Holistic Sustainability in Design: Insights from Industry Leaders at Perkins&Will, HCM, and 3form

In this episode of I Hear Design, host Robert Nieminen sits down with Yure Suarez (Perkins&Will), Ilijana Soldan (Hord Coplan Macht), and Ryan Smith (3form) to discuss the evolution of sustainable design in the second installment of a three-part series on sustainability. Discover how holistic approaches, resilience strategies, and circular design principles are transforming the architecture and interior design industry. Learn actionable insights for integrating wellness, addressing embodied carbon, and designing for the future.

Tune in to explore:

• The definition of holistic sustainability in design
• Practical steps for applying circular design principles
• How wellness and resilience shape projects across market sectors

Don’t miss this inspiring conversation with leaders driving innovation in sustainable design.

Meet Our Guests

Transcript

Robert Nieminen   0:15
Well hi Yure, Ilijana, and Ryan, welcome to the I Hear Design podcast.
Thank you all so much for being here.

Ryan   0:21
Hello, thank you. Glad to be here.

Ilijana Soldan   0:24
Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Robert Nieminen   0:26
Yeah, of course. Yeah. Wonderful.

Yure Suarez   0:26
Absolutely. Thanks.

Robert Nieminen   0:29
Well, I appreciate you all coming on as guest today, because we're gonna be diving into a topic that I think has particular relevance.
For the moment, we're in regarding sustainable design and having personally reported on sustainability in the architecture and interior design industry since the early 2000s. And yes, I'm kind of dating myself, but I can say a lot has changed. I'm sure you all agree.
There's just been such an incredible evolution from the sort of fringe grassroots movement in the early days to where we are today.
Which is that sustainability is quickly becoming the standard rather than the exception to the rule when it comes to the built environment.
And that's something I think we can all be excited about.
But there's so many nuances within the sustainability paradigm to explore, and we're going to talk more about those particular as we look at what it means to design holistically and with long term resilience in mind and how those strategies translate across market sectors, which we'll get to into.

Robert Nieminen   1:22
In a minute.
But before we do that, I was hoping each of you could introduce yourselves and talk about your roles at your respective organizations for our listeners, so.
Why don't you go first?

Yure Suarez   1:33
Sure. Yeah.
Thanks for having me here.
My name is Yure Suarez and I am a regenerative design advisor at Perkins&Will’s Dallas office and my role focuses on, as you just said, working with sustainability but also integrating regenerative principles into our design processes across the wide range of projects.

Robert Nieminen   1:57
Great. All right, Ilijana, what about you?

Ilijana Soldan   1:59
Hey, so thanks for having me. My name is Ilijana Soldan. I'm a licensed architect and senior sustainability manager at Hord Copland Macht.

We have a handful of locations around the country and my role is firm wide, so I support all of them with integrated design process, product research, early energy analysis, carbon analysis. It's it's a very all-encompassing role and I support all of our sectors.

Robert Nieminen   2:24
OK.
Great. Last but not least, Ryan, tell us about yourself and what you do.

Ryan   2:28
Yeah, I think you, chief creative here at three form material company based out of Salt Lake City, UT.
My background is also founding our light art business, which is a lighting company inside of three form and I kind of lead the the charge on our sustainability efforts here inside the company and hoping to keep the the history. What we've done, you know, moving forward in a.
Positive way.

Robert Nieminen   2:53
Yeah, absolutely. Well and coincidentally, we just ran a podcast episode on Light Art with Adam Reeder.
So for any of our listeners that didn't hear that episode, go back to that shameless plug there.
But as we kick things off here, I wanted to pitch the first question to you all about, you know, just kind of definitions.
Like, how would you define what a holistic approach to sustainability and design is, and why is it so critical in today's context that we're in?
Ilijana, do you want to go first?

Ilijana Soldan   3:22
Sure. Yeah, I can kick it off.
I well, I think holistic, you know and and maybe the conventional if you want to call it sense was looking at a building in all of its systems how they work together.
So for example, you know building envelope tightness could lead to less air infiltration, which leads to smaller system sizing, which leads to overall energy, water, energy and water use reduction.
And then like the site and the surrounding context. But I would say that the context is now global. 

Ilijana Soldan   3:49
Especially with carbon being such a critical concern.
We're really thinking about the global supply chain and our embodied carbon impact. And then that also adds the 4th dimension component to holistic, which is time, you know, the project timeline, I would argue starts all the way from the first extraction or harvesting of of the material to.
Use used to make the building and it includes the entire life of the building now and then all the way through deconstruction.

Robert Nieminen   4:18
Sure you wanna add to that?

