed and

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head wall 90 degrees so they could directly face the patient’s head from the doorway—to where electrical outlets were placed. “We have a patient advisory council that provides input on our designs or mockup rooms,” Triana says. “By incorporating that into the design process we have a better outcome.” The council includes everyone from architects to nurses, physicians, and other health professionals.

The design team mocked up several types of exam rooms for the new hospital. Some surprising discussion centered around placement of the toilets—should they go nearer the window side of the room or nearer the hallway? Triana was surprised to learn people wanted the toilet on the exterior wall. That placement provided enough room for a large window while giving patients more access to their clinical team. “They didn’t want to be isolated from the nurses,” he says. “That surprised us because when you have the opportunity to have this fantastic view twice as big in your room we thought they’d choose that, but actually because they’re there for different reasons—it’s not like a hotel—they wanted the balance between the view and visibility to the clinical team.”

It’s that kind of feedback that will ultimately make the hightech rebuild of the current two-story, 50-year-old hospital a success.

The new hospital is scheduled to open in 2026. Triana is grateful for the experience. “If we had not done that we’d build this hospital, and it wouldn’t be what they wanted. It was our philosophy to build it right the first time ” SUSTAINABLE DETAILS Green design is also part of the Cedars-Sinai mission. The new Marina del Rey hospital is being designed to LEED Gold standards, but Triana says they’re also actively working to make their existing buildings more sustainable. “There’s a lot that can be done with existing buildings to improve the environment. Part of our social responsibility is not just looking ahead to new buildings but looking back at what we can do at our existing stock.”

Lighting across Cedars-Sinai–owned facilities has been updated to LED, with many fluorescent lights eliminated. Air conditioning turns off when not in use. They completed a successful water project, filtering underground water to use for industrial purposes like in their energy center cooling towers. The program saves millions of gallons of water and has garnered awards from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. “It’s those opportunities—not just a shiny new object like a new building—but there are more opportunities in these areas we would like to continue to explore,” Triana says. The underground water project also had a three-year payback.

Triana emphasizes that good planning in design doesn’t cost more and can save a lot of money in the long run. Part of Cedar-Sinai’s philosophy is to use what’s available—including natural light.

“How can we utilize exterior windows and natural light and try to bring as much controlled daylight into a space, so you can reduce dependency on artificial lighting, even LEDs? How can you use what’s available to you in a passive way to design your space?”

He uses his own office in LA as an example. When the team had an opportunity to design a new interior space for their department, they chose not to put offices along the perimeter window, where there are 360-degree views from the 20th floo . “We wanted to bring as much daylight as deep into the space as possible, so everybody had access to natural light and these spectacular views,” Triana says. “Designing these open floor plans you see in offic spaces really do create a very pleasant environment. That’s all available to you—and it’s free if you think about it. You just have to design it right.”

They also chose simple materials, letting the beauty of the views

and natural light do the work instead of competing with the area’s natural splendor.

“We introduced some lighter colors into the space and simple artwork. It’s incredible.

We walk people through our space and they think we spent a lot of money, but we didn’t,” he says. “You don’t need marble and stone and elaborate materials anymore in an office setting ” The same conversation happens when designing across their facilities. At Marina del Rey, they were particularly interested in saving energy. They ultimately decided to use chilled beams, essentially running cold water piping instead of forcing cold air to cool the space. “Forcing air through a ceiling requires a higher floor height. When you’re using a chilled beam, it can be a lower floor height, so the overall height of the building is less—so you’re using less materials on the exterior wall and so forth.”

Wayfinding and what Cedars-Sinai calls intuitive access is another part of making health care facilities more patient-centric.

“It goes beyond just signage,” Triana says.

Cedars-Sinai even has an app.

FUTURE HEALTH CARE DESIGN Triana says Cedars-Sinai was the first to provide all private rooms in the 1970s to patients. “Now it’s part of the expectation, and in fact it’s part of safe clinical care.”

He says the group’s decisions look at what most promotes health and recovery, and that’s evolved to include things like diversity of place and sustainability. “Our patients in Los Angeles demand these things of us.”

It’s hard to design a building in LA that’s not sustainable, as the city has committed to all new buildings being net zero carbon

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Innovations from Visa Lighting provide more design possibilities.

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PatientCentric Lighting

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IT’S NO SECRET THAT A LOT OF HEALTH CARE LIGHTING IS DESIGNED FOR FUNCTION MORE THAN AESTHETICS, but some lighting designers are asking—why can’t we do both?

That’s exactly what Milwaukee-based and American-made Visa Lighting is doing. “Visa has been doing heath care lighting for years now, and we entered this market primarily because of our aesthetic quality,” says Laurie Emery, a longtime lighting designer who joined Visa Lighting in 2017. She says architects and interior designers saw a great need for lighting products that were both beautiful and provided the performance needed. “They recognized that Visa Lighting has that experience—providing good performance and aesthetics.”

As the industry moves away from fluorescent and incandescent lights into the LED world, Visa Lighting is pushing the envelope even more with innovative health care lighting design that would feel equally at home in a high-end hotel.

AESTHETICS Let’s start with products like Sole and Gig. Sole is the first lighted mirror designed for behavioral health applications, and Gig is the first task light.

Emery points to behavioral health care settings’ particular need for safe, aesthetically pleasing lighting solutions like these.

While backlit mirrors were very popular in the hospitality world, Visa Lighting asked: How do we put a mirror of that quality into a behavioral health setting where safety is also a concern?

They developed an unbreakable mirror that was recessed into the wall for safety. “We went with a polycarbonate product that could be mirrorized. We made it recessed in the wall so it could be completely flush with a framework that could not become a ligature issue,” Emery says. “At the same time we were able to create lighting behind that mirror, which not only added a vanity lighting function but also made it look really elegant.”

Sole launched in 2018 with completely tamper-proof hardware.

“You try to create a product that looks very at home in hospitality—like in a nice, high-end hotel—but at the same time provide all these other elements needed for that environment. Nobody else does that,” Emery says.

Then there’s the minimalist, attractive design of Gig—developed as a task light that patients can even control themselves, adding to their comfort. “They obviously don’t have a lot of control in their environment,” Emery says, but this gives back some control.

