Designing Buildings to Heal, Not Harm

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Avi: [00:00:00] Welcome to Deep Green. I'm your host, Avi Rajagopal, the editor-in-chief of the Architecture and Interior Design Magazine, metropolis. This season of Deep Green is brought to you in partnership with Mannington Commercial Buildings. Are responsible for 40% of global carbon emissions. The construction industry generates about a third of all the waste in our cities and the built environment.

The buildings that we live in and work in influence 11 of the 23 social determinants of health, the things that influence how healthy we are, and the construction sector is the second most at risk for labor exploitation. And modern day slavery. Yep. There's plenty of things we get wrong when we make buildings, and we've spent the last three decades trying to fix [00:01:00] that.

But what if instead of focusing on doing less bad, we could leapfrog into doing more good? That is the idea of regenerative design. The idea that we can design buildings to allow nature to regenerate. And we have with us today, one of the originators of that idea, Jason McLennan, who is also the Chief Sustainability Officer at Perkins and Will.

Jason is the author and creator of many of the building industry's most critical standards and tools such as The Living Building Challenge, the Well Standard, the Living Product Challenge. Just declare ROS and net zero certification. Yeah. His ideas and his work have earned him the Buckminster Forer Prize, the ENR, national Award of Excellence and the Ashoka Fellowship, all of which is to say there is possibly no one better than Jason to help us see the big picture [00:02:00] of sustainability in architecture.

Here's Jason.

Jason: Hey Avi. How are you man?

Avi: Thank you so much for doing this. It's been almost three years now since you stepped into the role of Chief Sustainability Officer at Perkinson World. How's that been going? What does that feel like for you? What's feeling good about it?

Jason: Well, it's been going great. Um. And, um, it was, it's proven to be a good decision.

You never know when you, when you do these things, you sell your company to another company. And, uh, but I had a, I had a good sense given the people involved at Perkins and Will, that it was gonna be a good fit. And, uh, it certainly has been, I think, the most rewarding thing. Has been the comradery, even though I have a great team, a McClennan design who, you know, all came with me, um, to join Perkins and will, um, you know, at times I felt a bit like a lone [00:03:00] wolf in practice, you know, a small team consulting with I.

Different architects around the world. Um, but with Perkins and Will, it's, it's, uh, become more of a large family affair and lots of colleagues and people that I get to see, you know, many, many times and build relationships with. So it's been really good.

Avi: I mean, it's also Perkins and Will has had, in some ways, I think a similar.

Approach to the green building movement as you've had, which is, you know, to build frameworks, to build tools to share those out. Has it felt like you are able to kind of amplify what they've been doing, um, you know, and kind of, uh, fit right into that? Are you seeing a kind of synergy happening there too?

Jason: Yeah, I mean, I'm certainly trying my best and the good thing is that there are quite a few people that are philosophically aligned. You know, it's a, it's a very large company. So you can imagine that our clients and our projects run the spectrum of, of interest in [00:04:00] regenerative design. Uh, and that's okay.

Um, and so. For some projects and some teams were able to go deep pretty quickly and others maybe need a bit more convincing. But it's really in essence why I decided to partner, um, with Perkins and Will was to increase the scale of the impact that I was having. I'm always looking for scale, jumping to use, uh, that frame wherever I can and.

Frankly, Perkins and Will is involved with billions of dollars of construction, you know, all over the globe. So to have an influence, even in a small way, um, you know, with that kind of magnitude of impact is, is, you know, really, really big. So that's why I did it. And, and I'd like to think that we're making great inroads in many areas.

We have a long way to go. And, um, you know, we're doing our best to get there as fast as we can.

Avi: This idea of regenerative design, you mentioned it in [00:05:00] passing, right? It's in itself a kind of scale jumping, right? Let's not focus so much on Okay. Little efficiencies here and there, but let's ask the big question of what, what the built environment should be and how it can do good.

Um, you know, and I think that idea, right, which is at the heart of the Living Building Challenge, which you. Wrote, um, where did that idea come from? Can you take us back to the creation of the Living Building Challenge and that framework of living design, regenerative design?

Jason: Yeah, I can. Um, and thanks for that question.

You know, I, I think the origins of, of the Living Building Challenge, um, you, you know, I could frame it in a couple different ways. Certainly when I was in college studying at the University of Oregon, I was obsessed with this idea of how do we make the most. Environmentally friendly building possible. We didn't use the words regenerative design.