Yure Suarez   4:22
Sure. Yeah.
When you say holistic, the first thing that it comes in my mind is.
Just thinking of it in systems and when we met with our designers, which are usually the first ones and grabbing a project is you know, just bringing up all these topics that go all the way from you know the form and the shape of of the building or.
The fluxes of the users of the building, if we're talking about an interiors project.
Talking about resiliency, what do we think of the space?
What? What's going to happen with the space in the future?
What's future looks for this? Depending on the market sector and then all the way to like resiliency?
Like what are the vulnerabilities of this users?
What are things that we should think?
That.
Maybe the client is not asking us, right?
Like, is there obesity?
Is obesity one of the biggest demographic issues?
So that's where my mind goes when we think about holistic is like, let's just brainstorm everything about the specific context, specific market sector and let's look at what are these big opportunities here for us as designers to really.
Advance this.
Specific, you know, design challenge.

Robert Nieminen   5:57
Sure, Ryan.
What about on the materials and supplier side?
What is holistic design look like on that end of things?

Ryan   6:05
Yeah, Robert, that's exactly where I was going to head to with this sort of bit bits and pieces.
And so my perspective, I usually like to think about these things as a what's the starting point.
You know, when we make a building, when we make a space, there's a lot of small parts that go into that. I think sometimes sustainability.
Is is a big topic for a lot of people, right?
All these acronyms and this crazy stuff that you have to keep, you know, learning about and it changes so quickly.
You know, can we break those down into bits and pieces and so that that that holistic viewpoint is really like, OK, if we can look at 10 pieces that we can move the ball forward on that, that's actually something you can talk about you know and and a.
Material that one might have clean ingredients, for example, like we can do that, you know we can we can take in a bad ingredient out.
We can promote a recycled ingredient.
Those are those are solid. I always call them.
Kind of practical sustainability steps I I kind of like that term.
'Cause, they're very tangible and very real. And so just coming from a a company that makes things, you know, I love that reference to like, hey, these are 12510 things we can do right now.
As a provider of of of material that that make a difference and you know I think that becomes a really interesting part of that whole story.

Robert Nieminen   7:30
Yeah, definitely.
And you mentioned sustainability being such a big topic for a lot of people. I think, you know, one of the goals of it is really about, you know, resilience.
And so when we're designing for long term resilience, I mean what would be some of the unique considerations that emerge when we're talking about different sectors like multifamily housing or hospitality or healthcare or even the workplace?

Ryan   7:52
Well, let's see.
I I mean thinking about.
Maybe the big topic these days is just how long something is used.
You know, there's there's AI. Mean buildings are kind of always evolving, right.
I mean, maybe our role is always evolving.
So I mean, we're sort of challenged by this idea that we we have a lot of these, these good, good intentions. But you know the the world keeps changing too fast to have those intentions, you know, play out. And so do you.

Robert Nieminen   8:14
Mm hmm.

Ryan   8:19
How do you respond to that?
How do you make things are that that makes sense, you know?
How do you design things that make sense?
I feel like that's an interesting challenge and you know a lot of times we're just trying to imagine all of our spaces and materials.
Can they be as smart as possible?
Can they be, as you know, recycle as possible as healthy as possible, as as useful as possible in all the different ways a space might be thought about?
You know that that's another layer to just.
You know what?
What sustainability means? You know, it's it's a lot of those.
Bits and pieces.

Robert Nieminen   8:53
Sure, sure.
Yure, what about you? I mean, how do you think about long term resilience as you're looking at different market sectors?

Yure Suarez   9:03
Sure.
Let's see.
So when we talk about different market sectors, I'll start with maybe healthcare that you mentioned.

Robert Nieminen   9:11
Hmm.

Yure Suarez   9:13
Healthcare facilities really demand a higher degrees of resilience due to you know their critical role in emergencies and their critical role for communities.
So, you know, we'll talk about.
How can we help them meet those demands? Right, so.
Maybe we we start with what is a robust backup power system for them, how we're gonna design for the climate related health impacts that this facilities can have.
Who are the communities that these facilities are serving or where it's located? When we talk about the resiliency, location really has a lot to do with the.
Strategies that we think for responding to this specific facilities.

Yure Suarez   10:12
So right now. One that comes to mind.
We were designing for.
A facility that is close to a coast, so.
There are specific challenges in there.
And this facility specifically was not at the coast, but we know that just being in such a close proximity with with we're brainstorming with.

Yure Suarez   10:40
The client and understanding OK what is the role of the facility when the caused really goes through an issue. So those that's.
Kind of the long term.
Questions we look at vulnerabilities and risk that we ask to the clients to identify how to best serve this communities.