“Some of the behavioral health line we developed evolved out of our current product line because there was a need,” she says, adding that designers desperately wanted products that didn’t feel institutional. “The people who work with behavioral patients were really concerned about the environment feeling like a prison, so they came to us because we had aesthetic products that could meet that need.”

Visa lighting continues to focus on ways to apply this comfortable, hospitality-like formula to other areas of hospital, too.

Another example of this is the Symmetry and Serenity multi-function recessed ceiling mounted luminaires that include color-changing, ambient, and nightlight modes. Some of the functions are designed to be controlled remotely from outside the room. The color-changing feature can be controlled by health care professionals to optimize conditions for patient treatment and healing. Emery says they’re aesthetically pleasing, and by including several features in a single product, they are also cost-effective.

The Sole mirror is made using impact-resistant mirrored polycarbonate and tamper-proof hardware. Its attractive aesthetic emulates high-end hospitality designs, providing a warm, relaxing environment for behavioral health facility patients, like those at Willow Eating Recovery Center.

The Sole sources are minimum 90 CRI standard, with an optional amber LED night light.

DETAIL Harmony—a 2x4 overbed light with a unique cove-like curved lens design—is Visa Lighting’s most recent health care debut, launched in March 2022. “Harmony is the culmination of our experimentation and exploration of what value a patient room lighting product could provide,” says Hans Nielsen, senior industrial designer at Visa Lighting.

Nielsen was instrumental to this new design, which came about after many conversations with health care specifiers and professionals. “In an effort to create that soft, welcoming ambience, we looked to indirect lighting and cove lighting for inspiration,” Nielsen says.

Emery says ceiling spaces in hospitals are also prime real estate, and remodels can be even more difficult. “Older hospital construction didn’t have high ceilings, so in some cases you’re fighting with ductwork and electrical cables and the like,” she says.

Visa developed products like Harmony and other overbed products with a thin profile to help reduce that ceiling footprint.

The Harmony 2x4 features multiple light modes for patient comfort and caregiver efficienc , including soft ambient lighting, higher intensity reading illumination, and directional exam lighting. The recessed ceiling fixture distributes light inward from the perimeter of the concave lens.

Nielsen says it’s a challenge to design a true cove light that’s also easily cleaned and functional in a patient room—and working within a grid format is constraining. Visa Lighting got creative. “We started with the experience we wanted to create. We wanted the fixture to feel soft and comfortable but also meet or exceed the technical requirements. That’s how we created Harmony.”

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format, but Visa took a different approach. “We thought it was important to have a bit more of a dynamic quality to the luminous surfaces; that’s where the gradient came from. It was really meant to emulate the indirect lighting from coves without having the drawbacks of a cove fixture ” Emery says cleanability is even more top-of-mind since Covid, and that’s another benefit of Harmony. Its smooth surfaces make it easy to clean, and it can also eliminate the need for maintenance people entering a patient’s room, as you can choose a remote-driver box that can be mounted in a maintenance closet outside the room or in an accessible ceiling space.

WELL-BEING Circadian lighting is another hot topic, as it’s been shown to regulate healthy sleeping patterns and promote sleep quality. “There’s a lot of conversation around circadian lighting,” Emery says. “It is important to be able to provide that technology.”

Visa Lighting is expanding its current product offering to include circadian technology. By surpassing traditional white LEDs in melanopic content, circadian lighting optimizes this natural process without increasing illuminance levels or unnatural color temperature changes.

Nielsen is excited to be part of a team that focuses on so much more than function, especially when he thinks about the way projects like the Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus turned out. “I imagine what those spaces would look like if they had more traditional, institutional-looking fixtures, and it makes my stomach turn,” he says. “Those spaces turned out very welcoming, soft, and comfortable-looking.”

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At right, Lenga is seen at the HSHS St John’s Children’s Hospital NICU, designed by Kahler Slater. Lenga is a tandem-mounted overbed light with multiple light modes for patient comfort. Above, Harmony.

FLEXIBILITY Many of Visa Lighting’s products come in various forms or can be customized. Take Symmetry, for example. The Symmetry family is used across workplace and health care environments for pleasant, soothing ambient lighting or multifunctional overbed lighting. Symmetry includes several models in 23- or 45-inch diameters—all with the same patented concave lens. Like many of their light fixtures, there are also behavioral health options.

Lenga is another overbed product with flexible use. While it was designed prima ily for ICU applications, doctors in general like it because it eliminates a problem they were experiencing with other products—shadows when they leaned over a patient. This slim, overbed luminaire has dual slots made with a coextruded lens to emit exam-level light asymmetrically to center above the patient bed—while reducing glare and shadows. The Lenga family includes models for general overbed, tunability, and behavioral health.

The Lenga tandem-mounted overbed light also features multiple light modes for patient comfort and caregiver effi iency, including soft ambient lighting, higher intensity reading illumination, and directional exam lighting. “Initially that was developed to keep the center portion of the ceiling available because sometimes facilities needed that space for patient lifts,” Emery says.

“That’s where tandem-mounting comes in handy. We have several tandem-mounted products, which are very useful in some overbed applications.”

One of Visa Lighting’s earliest products—Unity—has also been adopted across health care environments. It has more of a timeless look and has expanded into companion products like sconces and table lamps.

As for future designs, Nielsen expects Visa Lighting will continue to innovate, and he hopes to see even more beautiful lighting in health care. “Especially with behavioral health, there may be a misconception that there’s a tradeoff between products that are functional, beautiful, robust, and appropriate for behavioral health. What we have worked really hard on for the past several years is to create products that meet all

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the industry, he hopes that’s evolving to include both function and aesthetic for an even better patient experience. “Thankfully, with the initiatives of human-centered design, that is really changing,” he says.

“There’s more of a balance between the performance, comfort, and overall experience.”

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PHOTOS, FROM LEFT: NIC LEHOUX, COURTESY OF WESTERN FOREST PRODUCTS

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How designing for living spaces using western red cedar makes for beautiful, sustainable projects

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A MODERNIST REINTERPRETATION OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA RANCH STYLE, a farmhouse in wine country, student residences at Frank Lloyd Wright’s renowned Fallingwater—these and many Bohlin Cywinski Jackson (BCJ) residential projects are dominated by western red cedar (WRC).

