PODCAST · arts
piper: decoding healthy & regenerative design
by Piper Republic
Piper explores the diverse stories of the designers, architects, builders, brands and wellness experts working to make the built environment healthier and more sustainable for people and planet. Each episode aims to decode the complexities of healthy and regenerative design to make it more accessible to designers of all backgrounds.
Episodes
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Scaling Natural Building as a Poly-Solution with Massey Burke
What does it take to bring natural building out of the dirt road context and into the urban fabric? For natural materials specialist Massey Burke, that question has shaped two decades of work. From her first encounter with integrated natural building as an intern at a nonprofit permaculture site…
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Decarbonizing the AIA's Brutalist-style headquarters
In the 1970s, Brutalist-style architecture and the use of concrete in its purest, raw form were the name of the game. It was a demonstration of innovation, cost effectiveness and service to the public good. But now, 50 years later, priorities and needs have changed. Some of the Brutalist…
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Taking Circularity 180 Degrees
Making reuse and circularity repeatable, scalable and efficient is not without its challenges. Especially in an economic model and an industry like the built environment, that was set up to move linearly. But after seeing how much waste construction produced, the team at the design-build firm 180...
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Raising bale: Building a straw think tank
Thirty years ago, out on the Carrizo Plain just east of San Luis Obispo in central California, 30 or so natural-building enthusiasts met at a deserted motel to explore the formation of a California natural building group. This initial gathering was a byproduct of the Natural Building...
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Rebuilding regeneratively after a wildfire with Anni Tilt and David Arkin
After a wildfire destroyed their half-century-old family home in Sonoma County, architects David Arkin and Anni Tilt (Arkin Tilt Architects) set out on the journey of rebuilding. Rather than focusing on the tragedy, they saw it as an opportunity to not only flex their architectural and natural...
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How story can preserve and erode architecture with Michael Paul
Let's travel back to the late 1800s to Tombstone, Arizona––a boomtown where gunslinging, gambling, saloon brawls and shootouts like the Gunfight at the OK Corral were the norm. Where outlaws, vigilantes and "lawmen" like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday wrote the rules of frontier justice. It was…
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Connecting bio-based materials: Inside the BBMC
On a November morning in 2023, more than 60 individuals across the bio-based construction value chain descended upon the MASS Design Group office in Boston to address one question: How can we begin to rapidly scale regionally produced, renewable building materials across the Northeast? This...
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Rewilding Through the Art of Storytelling with Joel Caldwell
Writer, photographer, filmmaker, grassroots organizer…Joel Caldwell dons many titles, but at the heart of it, he is a storyteller––and a powerful one at that. An avid outdoors person, Joel grew up in rural Washington, worked on a dude ranch in Montana for a bit, then moved to Colorado, where, as…
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Circularity in Interior Design: The New Designer Mindset
In talking about the embodied carbon and waste burden of the built environment, much of the focus has traditionally been on the structure and enclosure––or the core and shell––of the building. But in more recent years, some of the attention has shifted to the interior. And early studies show that...
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Forging Transparency Pathways to Responsible Wood With Evan Schmidt and Oliver Ogden, Sustainable Northwest
For a material as seemingly straightforward and simple as wood, it has a very complex, layered and often opaque supply chain. While certifications like FSC, SFI and PEFC may tell you the wood came from responsibly managed forests, it's a very small part of the story. Like organic labels on…
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The evolution of material transparency with Lona Rerick
Like many of today's architects and designers, Lona Rerick wasn't taught material health in school. She had some exposure to sustainable design in college at the University of Oregon, which seeded her interest, but it wasn't until a lecture she attended as a young practicing architect that she…
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Nobody said it was easy: Overcoming resistance to change
For the composer, conductor, songwriter Steve Hackman, life has been a journey through parallel realities––or maybe, parallel dualities. At a young age, he developed an appreciation for music. And, it was all music. Whether Beethoven or the Beatles, Mahler or Pink Floyd, they all got equal…
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Rising from the urban ashes with Paul Hickman
According to the US Forest Service, 36 million trees are removed from urban areas every year. These trees offer a tremendous opportunity to reduce some of the demand on forests. But, this quality wood that could be used in furniture or the built environment, is more commonly chipped, incinerated…
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Five innovators from Greenbuild '25
What do a battery-operated induction range, hemp insulation, a straw-based structural insulated panel (SIP), a whole-life carbon visualization tool, and product transparency software have in common? Well, for starters, they were all at this year's Greenbuild conference. But more importantly,...