Robert Nieminen   11:06
Absolutely, Ilijana.
Did you want to add anything to that?

Ilijana Soldan   11:09
Yeah, yeah, I think, you know resiliency really now is about passive survivability. And I think that does start with the larger scale strategy.
So landscape becomes critically important.
That's one of our six sector sectors and it's not just building citing anymore, it's that climate change impact analysis like YURAY was mentioning. That can help you identify those passive strategies.
So the key for the long term resilience is to focus on passive survivability.

Ryan   11:39
Mm hmm.

Ilijana Soldan   11:40
Because that almost always benefits the building occupants too, in more ways than one.
You know, in the case of multifamily housing, I mean really any sector building durability, right?
It leads to thermal comfort, but in times of crisis that's even more important.

Ilijana Soldan   11:55
So let's say in the event of a power outage, if a building is designed to passive building strategies for envelope design and then the air tightness and minimal thermal bridging, it increases the time that the delta between the indoor conditions and the outdoor conditions stays high.
And that's great. Just in general because it lowers building use, but in times of crisis that can be life saving, you know, especially when you're talking about vulnerable, vulnerable populations.
You know, senior living affordable housing is another one of our sectors.
So aging populations, that's very important. When you start thinking about those passive survivability standpoints and then also the healthcare and the higher Ed piece, they have a unique opportunity because.
A lot of the times, as campuses, they use so much energy and they typically have their own central plants on site.
So the question is, you know, can you establish a micro get a microgrid?
How can you generate energy on site so that in the event of an emergency you still have some power you can use, but then there's double opportunity too there.
Because when not in crisis, we all know the utility burden that our healthcare systems face.
So it's a long term cost benefit to the campus.
So I think.
Thinking about passive survivability, resiliency. You know you don't always have to think about it from a crisis.
Mindset. It's it's just beneficial in general on the normal day-to-day.

Robert Nieminen   13:22
Yeah, right. Right. Definitely, yeah.
And resiliency is one. You know one component, another one that's really been coming up in the sustainability conversation is around Wellness, right?
I've heard it said that you know, the Wellness movement was kind of the next logical step in sustainability because of the impact that buildings and spaces have on the the occupants and rhino's hoping maybe you could touch on this one first.
You know, how are you integrating Wellness principles into the products that you are manufacturing knowing you know obviously that they're going to be fitted out in an interior?
Space and and how do you all that three form kind of look at that element?

Ryan   13:58
Yeah, you know, so the big thing, I think that's still important out there is you know again we're all chasing these certifications and you know what's the next you know thing you need to pay attention to in sustainability. But there is one that seems to be sticky and.
That's are the ingredients clean.
You know what?
What are they made-up of, right?
The Red List declare.
Your your EPDs also you know kind of point to sort of you know the the origin of the agreements and so that.
To me, I think is a really good one.
It's one we're familiar with because as we think about food, it's the core ingredients. And so Wellness, when you, when you look at that category and you think about these nutrition labels, declare label is kind of called a nutrition label.
So that's why the food analogy works so well.

Robert Nieminen   14:46
Mm hmm.

Ryan   14:48
We can.
We want to know what buildings are made-up of.
We want to know those decisions that that go into a healthy space. And so Wellness has to do with a lot of things.
I mean, obviously the design, the light.
You know all the the sort of human centered things, but I mean also if the building is is not well, you know if you if you incorporate sick building materials, there's there's a lot of studies on that now. And actually I just read about a building in it.
Was on a campus.
It was pretty major campus and the building was built in the 70s and it was full of so much toxic ingredients that I think they had to close the whole building down and they actually had this history.
Of a lot of people that had, you know, cancers and things like that and, you know, these are ingredients that that were very aware of now and it was kind of stunning that I reading the story about this school that that literally had to like shut their build.
Down because it had this really traceable history of of what went on and you know, like we need to really make sure all of our ingredients going forward are.
Clean, because that's that's an incredibly important thing. I mean interior. You know, we spend. What is it 90% indoor?
So yeah, that the ingredients again from a materials perspective, I mean that that's a a big lever for us.

Robert Nieminen   16:01
Sure. Yeah. Yure, how are how's Perkins and will kind of looking at Wellness and what what type of design interventions are you using across, you know, the different market sectors?

Yure Suarez   16:12
Sure. Well, at Perkins and will Wellness is really a key driver of our design philosophy.
We integrate Wellness principles into all of our projects.
Like in their Environmental Quality biophilic design, access to natural light is a big one that we have a lot of agency as designers and architects and well, of course materials transparency, as Ryan was communicated.