“We use cedar a lot in our residential projects in particular,” says Greg Mottola, BCJ’s lead principal on both a Los Altos modern ranch project and a beautiful farmhouse in Calistoga. “We like cedar because it brings a warmth, a softness to what are otherwise pretty modern buildings, and we like making these homes more livable and comfortable to be in.”

In Los Altos, BCJ was tasked with reinventing a home on the suburban site of a teardown. The clients wanted a house that felt like a natural escape in an urban area— and they wanted it to be net zero energy.

“We had the opportunity to really start from scratch. How do you make something that is modern and help them live the way they wanted to live—in a contemporary world—but also bring this Northern California modern sensibility to the design?”

The answer was, in part, by using WRC. The architects put their twist on what they consider the classic mid-century modern architecture of the region and came up with a design to meet the clients’ desire for privacy, beauty, and sustainability. Western red cedar, they said, was a no-brainer. “It’s warm and inviting.”

We talked to BCJ and other experts about why to use WRC. ROT-RESISTANCE Mottola says using WRC outdoors is helpful because it’s not just beautiful; it’s naturally rot-resistant.

The scientific name for western red cedar is Thuja plicata, says Erik Ostensen, director of marketing and product management for Western Forest Products, which began its operations in 2004 on the coast of British Columbia and now has operations there and in Washington State. WRC has one of the widest spread growth ranges on the West Coast and is often found growing alongside Douglas-fir and western hemlock. The name Thuja plicata comes from thujaplicin—a chemical substance found in mature trees that serves as a natural fungicide, preventing the wood from rotting, Ostensen says.

WRC can be finished in a variety of ways, and you can add pigment if you want, which Mottola loves. “In some ways it’s almost like you’re pre-weathering it. But the other thing we really love about it is that when you leave it to weather naturally, it turns to a beautiful silver color.”

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Nestled between neighboring houses and a variety of mature trees, the Los Altos residence

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maintains a sense of privacy and offers its clients, a young family, reprieve from the bustle of daily activities.

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At left, tall cedar-clad walls in Los Altos anchor the spaces with the outdoors.

At right, the guest suite at the far end of the Calistoga property is also clad in western red cedar.

impact when compared with both virgin and recycled wood-plastic composite decking products, Ostensen says.

WRC siding performed best overall in comparison with vinyl, fiber cement, and brick. It can also help architects earn LEED points in the area of Materials and Resources credits.

Of course, wood is also the only major building material that’s renewable. “There are more trees now in North America than 100 years ago due to diligent forestry practices,” Ostensen says. Western red cedar comes from the most sustainably managed forests in the world.

HARDINESS Ostensen says the species’ growth rates are likely to thrive as accelerated climate change occurs. Reports from the US Forest Service indicate that it tolerates shade very well, too, and is less susceptible to diseases than many other conifers. The trees can live for more than 1,000 years.

LIGHTWEIGHT & VERSATILE WRC’s large, open cell structure makes the wood less dense than most other softwoods, so it’s also easier to move from place to place on the job. The versatility of WRC is one of the primary reasons it has been used for appearance and outdoor living applications for centuries.

ACOUSTICS Its open cell structure also helps to block noise. As an interior paneling or exterior siding, WRC’s low density makes it an acoustical barrier of much greater quality than many products marketed for those applications.

SUSTAINABILITY The sustainability benefits of using WRC are many, whether it’s the durability of siding or environmental impact of decking.

WRC decking had the least environmental

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BIOPHILIA The Philadelphia area architecture firm works on projects all over North America and aims to bring a bit of the outside in across residential designs. Mottola says they’re pleased with the quality of cedar they get for projects like these, as it makes their jobs easier.

Inside the Los Altos residence, walls are cedar, juxtaposing beautifully against the polished concrete floors. The architects chose WRC specifically to provide a sense of warmth in contrast to the exposed structural steel, polished concrete floors, and textured concrete fireplace. In Calistoga, the cedar-clad kitchen volume opens onto an outdoor porch and dining area overlooking the pool and renovated water tower.

“One of the things that’s great about using cedar is that it also helps you develop a human-focused scale to the building,” Mottola says. “It’s very relatable. It doesn’t feel overwhelming at all. In fact it feels quite comfortable. We wrap that material both inside and out. This whole idea of buildings that blur the line between inside and outside really enhances the idea of outdoor living.”

COLOR But there’s also something special about WRC’s color. BCJ loves it so much they use it inside and out on their residential projects.

“It’s just really versatile,” Mottola says. Because of its rich color and the fact that it takes stain really well, Mottola says it’s a great solution for exterior siding.

WRC is pitch- and resin-free, so it will accept and hold a wide range of finishes—including elegant dark stains, shabby chic bleaches, traditional solid colors, and naturally beautiful semi-transparents, Ostensen says.

At Los Altos, a series of tall cedar-clad walls slip between interior and exterior, anchoring the spaces with the outdoors—including all around the master bathroom and its luxurious Japanese soaking tub. “The line of exterior siding runs right inside, so when you’re in that bathtub you’re kind of perched on the edge of the building looking out to the garden. You feel like you’re connected to the landscape,” Mottola says.

BCJ also used WRC around the entire perimeter of the project.

“Fencing is another pretty common place where we use it,” Mottola says. There they put a dark, almost brownish gray stain on the cedar.

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• “This whole idea of buildings that blur the line between inside and outside really enhances the idea of outdoor living.”

Creative use of Western Red Cedar was integral to the transformation of a dated farmhouse into this contemporary Calistoga residence.

STYLE WRC bevel siding is the most widely used cedar siding type across projects. It is produced by resawing lumber at an angle to produce two pieces thicker on one edge than the other. The manufacturing process results in pieces with one smooth face. The other face is saw textured or smooth depending on the grade and customer preference.

Bevel siding is installed horizontally and gives an attractive shadow line that varies with the thickness of siding chosen. You can get bevel siding in clear or knotty grades. Clear siding gives a premium quality appearance ideal for prestigious, upmarket applications, while knotty grades come with a re-sawn face and incased tight knot characteristics that can’t be imitated, Ostensen says.

Other projects may choose knotty channel siding for its warmth and casual charm that translates well on homes, cottages, clubhouses, and anywhere you want a rustic feel.

DURABILITY Mottola says BCJ comes back to WRC again and again for its durability. Western red cedar heartwood is also highly impermeable to water, making it even more durable.