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Understanding materials through the lens of data with Melanie De Cola
In 2009, the American Institute of Architects launched the AIA 2030 Commitment, a strategy and framework that takes direct aim at reaching net-zero emissions in the built environment. Naturally, design and building materials are bedrock to achieving that goal. And so, in 2018, the AIA introduced...
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LEED v5: The path to building product transparency with Wes Sullens
Responsible material selection and procurement is keystone to lowering the environmental impact of the built environment and improving occupant health over the entire life cycle of the building. In recognizing this, most green building certifying bodies are continuously evaluating how to rate and...
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From Story to Seed to Shelter: A Library Emerges from the Badlands
The badlands of North Dakota, much like a library, are rich with story. The layers of mineral deposits visible in the buttes and hoodoos that make up the region are like raconteurs of the ancient inland seas, floodplains and volcanic ash that once covered the area 28 to 75 million years ago. But...
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Reimagining buildings as circular systems with Marcus Hopper
Can buildings be circular systems? Unlocking overlooked opportunity If we were to think of buildings as living beings, how might that change the way we approach their design? Rather than thinking of them as static objects, they might become dynamic, responsive and adaptive systems––designed to...
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Turning to history to decarbonize the future with Carl Elefante
Are we too quick to turn to technology and novelty to solve today's most pressing challenges? Perhaps history and nature hold the answers to modern-day dilemmas––particularly those related to environmental degradation. That is the stance architect, past AIA president and now author, Carl Elefante...
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Carbon smart: Is all wood good? with Jason Grant
We need forests. They're the lungs of the earth. They're also home to more plants and animals than any other terrestrial biome. They protect watersheds and mitigate flooding. Provide us humans with recreation, inspiration and well-being. And, of course, they contain vast amounts of carbon and the...
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Taking calculated risk to drive circularity with Andrew Ellsworth
Andrew Ellsworth seems to have an incessant appetite for risk. But dig a little deeper and you see that that appetite is fueled by a profound desire to drive the positive changes that will support environmental health. And he's using the built environment as the entry point to create that change....
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Building from the urban mine with Felix Heisel
It's difficult to capture all that the multi-hyphenate Felix Heisel has achieved and created in the world of circular architecture in the past 15 years. Since graduating from architecture school in Germany, circular construction has been a central focus of his career. He's authored numerous books...
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Reducing the embodied carbon of structural systems with Luke Lombardi
In the structural engineering of buildings, concrete and steel are among the most widely used materials. Concrete is actually the most abundant manufactured material on earth. But for all of the tremendous qualities these commonly used structural materials provide, they come with high…
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The critical role of contractors in circular construction with Michael Orbank
Michael Orbank began his career as an environmental field technician, sampling soil and water to better understand the implications of petroleum contamination. But through conversations with subcontractors while on various job sites, Michael began to see an alternative pathway that could position...
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Riding the wave of curiosity to low-carbon interior renovation strategies
The seemingly benign act of curiosity actually has a very bold undercurrent. It has the power to conquer fear, challenge the status quo, propel innovation, and cultivate solutions. Curiosity is what drove Albert Einstein to revolutionize modern physics, and Walt Disney to produce the first...
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Using data and curiosity to decarbonize
Over the course of his 35-year career as a structural engineer and as the past-president of the Seattle-based MKA Structural Engineers, Don Davies has guided the construction of numerous high-rise buildings around the world. But nearly 15 years ago, his focus started to shift after realizing how...
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Proving the economics of deconstruction
In the world of deconstruction and circularity, nearly all roads lead back to a handful of industry vanguards. One of whom is Dave Bennink, more commonly known as Deconstruction Dave. Dave has been working to shepherd deconstruction and reuse into the mainstream for the better part of three...
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Finding sustainable material solutions in the urban mine
It's estimated that more than 12 million tons of wood are landfilled every year in the US. And this figure doesn't even take into account the 46 million metric tons of urban lumber that is either landfilled, chipped or burned. In both scenarios, this is wood that still has tremendous economic and...
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The economy of circular design
In the race to reduce the carbon impact of the built environment, and address planetary health and human health, circularity has become a key strategy. But, until more recently, circularity was almost like that one missing Lego piece needed to complete the build. And, as it turns out, that piece...