Yure Suarez   16:43
We want to minimize health risks by selecting the right materials.
And there is also some overlap between the.
Design and selection of materials and just trying to innovate by.
Identifying opportunities for reducing embodied carbon as well.
That could be through.
The reuse of materials or identifying products that have take back programs, so and and I love this because this when you start looking all the intersections of sustainability over generation and we're talking about materials and then we all of a sudden talking about carbon and.
Resiliency and health.
And.
For us, that's where you know, the whole holistic starts like shaping, right.

Robert Nieminen   17:39
Yeah.

Yure Suarez   17:40
And then for different market sectors and different also scales of the projects we we try to incorporate all of them, you know biophilia or lighting and materials health. We understand sometimes you know the scope and there may be some limited.
We.
So we understand, for example, for workplaces.
Wellness is about creating environments that enhance productivity and reduce stress through, let's say, ergonomic design or air quality improvement.
You know, understanding how the dynamics of that office work.
So we have some quiet spaces for mindfulness.
The relationship with the outdoors and and the biophilia so.
It's really like depends on what market sector we're talking about.
There may be some different approaches to Wellness.
By understanding the client's needs.

Robert Nieminen   18:47
Absolutely, Ilijana.
What about you?
What types of you know Wellness principles? Are you all putting into practice across different sectors?

Ilijana Soldan   18:57
I I think it's a lot of what was what has already been said. You know, I think for us it's very important.
You know, we were very proud of the fact that we had the first well gold interiors project in the state of Maryland.
Our our headquarters, actually our own office.
So we really practice what we preach.
And yeah, I mean I think I think it was already eluded you know, different market sectors have different opportunities obviously and.

Ryan   19:21
Thank you.

Ilijana Soldan   19:24
Multifamily and senior living affordable housing it's.
It's the daylighting component, the material health component.
But there's also the community building and the mental well-being component and establishing that sense of belonging.
That's really important, especially when you're talking about, you know, the the human component, which to me is what Wellness really is.
It's that human component and those are the places that we live and having those community connections is really important and understanding how a project can support or disrupt Community connections is definitely, you know, something you want to think about really early on.
In the design process, day lighting analysis and things like that are part of our standard integrated process, but I think with biophilia too, especially in our PK12 and higher Ed sectors, it's it's important because studies have shown that it connects directly to student learning outcomes and and.
That's what the schools care the most about is the success and health and well-being of their students.
And so with biofilia, I think what excites me the most is that integrated design potential because in the three tiers when you think about it, there's like bring nature into the space, you know visual connections to nature and then using natural analogs patterns is kind of the 2nd.
Tier so being influenced by nature, but I particularly love the third aspect, which is nature of the space.
And kind of recalling back to how our brains developed through millennia of being outdoor creatures.
For most of our human timeline and and echoing that back into the interior spaces and you know, you may mention those, those areas of refuge which are so important for the mental recharge and for us too.
They're kind of the ideal program spaces to add that community and sense of belonging aspect to inclusion, which I think is another cornerstone of Wellness.
You know, either through small prayer or meditation rooms, especially when you're designing building where people spend most of their day in the building.
Knowing that if I'm an occupant of the building and I have a special need and that need has been thought of and accommodated, it's it's a big mental stress relief.
And so I think all of that, you know, connects to the Wellness aspect as well.
And so you have to holistically think of not only materials, but also the nature of the space as well.

Robert Nieminen   21:47
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know another term that it that we see floating around quite a bit is this idea of circular design and wasn't in my original questions that I had. But as as we're talking here, you know, made me wonder is there like a significant difference between holistic design?
And circular design principles. Are they kind of related one in the same Ryan, I'd be curious to get your your perspective. I mean obviously from a supplier you know talking about circularity materials and all that but.
How do you sort of you, you know, circularity when it comes to design?

Ryan   22:20
Yeah, I you know, so many of these things, you know, obviously overlap in really beautiful ways.
You know the one of the biggest.
Things with circularity.
Really is, you know, just how do you?
How do you not waste?
How do you how do you make sure that?
I guess I always have to answer from a, you know, our making side of the equation because there's a lot of other ways to answer that.
But you know, thinking about a material that has a long life and you know, we have this technology today.
We're more advanced today than we ever have been as a civilization, right?
So we know how to actually.
Make things that last for a very long time.
We know how to retool those things into future useful items, you know? And so we have this great capability. And when you read about these advancements around, you know, some technology or material, it can be kind of exciting. You know, where you think, gosh, we're solving these amazing.
Things where you know 100 years ago, it was a rather crude sort of approach, you know and how we can build buildings today that are.
Are so intelligent and so smart and.
And so, you know, can last for such a long time.
You know, to me that you know, being being circular in that sense means you can really be.
As smart as we can in the architectural build environment, make it last as long as you possibly can, and then build it out of smart materials that are not bad for the the the planet. You can, you know, reuse those materials. They're they're clean.