While WRC is prevalent on BCJ’s West Coast projects, Mottola says they are seeing it used more all over the US, including the East Coast, too. “We do projects all over the country and a lot of second homes for people in beautiful, remote locations. Cedar is a nice choice.”

Like all woods, WRC will absorb or discharge moisture to attain equilibrium with the surrounding atmosphere. However, it has a very low shrinkage factor and is superior to all other coniferous woods in its resistance to warping and twisting.

Ostensen says historically native peoples of the Pacifi Coast loved cedar for its long-lasting qualities and used wood and bark from cedar trees to build their structures. You can still see many of those cedar artifacts in good condition today, he says. Properly finished and maintained, cedar will deliver decades of worry-free service.

INSULATION Using WRC can also minimize heating and cooling needs. Wood has very good insulating value compared to other materials. Lab tests at the National Research Council of Canada and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory show that light metal framing signifi antly reduces the effective thermal resistance, or R-value, of a wall assembly, resulting in increased energy use. Wood-frame construction is easy to insulate to high standards, Ostensen says, and several wood-frame assemblies have been designed for the Arctic.

WRC’s low density increases a home’s insulation by transporting less heat through interior wall paneling or exterior wall siding than brick or stone, vinyl, or gypsum drywall. It also helps keep interiors warmer in cold weather. g

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Photos and Words by Chris Howe

On the Road:

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In the week I spent exploring the Galápagos Islands, days would go by where I didn’t see a single road.

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NO CARS. NO BUILDINGS. NO CELL PHONE TOWERS. NO STREETLIGHTS, NO AIRPLANES. And, except for the handful of other passengers and crew onboard Origin, a luxury yacht from Ecoventura, no other humans.

Instead, the chaos and noise of the human world was replaced by the chaos and noise of the natural one. With the help of Ecoventura’s extremely skilled local naturalists I was surrounded by sea lions, iguanas, lizards, turtles, finches, cormorants, doves, frigates, boobies, albatrosses, flamingos, giant tortoises, A colony of sea whales, sharks, crabs, penguins, lions is seen gulls, manta rays, and dozens of on the white types of fish that exist only in coralline sand the Galápagos. beach of Gardner Bay above. Below, The Galápagos Islands are one a three-hour hike of the most elusive and biodioffers an amazing verse destinations in the world; view of the 98% of the land here is a nationeastern Pacific Ocean. al park, and 97% of the reptiles and 80% of the birds here cannot be found anywhere else in the world. It’s the land that helped spark Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and has captured the imaginations of nature lovers worldwide.

The islands are a global treasure, and I visited to learn not just about the wildlife but also the preservation work being done.

Located 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, three ocean currents cross the Galápagos Islands, making them uniquely vulnerable to climate change and warming oceans.

They also lie directly in the path of the intermittent El Niño climate phenomena, making them even more subject to damage. NGOs are doing good work protecting the Islands, and the government has leveraged international cooperation to expand marine protections. Private organizations like Ecoventura are contributing to positive change as well.

Since you must travel to the islands by boat, and the majority of the islands themselves are completely natural and undeveloped (no hotels, no running water, no bathrooms), the only way to truly experience the Galápagos is on a liveaboard boat. This has allowed leading tour operators like Ecoventura to set the criteria for sustainable tourism practices.

In 2000 the company received the Smart Voyager ecological certification, which sets standards like producing fresh water onboard and implementing waste management and recycling programs. The company also hires locally, uses locally sourced products and food for their tours, and implements water and energy conservation practices. However, as a visitor, the most important aspect I felt was the sense of responsibility for the islands themselves

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instilled by the staff and crew.

Ecoventura delivers a view into the pristine and unrivaled natural world both above and below water, a truly wild string of active volcanoes crammed full of fascinating history and wildlife. While I learned about major climate events, the warming oceans, and illegal fishing, I also I learned smaller, local details—like that there are three main types of lava that created the islands and how to spot them. Imagine you stepped on sharp, crumbly land in bare feet and said, “Ah! Ah!” This is what they call the firs kind of lava, a’ a’ as it viscous Our Zodiac boats flow dries into rough, jagged arrive on the shore of Punta surfaces. The second type is paPitt, left. At hoehoe, when the lava forms in a right, Galápagos smooth, ropy like texture. The penguins are seen third is the result of the molten near Pinnacle Rock on Bartolomé magma finally meeting the waIsland. There are ter and forming a skin, or crust, less than 2,000 of making hard pillow shapes. these endangered They call this pillow lava. These penguins left in the world. kinds of details help me deepen They are the my connection and reverence only penguins to for the land. live north of the During my tour Ecovenequator. tura arranged a guided visit to the famed Charles Darwin Research Station. The station has been supporting scientific research on the islands for more than 60 years and is funded in part by donations from Ecoventura to the Galapagos Biodiversity and Education for Sustainability Fund. At the foundation we witnessed how researchers are caring for the island’s different types of giant tortoises, with many living to be over 100 years old and weighing more than 900 pounds. The Foundation’s positive impact on the island helped play a factor in the islands being removed from UNESCO’s World Heritage in Danger list.

Giant tortoises aren’t the only species with population growth concerns in the Galápagos. The amount of local residents are doubling every 11 years. Explosive growth in land-based tourism has brought technical and environmental concerns to the still underdeveloped building and energy infrastructure on the islands. “The Galapagos is one of the most challenging places in the world to consider the potential impact of architecture in light of the desire for sustainability,” says David Heymann, a professor of architecture at the University of Texas Austin. Heymann has helped co-develop the “Do-No-Harm, Do-More-Good: Building for Sustainability in the Galapagos,” which questions how sustainable relations develop between natural environments, human uses and needs, and the built environment. g

For more information on the work being done to preserve the Galápagos visit darwinfoundation.org and ecoventura.com.

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ONE OF BWBR’S RECENT PROJECTS, THE NEW HENNEPIN HEALTHCARE CLINIC & SPECIALTY CENTER IN MINNEAPOLIS, CONSOLIDATES 26 PRIMARY AND SPECIALTY CLINICS PREVIOUSLY SPREAD ACROSS NINE BUILDINGS.

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Stephanie McDaniel on Inclusive, Sustainable Design New leadership at BWBR continues a longstanding commitment to be better.

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in conver sat ion

Healthcare Clinic & Specialty Center in Minneapolis and the renovation of Rankin Hall at Carroll University.