I didn't use yet living building as a name yet, but I was [00:06:00] really interested in that question and I went specifically to University of Oregon to study with some professors that had been thinking about. A lot of, a lot of these issues, maybe not all the issues. Um, and wondering why can't we do the greenest thing for water and energy and health and, you know, materials and, and, and figure this all out?

Why can't we be that smart? So in some ways it was really born in college and university trying to answer that question from myself. Um, and even before that, I mean, I. I grew up in a very polluted city in Canada and participated in the regeneration of my community, along with, with many others that, uh, that community is known as Sudbury and was devastated by nickel mining.

I. And eventually we terraformed and regreen the entire community. We won a United Nations commendation, and so I saw what real regeneration looked like to go from lifeless rocks to, uh, green [00:07:00] Suburbs, was pretty amazing to grow up with and, and really that's what started me. I knew I wanted to be a green architect since I was quite little, but I didn't have all these words and ideas and, and, uh, and so on.

But after, you know, I graduated, I went to work with Bob Bile and I was looking for a way to describe what I was thinking of this truly sustainable level of sustainability. And, um, I was inspired by John Todd's living machines for water treatment. I liked the word living, but I didn't like the word machine paired with it.

Um, and so that's when I said, well, we should call these living buildings and have living futures and living lifestyles and like it's all about life. Like let's use the framework of life. And that's where the name came from eventually, and that was in 1998 when I first published an article on the living building.

So,

Avi: wow. I didn't know the John Todd connection. Yeah. John [00:08:00] Todd won the Buckminster Filler Prize, and so did you.

Jason: Oh, did I? Excellent. I've known him for many years. Yeah.

Avi: Do you think that framework is still a relevant or applicable framework in architecture today? I mean, it just feels like. On the one hand, I feel like we're always being asked to choose priorities, right?

It's like, well, climate crisis, the biggest crisis. This is the biggest crisis. The next thing is the biggest crisis. And like, you know, very often we're, we're swung about by this or other impact area or you know, outcome. Yeah. But at the heart of regenerative design is this idea that they're all interconnected.

Yep. So what do you think about that framework today?

Jason: Well, I think you've already answered it in your question to some degree. I mean, I, I think it's more relevant than it's ever been, and fortunately more needed than it's ever been needed. Um, precisely because a reductionist, single attribute, single issue approach doesn't get us where we need to go, and certainly incrementalism doesn't get us [00:09:00] where we need to go.

The rate of decline of all ecosystems around the planet is increasing. And our rate of innovation is not keeping up with the rate of the decline and the only way that we're gonna get there and something I, you know, talked about a living future is somehow a sustained awakening of the human heart, which it means embracing the totality of what life needs and what life needs is not a focus on a single issue, uh, at a time and a reduc reductionist approach to, um, the way of looking at the world.

So yes, I, I think it's more needed. It's just a daunting challenge as ever.

Avi: And this idea of, you know, that bar of what life needs, right? That's not a bar. We are used to applying to architecture at all.

Jason: No, well, not for a long time. I mean, certainly the way we used to build. Uh, was naturally in accordance with life's principles because we didn't have the techno [00:10:00] technological know-how to sort of sidestep it, if you will.

Um, but it, you know, most of humanity's history has been building in accordance with what life means as well. And we took a, you know, left or right turn, depend on your perspective, uh, you know, in the industrial revolution. And some would even argue earlier than that. And we forgot about these connections.

To the fundamental needs of life of which we are one mere small part of.

Avi: Yeah. Uh, what are some of the ways that you're finding ways to design for life in your current projects or, you know, in recent projects? Are there any strategies or ideas or frameworks that you've been testing or demonstrating?

Jason: I mean, certainly we use the Living building Challenge all the time, even if we don't get certification for every project.

It is a philosophical frame, uh, that we use. And I mean, any place that we work in, we accept that, that that place is special and sacred and [00:11:00] unique. We, uh, wanna understand how it functions, how it should function, if it's not functioning in the way that it, it used to as a, as, you know, an ecological system.

Most of the sites we have, of course, are now part of a broken industrial landscape. And, and so we try to begin every project by understanding place very, very deeply, more deeply than, than, than I think architects typically do. To understand not only what is there, but who is there and who, who is missing, and, um, and how we can begin to repair it to the best of our abilities, um, using the power of development dollars.