Robert Nieminen   23:52
Mm hmm.

Ryan   23:54
They can be reincorporated or or, you know, reimagined.
So that's, you know, kind of the.
That perfect thing that we like to draw on a paper where it all comes back to the starting point.

Robert Nieminen   24:05
Right, yeah, yeah. Well said.
What would you all say are are some of the biggest challenges that you encounter when trying to apply some of these circular design principles and is are there unique unique challenges between the sectors?
Ilijana, you want to respond to that first?

Ilijana Soldan   24:21
Yeah, yeah, sure.
I I mean I think circular design is so important because you're getting to the core of reducing the embodied carbon footprint, right?
And so the the two basic questions are always if there's an existing building on the site, how can we reuse it?

Robert Nieminen   24:29
Mm hmm.

Ilijana Soldan   24:35
And if we can't fully reuse it, how can we salvage material?
Reuse them in furniture and in feature walls and artwork, but it does come with with challenges.
And I think.
Two, the two biggest.
Think the 1st in order for circular design to be able to be fully embraced, there needs to be increased transparency for access to availability and salvage materials.
You know, as Ryan was saying, we have the technology to create really durable, long lasting materials. Now if designers knew what was available to them very early in the design phase, that maybe is that material. Second use, you know not its initial right off the shelf use but.
Salvage from a site use.
I think they would be more likely to design with those materials in mind, but as of right now it's difficult to really understand that inventory of salvage materials out there and a trend that I've seen, you know that we've not had the opportunity to do yet, but I.
Would love is designing with deconstruction in mind, right?
So some sectors are more ideal for modular construction, for example.
So therefore they're more ideal for to be designed for deconstruction, but it leads to.
To the critical questions of.
If you can design with deconstruction, you have a higher likelihood to have a high quality salvage material which matters because then designers are more likely to to use it in their next project.
And I love that mindset because, you know, then nothing becomes waste, right?
That it no longer becomes construction waste diversion. It becomes new material access which is exciting and I think especially from a timber, right.
So I think if we can get those two things figured out, industry wide will be in really good shape to embrace circularity.

Robert Nieminen   26:28
Yeah, absolutely.
Maybe Yure, you can respond to this question, but are there strategies that you've used from one sector that have successfully adapted to another sector or I mean is it all just kind of standard across the board and same with kind of client priorities like how?
Do they view it, you know?
Like what are the differences between the sectors?
How do they view sustainability and what are the strategies the same? Or are there kind of these nuances that you need to apply?

Yure Suarez   26:57

No, definitely.
There are differences that I have found over the years.
Particularly with.
Those newer concepts like circularity, for example, or deconstruction even I think.

Yure Suarez   27:21
Something that I have been enjoying and I've been like trying to immerse myself in is with this concept of regeneration because.
It really puts you in the position where you are no longer trying to just do less harm, which is the sustainability concept to really be like, OK, what nature would do and you know in nature there's no waste and they nature really is very wise with the use.
Of resources and then designing wise.
Is is a? Is a really great.
Feature so.
Looking at that and and under trying to understand and using those like lessons from nature.
Into the different market sectors.
Has been kind of like a a new way for us to to look and that's why the the titles kind of changed that we're not like sustainability advisors, we're regenerative design advisors. And when you look at those from different perspectives of the market sectors, you start understanding, OK.
So.
Reuse in the construction.
What does that look like for?
Healthcare. So maybe Healthcare is.
It's a market sector that requires so many layers of.
Health constraints that reuse looks a little different here, right?
So why don't we just look at products that have, let's say take back programs first in here that we know we can meet the health constraints. But if we look at let's say.
Commercial building that we have more flexibility to reuse other type of materials or like be more creative and let's just like maybe we do the terrazzo of this building with.
Some of the glazing that came from the building that preceded you know this, this construction and.
That all of the sudden we are starting to not only.
Acting more like nature, but also like bringing.
Better stories for these buildings and the users and and and also activating the industry in that sense. So if we if we're not starting to ask these questions there, then you know GCS are not going to come to us and say hey, do we want to deconstruct this?