McDaniel is taking the reins at an exciting moment in the firm’ history. This year BWBR is celebrating its centennial anniversary.

McDaniel recently sat down with gb&d to discuss this milestone and explore how changing attitudes and breakthroughs in new technology are facilitating a more sustainable future.

BWBR is celebrating its 100th anniversary. What has led to the firm’s success over the years?

BWBR began in 1922 when 25-year-old Bill Ingemann began his architecture practice in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1925 he hired Dorothy Brink, an exceptional design talent and one of the first woman members of the architectural fraternity Tau Sigma Delta. She was instrumental to the firm’s work and later became Ingemann’s wife.

In 1941 Milton Bergstedt joined the firm, bringing with him the beginnings of the company’s ongoing commitment to its people and the impact of the work on the greater good.

Many organizations don’t survive beyond the founders. BWBR has established a culture of developing future leaders who carry on the values and practices of their predecessors while continually looking for ways to make the firm a better place to work that offers better results for clients.

BWBR isn’t about any one person or group of people; it’s about purpose, mission, core values, and staying in the game. Heading into its 100th anniversary, the firm is embracing change while still relying on the deep commitment to community and culture that is the bedrock of BWBR—combining a sense of continuity with excitement for the possibilities of the future.

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Given that buildings generate nearly 40% of global CO2 emissions, architects today are charged not only with curating beautiful spaces but also ensuring that our built environment is designed to limit its impact on the health of the planet.

For Stephanie McDaniel, who was recently named president and CEO of the architecture firm BWBR, this is a guiding principle she brings to her new role. “Having accountability throughout the design process is really important to ensuring that, as architects, we remain committed to this principle of sustainable design,” she says.

McDaniel is also a strong advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the firm, which could serve as a role model for the industry. “As a profession we have a long way to go on racial and gender equity,” she says. “We absolutely need to hear everyone’s voices and ensure everyone has a seat at the table.”

This emphasis on inclusive, sustainable design practices is reflected in BWBR’s recent work, including the new Hennepin

How would you describe your design philosophy and process?

STEPHANIE MCDANIEL WAS RECENTLY NAMED PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE ARCHITECTURE FIRM BWBR. THE FIRM IS CELEBRATING ITS 100TH ANNIVERSARY.

As I think about the BWBR design philosophy, I always go back to our purpose statement: transforming lives through exceptional environments. One of the key elements of our philosophy is that we are driven by our clients, so it’s not about designing a building because we think it looks good or because that’s the building we want to do. It always stems from the work our clients are doing and how this building can support their work.

The other important aspect is that we really foster an integrated design process. We host a series of workshops both internally, where we collaborate with our engineering partners and our design team stakeholders, and externally with our clients’ teams so we can make sure we’re analyzing every aspect of our projects.

This focus on an inclusive and engaging design process was critical in one of our current projects, the new Schoenecker Center for STEAM Education at the University of St. Thomas, which is breaking ground in May. The university has really been committed to its equity and inclusivity efforts and charged us with folding that into our design processes.

We utilized the USGBC’s Inclusive Design pilot credits, which in part asked us to consider: Who is not represented in this building? Part of what that looked like was meeting with focus groups from a variety of stakeholders—including alumni, students, and the university community—throughout the process to seek input, with the goal of creating a space that was welcoming for all.

To accomplish this we prioritized creating inclusive spaces like all-gender restrooms, lactation rooms, public education areas, and spaces that encourage frequent, casual interaction to reduce the probability of social isolation. We also incorporated assistive technology like accessible height service counters and height adjustable furniture, as well as wayfinding tools like non-text diagrams, braille, and patterns and color-blocking to identify key public spaces.

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What are the markets that BWBR specializes in?

We’re fortunate to work with a broad range of clients, and as a socially conscious firm we tend to work with a lot of clients in health care, nonprofits, and higher education. Our recent work on the Hennepin Healthcare Clinic & Specialty Center (CSC) in Minneapolis is really indicative of that process and focus.

The first hospital building on the downtown campus was built in 1887, and the new CSC was the biggest addition to the campus since 1972. The goal was to bring together clinics that were spread out across Hennepin Healthcare while revitalizing this corner of downtown and bringing a sense of place to the campus.

As a public health care provider it was critical to connect the community to the site and gather their input. And so we incorporated a pocket park on the site to help integrate the campus with the surrounding Lowry neighborhood and downtown area. We also made extensive use of local and diverse art, the most identifiable piece being the three-story glass piece hanging in the main lobby.

How is sustainable design in your work?

That’s something I’ve always been excited and passionate about in my personal life going back to my childhood. I always spent a lot of time outside, and when I was 14 I went on my first Boundary Waters trip. I first went with the Girl Scouts and returned many summers with my dad, and then I was a canoe guide, so connection to nature was very formative in my career and my life, and that connection to that magical wilderness is certainly part of my passion for sustainability.

As an architect it’s really about digging in on every project and asking, “What more can we do?” We always prioritize sustainable design, but even then we’re always asking ourselves how we can constantly up our game. I really believe that we get the most sustainable projects by having the most passionate people on each project.

Ultimately you need to set goals and push yourself on those goals. That’s why we were early adopters of the AIA 2030 Commitment, which sets standards and goals for reaching net zero emissions by 2030.

How has the industry changed over the course of your career?

I started in the industry and at BWBR in 1996, fresh out of grad school from the University of Texas Austin. Very shortly after starting my career I found some like-minded folks and we launched the Performance Design Group to talk about enhancing the performance of buildings, both for our clients and for the environment.

The industry has also fostered a culture of sharing information. Early on I learned other architects were passionate about sustainable design, and they were so generous in sharing information and best practices.

That has really helped move us all forward.

And then the tools, particularly the software tools we have access to, have changed.

We use Insights 360 for early energy analysis and daylight modeling, Athena Impact Estimator for life cycle assessments, and Flixo to evaluate the thermal performance

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of our walls. Of course, we didn’t have these types of tools when I was starting out as an architect, and it’s really improved the industry’s sustainability practices.

How do you approach historic renovations differently from new construction?

Renovating existing structures is far more sustainable than building from scratch, so that’s an important consideration. We recently renovated Rankin Hall at Carroll University, which is a building constructed in 1906 that’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and I think that offers an interesting case study.