To create feedback loops that are regenerative and it's, it is important to acknowledge that it's only life that regenerates. It's not our egos, it's not our designs, it's not our architecture. Those are the things that either create catalysts to allow life to do what it does or hinders life [00:12:00] from doing what it does, and it's an important recognition to make, is actually what we need to do is stop getting in the way.

Start inviting life back into our projects in a way that is authentic and life, if given the chance is incredibly resilient as you know, and will come back with a force.

Avi: One of the projects you worked on recently, which is the HMTX World Headquarters in Connecticut. It has so many of those ways that, you know, it allows life back to come in. Can you, can you talk about that a bit? It's a great project. It's a living building challenge at Fred Project, I should say. And you know, in some small way, metropolis recognized it too.

We gave it a Planet Pass award last year.

Jason: Yes, you did. Thank you.

Avi: Can you give us a couple of examples from that project about how you allowed life to come back in?

Jason: I'm happy to do that. [00:13:00] And it is, uh, just so people know, um, it's the headquarters for HMTX industries, um, and Harlan Stone is the client, uh, that, that was the driving force behind the project.

Um, you know, again, the attitude that we took was to understand in this very unique, tight site. How did it function? What species were there that shouldn't be there, which species were missing and, and what was there that we had to build on? Um, and in that case, we tried to have the lightest touch possible.

We wanted to make sure to preserve wildlife corridors so that the species that navigate through the site were invited to continue to do so. Certainly there was. A period of disruption during construction. Um, and we built, uh, while working into mature trees, we didn't clear the site, make it flat. All the things that you're taught to do in construction, we didn't do, um, you know, people in the neighborhood I think thought we were gonna.

You know, have blasting [00:14:00] equipment out there and it was gonna rattle their windows 'cause that's what they were used to because of the granite that's so close to the surface. Um, and certainly we, you know, would've been expected to cut down all the trees and build a parking lot and so on. And we didn't, you know, none of those things.

And we kind of. Slotted this building gingerly into the site and kept trees alive and then reconnected. The hydrology after we were done with construction and, and, and brought native plants back. And we did this in a building. As, as you know, it's, this is a Bauhaus looking building. This is not, this is not like, you know, an eco hot looking thing, but I.

When you go there and when you're in it, especially when you're in it looking out, because of the mature trees that are right up close within, you know, 15 feet of the building on all sides, um, that are taller than the building, that never happens with a new building, it seems, um, you feel like you're in a tree house and that's way more biophilic.

Than any treehouse I could have came up with, you know, making it [00:15:00] look like a woodsy thing. Nature doesn't care about our aesthetic concerns, it cares about our actual impact. So,

Avi: yeah, and, and of course the most powerful way right from the start, Steven Teller in those who were talking about graphic design, uh, the most powerful way is to provide a direct experience of nature.

I mean, that's, that, that's what you gotta do. Yep. You know, when you, when you look at projects like that, then at Metropolis we come across a lot of wonderful projects, I think, that are trying to do good in some different ways. But I mean, this is certainly one of the, you know, top of the top. But you know, that's what makes it so hard to gauge.

I. What progress we're making with, you know, sustainable architecture and green buildings? You know, on the one hand I feel like we're able to do so much more than we've, than we've ever done before. We have clients like Harlan, who are, you know, much more thoughtful and much more concerned about their, their, um, footprint and their impact.

But on the other hand, you know, sometimes it feels like, well. Our car, you know, our carbon emissions numbers [00:16:00] haven't really moved that much. Um, I don't know. You know, how do you think about that? How do you feel about what progress we're making?

Jason: Well, yeah. I mean, we're winning battles, but we're losing the war, I think is the, is the issue.

I mean, yes, we, on one hand you can look at how far we have come in terms of understanding how to do this. The technologies, the economics, you know, regulatory environment, everything has gotten better generally. And we have living buildings in the world, so we have these lighthouses. Uh, but mostly we have lots of crap.

We have lots of bad buildings. Bad community planning, bad urban development. And there's more and more of us every year and we keep consuming in unsustainable ways. So this is the problem. So the, the Green building movement can simultaneously celebrate success while also having to acknowledge to itself that we failed and we're gonna have to completely change our tactics if we want to [00:17:00] solve things in the time that we have left.

And that's. Something I'm talking more and more about, it makes people uncomfortable sometimes, and I've talked about even the death of, of the green building movement as a way to, you know, instigate people, you know, a reaction from people. Uh, and we're holding a summit around that whole subject soon. Um, which I hope you'll come to by the way.

You're invited in September.