Yure Suarez   30:02
Building right like so.
And and I think that's how we start like maybe.
Cross collaborating among sectors like when we start looking at different pieces of it and how they all.
Activate like with GCS questions or even policies.

Robert Nieminen   30:25
Mm hmm.

Yure Suarez   30:25
They're gonna help all the different sectors of all the, with all the different ideas that were thrown today as examples.

Robert Nieminen   30:34
Ilijana, you're nodding your head there. Do you wanna add add to that at all? Total agreement, you know.

Ilijana Soldan   30:38
Yeah, absolutely, I think.
I think policy is important.
You know, I think just from the aspect of deconstruction, like for mass timber for example, the the big embodied carbon win is as a tree grows, it pulls carbon from the atmosphere and it contains it.
It sequesters it in itself, and when you're using mass timber as a building material, that carbon is sequestered.
But if you're not thinking about what's happening to that mass timber, hypothetically.
Many years down the line.

Ilijana Soldan   31:08
If it does get incinerated when that building is demolished, all of the benefits of that, you know that Carbon's released back into the atmosphere.
So I do think we really need to start thinking at that scale.

Robert Nieminen   31:18
Sure, absolutely.
Yeah, you mentioned policy, Brian. I was.
I was wondering that was one of my questions was about the role that policy and industry standards certifications are going to play.
Ryan, do you want to comment on that a little bit?
I mean, coming from this manufacturer side, I know certifications are a big, you know, it's something that's important right for for the designers and architects to to see that products have have met those standards.
Can you comment on that a little bit?

Ryan   31:42
Yeah, I would love to see less new ones.
There's, it seems like every year there's a there's another one that you need to add to the roster. But you know, they are incredibly important. And I think you know what we're learning is, you know, what are the important ones, you know? And it's there's got to be.

Robert Nieminen   31:50
Yeah.

Ryan   32:02
Some way to measure these that the universe understands?
That's the purpose of this, and so some of these are gaining more traction than others.

Robert Nieminen   32:08
Mm hmm.

Ryan   32:10
The more complicated ones I I think are are evolving.
And you know you you want them to be pointing back to, like, solid referenceable real things.
Third party verified in all of the the kind of right attributes and then also certifications that for example we got our just label a couple years ago and that's an interesting certification 'cause it's it's quite.
Complex to to navigate as a as a manufacturing company, but I think it also.
Starts talking about the transparency of of who you are as a company, and that word is used a lot in sustainability.
But I mean, I think in a true sense, just like here are the things we're doing. Here's the paperwork that shows we're doing it.
Here it is on the website and here's the third party people that talk about it. So go check it out.
You know, we're not just saying something.
You know, certifications are really meant to just be that door opener to sort of say like we are actually are making a claim and and we can back it up and let's talk about.
How to back that up? And that's that's a very, very important part of this whole universe because of the the greenwashing. You know, aspect that, you know, there's a lot of trickiness around that, right.
So certifications are the one thing that allow you to sort of cut through some of that. And of course there's better certifications than others, you know. But you know, I think generally the the that, that world is evolving in a in a positive way. And I think they.
They're they seem to be, you know, getting better. I just.
I just wish there was less of them.
Because it seems like there's just this, like myriad of these things out there.

Robert Nieminen   33:42
Yeah, I.
Yeah, I'm sure, Eliana. And you, they would agree, right?
I mean, just having to wade through all those different certifications and knowing what's what, seems like you almost need to agree and just certifications to understand.

Ryan   33:54
Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Robert Nieminen   33:54
You know what's going on, but yeah.
Well, looking ahead, what do you all see? As you know, maybe the biggest opportunities for advancing sustainability across all the different sectors?
Ilijana, you wanna touch on that first?

Ilijana Soldan   34:09
Yeah, I you know, I I really do think the biggest opportunity is mindset, you know, keeping optimistic, keeping optimism is so important to keep things moving in the right direction.
And I, you know, I get it.
It seems like it's getting harder and harder to hold on to optimism with the, you know, increase in climate disasters. And sometimes you get client pushback. And that's not very encouraging.
And the project teams, you know, they feel the weight of all of that.
But as you mentioned.
Production. You know, there's a lot of great advancements being made from building systems efficiency to building material science to commitments from manufacturers. As Ryan mentioned, to use you know more to be more transparent, to use more recycled materials.
And so we have seen this surge of companies and clients realizing that at this point sustainability is about survivability in the market.
And I think designers too.
I think you know we're inherently optimistic creatures because we're always striving to make the next thing better.
And I I think those are three great ingredients for a recipe to optimism and that's really what gives you the energy to keep demanding greater material transparency or hold on to your innovative design or be willing to revisit the drawing board when things aren't working out the way.
That you thought? And I I think that's where we're going to see the most advancement.