Our team had to be sensitive to how modern needs and requirements are met in a way that maintains the spirit of the original design. One of the challenges was improving the envelope and thermal comfort. We decided not to insulate the original masonry walls, which had “breathed” for over 100 years, and changing the thermal properties and moisture permeability of an existing masonry wall can potentially damage it.

Instead we added spray foam insulation to the attic space, upgraded the mechanical systems, installed LED lights, and utilized insulated glazing on the refurbished his-

As an architect it’s really about digging in on every project and asking, “What more can we do?” We always prioritize sustainable design, but even then we’re always asking ourselves how we can constantly up our game.

in conver sat ion

toric wood windows. All of this improved the energy efficiency of the building while maintaining its historic character.

What do the next 100 years hold for BWBR?

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BWBR

We’re in a really great place. We’ve got great markets, we have great clients, and so the future really is about leveraging what we currently have and then just making it better. Through our philosophy of transforming lives through exceptional environments, how can we constantly do better?

We have a great track record on sustainability, but we can always do better and improve our practices. Meeting the AIA 2030 Commitment is going to be a challenge, so I’m always looking for ways to further incorporate sustainability into our projects.

Utilizing the AIA Framework for Design Excellence will be an important template for accomplishing that.

Another principle I hope to lead with is increasing our equity at BWBR, which is something we’re always mindful of. And then finall , having an innovative spirit so our projects continue to be unique and fresh while supporting the work of our clients. g

CARROLL UNIVERSITY’S RANKIN HALL RECEIVED THE GEORGE GUNN AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN ARCHITECTURAL PRESERVATION AND HISTORIC RESTORATION AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE BWBR-DESIGNED RESTORATION.

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New Beginnings

tings our staff had customized to suit their needs. In planning for our new workspace, we recognized that “work from anywhere” would remain important even as the pandemic subsided, and we made the decision to revise our original approach.

Shifting away from a traditional, assigned one-desk-per-person strategy, the ethos for our studio evolved toward a more hybrid approach—treating the office as resource hub and collaboration center—a healthy and light-filled place for connection, mentorship, and the creative process.

Inside the New Perkins Eastman Pittsburgh LEED Gold Studio

Location is Everything With connectivity and employee wellness at the forefront of our minds, selecting a central and walkable location for Perkins Eastman Pittsburgh’s new home was integral. The 25th floor of 525 William Penn Place, a mid-century office tower in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh, offered the best balance of access to public transportation, walkability, and green space. Our choice to remain downtown even as many companies rethought their need for a physical address reflect our values as architects and urbanists, stressing the importance of vibrant city centers in the post-Covid world.

The building also provided good bones for a sustainable fit-out: the 25th floor offered optimal lease spans and unobstructed access to daylight. As a bonus, the City of Pittsburgh’s 2018 energy benchmarking report identified 525 William Penn Place as one of the city’s five most energy-efficient office building

BY JENNIFER ASKEY PHOTOS BY ANDREW RUGGE

W

A Smaller Footprint Perkins Eastman’s new LEED Gold–certified studio, guided by research and feedback gathered through roundtables and staff surveys during the spring and summer of 2020, celebrates the collaborative nature of architectural design work while recognizing a future where staff will also work outside of the studio for some portion of the week.

With this new focus, we recognized that we required less overall square footage dedicated to full-time, in-office work. Our team reduced the footprint of our pre-COVID offic plan by 17% based on a three-part approach.

We introduced a flexible work-from-anywhere policy, giving our staff the freedom to work outside of the office up to eight days a month. We adopted a “free address” seating model for all of our team members. And we redefined a work point to better reflect the variety of seating choices our employees came to appreciate while working from home.

The floor plan for the studio reflects this focus on flexibilit , adaptability, and employee wellness. Though we reduced the number of traditional assigned desks by more than half, this reduction in traditional workstation area did not translate into a 1:1 reduction in total area. Through considered design, we were instead able to incorporate a variety of free-address seating postures: counter seating, hightop tables, couches, booths, and workshop tables. The first-come, first-serv seats are anchored along large perimeter windows that offer views of Pittsburgh’s skyline and topography of rivers, hills, and valleys.

By democratizing access to the perimeter and minimizing construction along the window walls, quality views were preserved for 80% of the total office footprint. Our revised floor plans included a greater allocation of space to support the experiences that can’t be recreated while working from home: community building, showcasing the vibrant and messy design process, and flexible amenities

When we kicked off the design of our new Perkins Eastman Pittsburgh studio with an employee workshop in February 2020, we challenged our staff to consider their vision for how our new space could embrace sustainability and employee wellness and help guide the future of architecture. At the time, we didn’t imagine how prescient this exercise would become. A few weeks later, just as we were preparing to present our draft floor plans to the executive committee on March 16, our office closed along with millions of others as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold in the US. In less than a month’s time, our vision and expectations shifted, forcing us to reconsider how an architecture and design studio should function in an ongoing and eventually post-pandemic world.

Work From Anywhere As 2020 progressed, designing the Pittsburgh studio while balancing my laptop on the sofa (with mouse functioning just fine on the seat cushion) gave me a different perspective on the purpose of the office. Many of my colleagues shared an appreciation for the opportunity to move freely around their homes based on the task at hand—a morning call at the dining room table, an afternoon document review session at a desk in a spare bedroom. Direct access to the outdoors was also noted and valued.

As rolls of drawings gathered dust in our shuttered office downtown, video conferences provided a lens into the variety of work set-

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PERKINSEASTMAN’S NEW PITTSBURGH STUDIO HAD GOOD BONES TO START— THE 25TH FLOOR OFFERED OPTIMAL LEASE SPANS AND UNOBSTRUCTED ACCESS TO DAYLIGHT.

Flexibility Just as the world continues to evolve, so does the practice of architecture. We tested a range of potential future layouts, limiting wall and ceiling construction to allow for smart modifications over time Exposed ceilings with flexible pull-down power and perimeter wire molds are provided for more than 50% of the floor area to allow reconfiguration of the space and easier changes in technology. A corner of the office known as the “annex” was left unmodified, minimally furnished with movable tables. Throughout the next year we will determine what type of work postures and arrangements make the

drawing board

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most sense for this space based on real-time employee feedback.