Avi: Yeah. Uh, it sounds really exciting. I mean, I think. You know, we are due for the rethink. Um, because in a way the creation of this framework of regenerative design of living buildings was. You called it a scale jump. I think of it as a, you know, a leapfrog, right? Stop thinking, small scale, start thinking, bigger scale.

And you know, what you're saying maybe is we need another scale shift like that, another scale jump like that, right? Um, where we stop thinking at the level of individual buildings and you know, as you call them. [00:18:00] Winning battles, uh, and start talking about war strategies. You've always had a global vantage point.

I mean, I know you think at Earth Scale, even when you're thinking of a single building, which is amazing. But even more so now, you know, at a global firm like Perkins and World, you have offices and work and projects happening. There's little footprint everywhere in the world and different places are, you know, have different philosophies of around green building.

I'm sure. As you're looking at that, surveying that landscape, where would you start in terms of, you know, a war strategy? Like where, what does the green Building Movement need? Like, what are your first thoughts you're gonna bring to your summit in the fall?

Jason: Well, it's really, it's really a tough one. I actually, you know, I don't think we need new technologies.

Um, we don't need new frameworks in the sense of like, yeah, we have, you know, we have frameworks like Living Building Challenge and like that's those unto themselves, you know, they don't do it. So somehow the problem is that there, you know, [00:19:00] is almost like a tribalism in the way that people think that is us versus them that is scarcity minded.

That is fear-based. If we don't crack that code, you know, as we're seeing right now, you know, in the US then we, we can slide backwards for all good progress. I mean, we just saw the demise of energy star. I mean, talk about a, a, a little framework that did a lot of good for a lot of people. Like there's no good reason to kill that, uh, save people money.

It made things, products better. It was clarity, you know, and, uh, it's killed. I think somehow we have to figure out, maybe, you know, what David Eisenberg talks about is finding a trailhead. You know, when you're lost in the wilderness, the only hope is to find the trailhead, and the trailhead is different for different people.

When we're talking to people that are very conservative, we can't show them the trail that we use because they will get turned off. They can't see it [00:20:00] and they don't wanna see it. But they have their own entry point. They have their own path because in the end, I believe fundamentally that most people.

Want life. They have children, they have family members. They love nature, even if they don't use the same words they want and need clean water and clean air, and they need healthy food to eat. And so there's a fundamental part of what it means to be human that should align most people to wanting the same thing.

But somehow our society, our religion, our philosophy, our worldviews. Forming these impenetrable barriers to getting us to where we need to go. And the green building movement as part of the larger environmental movement and social justice movement, have to figure out how to reach across the aisle.

That's not the right metaphor. It's one we use in the states too much, but, but we have to find a way to lead people to a [00:21:00] trail, a trailhead that they can, they can discover and walk upon. And when they do, I think most people. We'll get there to the, you know, get outta the woods, so to speak.

Avi: Yeah. This idea of different pathways, different trailheads as you call them, different ways of, you know, aligning along the same goals is also very close to how nature works.

You know, that's also a, a way that biomics may happens, right? Lots of different organisms. You know, behaving in their own ways, following their own truths, leading their own lives, ultimately becoming part of a larger system. Right? That's kind of the dream. That's what we want. Um, and yeah, I don't know, maybe the ways to find ways to let people in more and more, um, that them bring their own ideas in.

I dunno, it's a very provocative thought. Yeah.

Jason: It's a tough one.

Avi: Yeah,

Jason: it's a tough one. When we feel like we have all the answers.

Just follow the science. Right. We all said follow the [00:22:00] science, and fortunately it didn't work to convince people.

Avi: Yeah. Yeah. Well I am glad that we have, you call them lighthouses. You know, the living buildings, you yourself have designed several of them. You know, we have buildings that when people are ready, when they set out on their trails, they have a path that they can at least refer to and allude to.

And, you know, that's, that's yeoman work. It's great. So it's such important work. So thank you for doing that. And thank you for this little conversation today, Jason. This has been absolutely fantastic.

Jason: My pleasure. Great to be here.

Avi: Deep Green is produced by the Surround Podcast Network, and this season is produced in partnership with Mannington Commercial. This episode of Deep Green was produced and edited by Rob Schulte and Rob Adler, with support from Rachel Santo and Lauren Volcker. We've been talking to the biggest experts on sustainable architecture and design [00:23:00] all this season, and a new episode drops every month.

So catch the next episode of Deep Green in a few weeks wherever you get your podcasts.