Robert Nieminen   35:31
Yeah, absolutely.
You're a. Where do you see opportunities right now?

Yure Suarez   35:38
Really love what liviana just said.
So I would like to echo that and in addition to that, I.
I really, really think that if we start thinking about.
Yure Suarez   35:54
Our designs, just as nature does.
In a very truly regenerative way where we ask ourselves, like you know, what's going to happen with this space and five years in 10 years and 50 years and you know, asking ourselves.
Like, how can these people really?
Engage with community or or embody the community of of the location where they are or where they're really. What are the the vulnerabilities and risks that this lays has that we have the opportunity to address with design, you know, all those like very deep questions that our CL.
Do not ask for, but we know and we are the experts and really act as experts and not as order takers.
And then that's where I feel more excited about the future where I.
Would think the biggest opportunities are for us in the industry.

Robert Nieminen   36:56
Yeah, I love that.
Experts not order takers, you know, so there's some.

Yure Suarez   36:59
Yeah.

Robert Nieminen   36:59
There's some education that needs to take place right still still.
But Ryan, what about on the material side of where do you see the biggest opportunities?
Is it in technology?
Material science, that sort of thing. Or what else?

Ryan   37:12
Well, I I'm gonna answer it.
Maybe one step up 'cause it's something that is just kind of personally interesting. I think coming from architecture, which is where I was trained in, I think we all collectively in this space have like a true superpower and that is we know how to take something that doesn.
Make sense? Or that's not very good and turn it into something that's beautiful and amazing.
So I love that term.
In optimism, recipe optimism.
I love this.
You know the the the nature, I mean, these are such beautiful design principles.
But yet you know how. How how do the chefs in the kitchen or all the all of us in this in this space and this power that we have to be able to take old buildings and our our current built, you know environment and and create something differe.
And beautiful. And look at all the challenges we're going to have with.
Reusing space is, you know, the the.
Office buildings and malls and adaptive reuse.
It's a current topic right now, but you know we have a very, very large built footprint that will need to change and we have that superpower now that to fundamentally make that an entirely new universe without having to start over, you know, and that that takes that takes.
A lot of the power of our collective, you know, universe design teams and all the wonderful people part of that to really imagine that future.
Regenerative, sustainable, amazing kind of space. And I think you know all of the.
Part pits and pieces that we do along the way labels to materials you know are helping about that, but I think we all know also intuitively our our education has taught us like we have these these design tools to be able to show the the rest of the.
Universe how we can get there and make it look pretty damn cool, right?
You know, polished concrete has never looked so good. And you know that looked great 50 years ago.

Robert Nieminen   39:02
Yeah.

Ryan   39:07
So you know, we don't have to, like overthink some of these things.

Robert Nieminen   39:07
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Design is a superpower. I think we need at shirt or something.

Ryan   39:13
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be. That would be awesome.

Robert Nieminen   39:16
Yeah, yeah, alright.
Well, finally, if each of you could give you know one piece of advice to our listeners designers out there who are maybe looking to adopt A more holistic approach to sustainability, what would that be so?

Ryan   39:32
Oh boy.

Robert Nieminen   39:32
See. Yeah, I know who wants to.
Who wants to go first, Ryan?

Ryan   39:37
Yeah, you better pick us 'cause that that's that's always a loaded question.
I mean, I maybe I'm going to use a really sort of trite one, but you know the the honesty and materials we were talking about this that this week but honesty and and how you think about just things. You know when you when you really look at it.
And that's why honesty materials.
Such a nice analogy for it when you look at something like a piece of wood is really beautiful and it's just a piece of wood like.
Really think about the decisions you make when you are thinking about sustainability.
Just go to the most basic piece of that and say what?
What's really good for the person?
What's really good for the space?
What's the healthy right decision to make?
You know, it's not some egotistical driven process.
It's just like, let's let's get to that honest starting point and you know our we intuitively know what that is.
So let the honesty of the process come through.

Robert Nieminen   40:28
Hmm.
Yeah, I like that. You're right.
What about you?
Any advice you wanna give?