More with Less While sustainable design was holistically considered, we focused extra attention on material selection. We considered sustainability through the lens of reduction—eliminating unnecessary bulkheads, trim, flooring, and wall base from the project. The existing concrete-encased columns were left exposed, the original concrete floors were polished, and new wall and ceiling finishes were evaluated based foremost on their performative qualities.

Convincing a client to build sustainably isn’t always easy; the benefits can sometimes seem remote or burdened with the barrier of a higher initial cost. However, a strategy to build less is better justified when each element eliminated from the project has multiple benefits eliminating barriers, opening sweeping views of downtown, reducing construction costs and schedule, minimizing waste, and lowering the project’s embodied carbon.

Embodied Carbon Architects often consider embodied carbon on new construction where structural materials have an outsized impact on the equation. However, a recent study by the Carbon Leadership Forum identified the large cumulative impact of embodied carbon generated from a typical five- to 15-year interior fit-out and renovation cycle. With this in mind, our team took a deep dive into the impact our reductionist approach had on our studio fit-out’s carbon footprint Drawing from the portfolio of projects we’ve completed in recent years, we selected two comparable interior fit-out projects to benchmark. Pulling material quantities from each project’s Revit model, we used Tally, a software plugin that estimates embodied carbon for construction materials, and compared our Pittsburgh studio against two projects of similar size and focus. We found that the rigor of our reductionist approach had paid off; our Pittsburgh studio has an embodied carbon footprint that is nearly 35% less than the benchmark projects.

Healthy Materials Our deep dive didn’t end with the embodied carbon analysis. As signatories of AIA’s Architecture & Design Materials Pledge, Perkins Eastman has vowed to prioritize the use of materials that support and foster life throughout their life cycle, seek to eliminate the use of hazardous substances, and evaluate emissions of products. For our new studio, selecting materials that lived up to this pledge became a guiding principle and challenged our team to thoroughly research each product. Over a dozen Red List–free products were specified and all finishes were selected based on compliance with LEED v4 VOC content and emissions requirements, availability of Environmental

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DESIGN DETAIL This efficient space realizes a 34% reduction in embodied carbon when compared to workspaces of similar size and focus. The firm achieved this through minimal interventions, constructing walls only where necessary, subtracting extraneous elements, and sourcing from local vendors and manufacturers.

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THE ARTEMIDE ALPHABET OF LIGHT. PERKINS EASTMAN DESIGNED THIS CONFIGURATION TO FLOW THROUGH THE STUDIO IN A NATURAL WAY—LIKE A WAYFINDING DEVICE.

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Product Declarations, and meeting material ingredient reporting criteria. The team also engaged with local makers and artists to support the local economy and increase the visibility of Pittsburgh’s artisan community.

Similar to the strategy of building less, the strategy to prioritize quality over quantity has other easily quantifi ble benefi s: reducing attic stock, providing fewer opportunities for supply chain problems, and giving clients confidence that each material was carefully specified to meet a project’s particular goals

Eye on the Future On a sunny Tuesday after Thanksgiving, our offic was a flurry of activity: mobile whiteboards were wheeled into our large meeting room for a strategic planning workshop, a design team gathered around a table in the Hub redlining a set of PROJEC T floor plans, and several Perkins Eastman staff members plugged Pittsburgh Studio their laptops into work counters overlooking LOC ATION the city.

Pittsburgh Seven months after our grand opening ARCHITEC T in June 2021, the PE Perkins Eastman Pittsburgh staff has embraced the design COMPLETION of the new flexible 2021 workplace. As a living lab for the future SIZE workplace, we’ll con11,900 square feet tinue to learn from the process through MEP ENGINEER a post-occupancy evalCJL Engineering uation and follow-up survey. While specifi elements of the stuSTRUC TUR AL ENGINEER dio are tailored to the Taylor Structural work we do as archiEngineers tects and designers, at least three overarching facets of our process LIGHTING DESIGN Lam Partners may be applied anywhere: re-evaluating space needs based on COMMISSIONING a work-from-anywhere ZTECH future; stripping away superfluous design CONTR AC TOR elements that reduce Turner Construction flexibility and contribCompany ute to embodied carbon; and researching INTERIOR materials that offer DESIGNER the best balance of Perkins Eastman performance, health, and beauty.

As many companies question the offic ’s role and how to balance keeping employees engaged and healthy, we look forward to integrating designs built on these sustainable and employee-engaging tenets into other projects to bring this vision of resilient, collaborative, and low-carbon workplaces to the fore. g

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THE OFFICE ON THE THE 25TH FLOOR OF 525 WILLIAM PENN PLACE OFFERED THE BEST BALANCE OF ACCESS TO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, WALKABILITY, AND GREEN SPACE.

DRAWING COURTESY OF PERKINS EASTMAN

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FLOOR PLAN Perkins Eastman tested a range of potential future layouts for its new Pittsburgh office—limiting wall and ceiling construction to allow for smart modifications over time.

Meet the Architect

Jennifer Askey A lifelong Pittsburgher, Jennifer Askey is passionate about the ongoing transformation of her city from aesthetic, economic, and human perspectives. That passion has informed more than 15 years of experience on domestic and international projects, with a focus on workplace, commercial office, and mixeduse throughout the Pittsburgh region. As a member of Perkins Eastman’s Technical Quality team, she is a trusted technical resource. She continues to mentor and promote collaboration in the industry.

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Julie Janiski on the New Era of Green Building

made me think of not doing it.” But the idea of architecture—of a field that marries math and design, left brain with right—won out in the end. “It was ultimately what drew me to architecture and the built environment—the promise and reality of wanting and needing to be able to think about it from those two perspectives.”

TAKING SUSTAINABILIT Y HEAD-ON

This sustainability expert sees collaborative design as the way forward.

After graduating from New York University with a degree in urban design and architecture studies, Janiski decided to pursue a graduate program in architecture—eventually. “I knew I didn’t want to do it right away, mostly because I had decided that sustainability was so important that I wanted to study that first to get a solid foundation to everything I was hoping to learn about architecture.”

She went to work at Platt Byard Dovell White Architects (PBDW), which confirmed her instinct that green building was more than a fad—it was a growing, necessary practice. “I was going through RFP after RFP and saw everyone was starting to ask for sustainability features. LEED had just started to emerge. I went to the four partners and said, ‘What are we doing about this?’ And they said, ‘Oh, every building has sustainability features,’” Janiski says. Her response was: “OK, but what does that mean? And how do we talk about it to help coordinate that effort within the firm?”