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Designing in a material world
Take a moment to look around your current environment. Have you ever noticed just how many materials went into the makeup of your immediate surroundings? Materials are everywhere and in everything we come into contact with. As such, they have a massive impact on us and the planet. And there's a...
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Reimagining suburban architecture to commune with nature
Is it possible to feel like you are genuinely rooted in nature while living in the middle of suburbia? That was the hypothesis architects Matthew and Maria Salenger of coLAB studio set out to test––and they used their 1950s Cedar Street suburban tract home as the test ground. In fact, they…
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Architecting wellbeing: How designers impact human health
Dr. Esther Sternberg may not have predicted she would author several books on the built environment's impact on human health. After all, until 2012, she was working as a senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) studying the brain-immune connection. But a chance encounter in…
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Designing to Mitigate Chronic Disease and Promote Wellness
Have you ever met one of those people who seems like they've already lived a thousand lives in just a matter of decades? Well, Dr. Gautam Gulati (or Dr. G as he prefers) is one of the humans…or rather super humans. He's earned multiple degrees, from medical to business to design, launched several...
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How archimania is Creating a Carbon-Neutral Corridor
663 S. Cooper may be home to archimania, an architecture firm in Memphis, TN, but that's just one detail of this unassuming (yet inviting) building on S. Cooper St. What started as the remodel of a pair of midcentury buildings and a tenacious goal of achieving zero carbon, zero energy, blossomed...
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Achieving Low-Carbon Design Through Plant-Based Building
Build shelter. Not too big. Mostly plants. Those seven simple words––though borrowed and modified from famed author Michael Pollan in more recent years––embody the ideology that has guided the Bay-area architecture firm Arkin Tilt for nearly three decades. Led by David Arkin and Anni Tilt, they...
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Could These Be the Healthiest Homes in Phoenix?
Welcome to Vali Mews, a four-home urban development in the heart of Phoenix that was designed as somewhat of an experiment. Several years ago, the duo behind this ambitious project, Austin Trautman and Lucas Johnson, set out to see if they could create the "everything bagel" of good building. Not...
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Preserving modernism, nature and human joy
Modernist architecture may be among the more divisive, debated and controversial architectural styles throughout history. But love it or hate it, few can contest its contributions to fundamentally shifting the way humans engage with the built environment. Modernist architects believed in…
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Inside the long-awaited WELL for Residential standard
Most homes are not built with human health in mind. In fact, many are actually contributing to negative health outcomes and overall poor health in occupants young and old. But what does a "healthy" home look like? What features should be incorporated and what should be avoided? This is what the...
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Civitas: Venture inside the first dual-certified zero carbon, zero energy home in the US
Can high performance and beautiful design coexist? This home cracks the code. Civitas is many things to many people. It's a study in sustainability and scalability. It's a connection point for the surrounding neighborhood. It's a test in pairing high design and high performance. And for Barry...
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How mindful MATERIALS is creating a framework for a healthier built environment
Like all great movements, mindful MATERIALS grew out of a need. For many years, it existed as a database, but along that path, it began to attract stakeholders from all corners of the building industry who were passionate about proliferating healthy materials action. Architects, designers,...
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What is the Red List and why should you care?
Have you ever considered how many chemicals you encounter on a daily basis? And how many of the chemicals are hazardous to your health? It's not something most of us typically think about unless prompted by the distinct odor of off gassing or a visible warning label. But the fact of the matter…
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Is organic architecture foundational to sustainable design?
Is organic architecture the key to sustainable building? This home in Scottsdale, Arizona, designed and developed by desert modernist architect Craig Wickersham, is an exploration of the principles of organic architecture as taught by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. This project, at the base…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Piper explores the diverse stories of the designers, architects, builders, brands and wellness experts working to make the built environment healthier and more sustainable for people and planet. Each episode aims to decode the complexities of healthy and regenerative design to make it more accessible to designers of all backgrounds.
HOSTED BY
Piper Republic
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piper: decoding healthy & regenerative design currently has 42 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
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Piper explores the diverse stories of the designers, architects, builders, brands and wellness experts working to make the built environment healthier and more sustainable for people and planet. Each episode aims to decode the complexities of healthy and regenerative design to make it more...
How often does piper: decoding healthy & regenerative design release new episodes?
piper: decoding healthy & regenerative design has 42 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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piper: decoding healthy & regenerative design is created and hosted by Piper Republic.
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