Yure Suarez   40:36
Sure. Yeah.
Well, recently I was in an activity at the office.
With a friend, you know architects and PMS and technical resources and.
I was surprised that one of the questions that the leader asked us was, you know, what was that that motivated you when you were a kid?
That you know, you were, you felt inspired and happy. And when you really like felt.
Is like expansion in yourself and everyone in the room.
Everyone doesn't matter if it was a spec writer or a designer. Everyone said when I was outside, you know, playing with X or Y but always was when it was outside with nature within nature. And I thought that was very telling. Because then after that the whole D.
You know, started from there from that feeling of like, you know, the sense of wonder and admiration.
And in love.
And it really felt really great at everyone.
I felt like everyone was really connected with that feeling and and I think back to that activity all the time.
It's what of this that I'm doing today really helps me feel, you know, that connection with like, you know, feeling great and like loving what I do.
And then that's where I loft you.
You know, just encourage people to connect back, because sometimes we're like.
Talking about carpets and I don't know, maybe carpets are great.
Topic for some people, but there are sometimes not that inspiring.
So let's just come back back with that.
My gosh, yeah, this carpet is like recyclable or has your carpet and it's great for the environment, right?
Which I love.
So yeah, disconnect back to those that sense of of what makes you feel alive and and just bring that into your design and your activities.
I feel that's like very powerful there.

Robert Nieminen   42:37
Absolutely good advice, Eliana.
What would you say?

Ilijana Soldan   42:40
I love that carpet story.
I think it it kind of gets to the root of of. Yeah, how I would approach this question.
I mean, I would tell people to get excited.
To learn about how the world works, you know, don't don't be shy to dive into building science into material science and the global supply chain.

Ilijana Soldan   43:02
Because if we're thinking holistically and you know, we're starting to understand context as being global and adding that 4th dimension of time.
Ilijana Soldan   43:11
To the equation. Those 3 components, you know you're really getting to the foundation of embodied carbon resiliency and then passive strategies.

Robert Nieminen   43:21
Absolutely. All right.
Final question, for each of you, where can our listeners go to learn more about the work that's being done in your organizations in this space?
So, Eliana, how about you lead us off?

Ilijana Soldan   43:33
Yeah, everything that I talked about today in greater detail can be found in our sustainability action plan. We release it annually and you can find that at hcm2.com.
That's hoard Copeland Mahs website.
And in that action plan, you know, we release our we publish annual data both on our you know firm operations and then also the project work impact.

Robert Nieminen   43:49
OK, great.
Great yura.

Yure Suarez   44:02
That's awesome.
Yeah. Well, I'll direct you to the Perkins&Will website. We do have our sustainability or regenerative practice.
We call it internally live in design, so I would encourage you to look into that.

Robert Nieminen   44:13
Mm hmm.

Yure Suarez   44:16
A specific look for those keywords, and if you're like me that just likes like quick bites of information, I I really appreciate the effort that our marketing people put in things like our Instagram where the daily summarize a lot of things and there's anything specific that you're int.
In you can go to the bigger, bigger article.

Robert Nieminen   44:39
OK, great. Ryan, where can they find 3form?

Ryan   44:44
Yeah, well, you know, right at the top of website, we actually moved a couple years ago.
We moved the tabs around, so we added a sustainability tab at the top of the website.
So on the home page felt it was important to get the messaging home on spot and that's where you can verify our claim.
See, we talked about our people product plan at all the all the sub you know groups of of efforts and again the bits and pieces that we're we're chipping away at. I think we wanna there's a lot of little things down to just you know.

Robert Nieminen   45:00
Yeah.

Ryan   45:13
Little things we might do in our facility here, so we try to put all that there and hopefully people can reach out to us and have a conversation about sustainability because we want to help.
Really, I'm the end of the day.

Robert Nieminen   45:24
Yeah.

Ryan   45:24
That's what we we don't want.
I mean, you know, it's part of our business obviously, but we want to be partners in all of this going forward and people like how do you do this or what does this mean?
Yeah, let's have a conversation.

Robert Nieminen   45:36
Well, fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing those links and I'll be sure to drop those in the show notes as well for our listeners.
Ilijana Ryan.
It's been so great chatting with you.
Thank you again for being here and sharing your insights with us.
I appreciate it.

Ryan   45:48
Robert, thank you. Appreciate it.

Ilijana Soldan   45:51
Thank you.

Yure Suarez   45:52
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Nice to meet you all.

Robert Nieminen   45:55
Yeah.

Ryan   45:55
Yes.

Yure Suarez   45:56
It was really great.

Ilijana Soldan   45:57
This was awesome.

Robert Nieminen   45:58
Great. Well, for our listeners out there, we'll be wrapping up our three-part series on sustainable design in a couple of weeks, so be on the lookout for that episode in which we'll be talking about how to make the business case for sustainability.
Also, if you haven't already, please follow the I Hear design podcast.
Give us a rating and tell your colleagues about us.
That's it for now.
Thanks for tuning in and as always, be well, everyone.