She spent the next five years bringing sustainable projects like the first LEED building in Brooklyn to light, working remotely from Australia for a time while pursuing her master’s of design science in sustainable design at the University of Sydney.

At the end of those five years, she went back to school at the University of Michigan for her master’s in architecture. “While I was at PBDW, the firm was working on a project for the Park Avenue Armory. We were doing some of the sustainability work in-house, but the project was so big we decided that there needed to be a sustainability consultant on the project,” Janiski says. “I worked with the project architect and helped interview firms, and one was Buro Happold. They did not get the project, but I called them a year later and said, ‘I’m back in school pursuing a graduate degree, I’ve got a four-month summer break, and I would love to work with the sustainability team. It was really interesting to hear how you talked about it.’”

Janiski got the job that summer and returned the summer after.

It was the start of her 12-years-and-counting career at Buro Happold, where she made partner in 2021. “There are so many talented people at Buro Happold and so many different disciplines, which means there are so many different subject matter experts,” she says. “There’s always something new to learn, which I love because I want to know everything.”

BY SOPHIA CONFORTI

A

Ask a room of architects when they knew they wanted to be an architect, and many will say building was a passion from a young age—an idea formed from early Lincoln Log and LEGO creations. But not for Julie Janiski.

No, Janiski wanted to be a backup dancer for Janet Jackson.

Dancing ambitions aside, the Boston-based partner at the engineering consultancy and design planning firm Buro Happold grew up in Michigan working with her dad at the family business, Great Lakes Fire Protection. It was there that Janiski got her first glimpse into the built environment, working with sprinkler heads.

Submerged in the subcontractor atmosphere, she “learned a lot about construction and heard a lot about how dumb architects can be from a construction point of view,” she says. “You would think that would have potentially turned me off or

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GREEN BUILDING IN BOSTON

JULIE JANISKI IS A PARTNER IN BURO HAPPOLD’S BOSTON OFFICE, WHERE SHE LEADS INTEGRATED TEAMS OF ENGINEERS, DESIGNERS, ANALYSTS, AND SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS.

Today no two days are alike for Janiski, and that’s on purpose. “I like to joke that I spend most of my time meeting architects and engineers and helping them talk to each other,” she says. In fact, it’s this collaboration that makes her job so rich. “I think the majority of folks at Buro Happold specialize in a discipline or a sector, and I make it my business to not, so I can help cross-connect and integrate all disciplines sustainably.”

Janiski’s projects range from tech to higher education, cultural and multi-family spaces, as well as working with the State of Massachusetts on updating its building energy codes. But perhaps some of the most exciting work is happening in Boston itself, where the city is finalizing a zero-carbon zoning initiative that mandates that all new construction be zero carbon.

“The City of Boston has become a really interesting place to be within the realm of thinking about sustainability in the built

PHOTO COURTESY BURO HAPPOLD

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The City of Boston has become a really interesting place to be within the realm of thinking about sustainability in the built environment. environment,” Janiski says. “The work that is happening here right now is setting a completely different baseline for what is required of projects.”

Take the ongoing One Boston Wharf Road / Seaport District Block L5 Tower project. Working closely with Henning Larsen and Gensler, Janiski and Buro Happold are transforming the 17-story, mixed-use building into what will be the city’s largest net zero carbon facility when it’s completed in 2024.

“It was a perfect storm of what the state requirements are for energy code, what the City of Boston is moving toward, what the tenants are asking for, and the developer’s own sustainability goals that led to the team coming together and establishing a goal of zero operational carbon for the 630,000-square-foot office tower,” Janiski says.

Key to the project is its all-electric system, which is set up to maximize energy recovery—heat energy coming from the building will be captured for reuse—and includes an air source heat pump.

The project is also pursuing LEED certification, with green elements like a 52% reduction in potable water use and triple glazing on the facade to not only support energy efficiency but also improve thermal comfort.

It’s a big undertaking, but a collaborative approach that Janiski says marks a new era of architecture. “I’m excited that just in my career I’ve seen a real shift from an older, more traditional model of the architect as the author, and consultants are called on every once in a while, to a model where design teams are more of a ‘Knights of the Round Table’ model,” she says. “The opportunity to take advantage of the subject matter expertise that’s available and the impact that everyone’s expertise can have on building performance is phenomenal. I’m excited to see more of that shift from one firm to the next and alternately figure out how to put the purpose of the project and people at the very center of the process.” g

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Location: One Boston Wharf Road, Boston Expected Completion: 2024 Size: 630,000 square feet office Lead Architects: Henning Larsen, Gensler MEP Engineers: Buro Happold Energy Consulting: Buro Happold Audio Visual: Buro Happold Information Management: Buro Happold Security: Buro Happold Sustainability: Buro Happold Contractor: Turner Construction Landscape Engineer: James Corner Field Operations

arc hi tec t t o wat ch

THE 17-STORY, MIXED-USE ONE BOSTON WHARF ROAD PROJECT IS SET TO BECOME THE CITY’S LARGEST NET ZERO CARBON FACILITY WHEN IT’S COMPLETED IN 2024.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF HENNING L ARSEN, BURO HAPPOLD

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at a glance

Nordic Pride

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The Nordic region’s largest art museum was scheduled to open in early June in Oslo— all 387,500 square feet of it (and that’s only counting the functional space). The National Museum will be home to one permanent exhibition as well as flexible exhibit spaces, a library, a multimedia and multifunctional room, and restaurant. Kleihues + Schuwerk designed the museum to passive house and FutureBuilt

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standards (FutureBuilt works with private and public developers and architects and supports climate-friendly urban development across six municipalities in the region). “This building is built to last for 300 years. It’s going to last for generations. The young people growing up in Norway expect us to do that,” says Hanne Elsrud, sustainability advisor for the National Museum. The new museum overlooks the

waterfront and fjord in Oslo’s city center. It was designed as a long, horizontal building that creates a new courtyard toward the former train station buildings. The building steps up to a large, illuminated exhibition hall—its highest volume, with transparent walls so it’s visible in the evening’s urban landscape. —Laura Rote Read more at gbdmagazine.com and nasjonalmuseet.no

PHOTO BY IWAN BA AN

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