Architecture & Design by MarketScale

Flintco is looking to fill a superintendent Role in their Memphis, TN office.
Superintendents function as Project Managers on industry-leading construction projects from Flintco. The position will involve overseeing day-to-day operations, manage sub-contractors, and communicating with clients. Superintendents play a key role when it comes to job site safety practices and are in charge of monitoring quality and efficacy while also looking for ways to improve processes.

In this episode of MarketScale's Architecture & Design Podcast, Jim Smith, director of Invisiwall Engineered Glass Systems, a Consolidated Glass Holdings company, joined host James Kent to discuss the ways buildings utilize today’s innovations in engineered glass.

Smith gave a brief overview of the advancements in engineered glass technology, which includes stronger, and longer sheets of glass. Smith said, as clients seek buildings with a grander use of glass, Smith’s company’s job is to overcome any limitations to bring those visions to life.

Some of the challenges that come into play with these types of projects are performance parameters, long lead times, technical support, and aesthetic goals.

“In terms of lead times,” Smith said, “the developments in the engineered glass process, have improved so greatly, lead times are matching many of the curtain-wall style products.”

And to address the other challenges, CGH’s team of in-house designers and engineers work with clients throughout the process to see projects through to successful completion.

Several examples of recent projects Smith worked on in downtown Philadelphia illustrate some of the cool uses of engineered glass systems in today’s building projects. The Comcast buildings, in Philadelphia, PA, feature oversized doors in the podium section that required special engineering consideration. In the Philadelphia International Airport, Consolidated Glass Holdings helped design and create a 90-yard long, wall of glass.

What type of solution is next for engineered glass? Smith mentioned a product almost fully developed, which incorporates a pattern only birds can see and helps prevent them from flying into the glass.

The New York Times recently wrote about an architecture critic's quest to bring alive the story of South Carolina's historic homes and real estate in the face of booming new development. They called it the Newish Charleston, which is a perfect term for the give and take of new construction versus historic preservation.

No one knows this delicate battle better than Ben Buckley-Green, president of Ben Buckley-Green Construction, and Olivia T.M. Brock, founder of Torrance Mitchell Designs. The two Charleston natives sat down with frequent podcast guest and founder of Havelock Wool, Andrew Legge, and host Tyler Kern to discuss how renewable materials are helping preserve the culture of South Carolina historic homes.

Brock recently teamed up with Buckley-Green for a home preservation project -- an early 20th century single house, a one room home unique to Charleston -- using Havelock wool insulation materials.

"When I got to Charleston, my heart just was not into breaking new land and building these new homes," said Buckley-Green, a second-generation custom home builder. "It was an easy fallback for me to revert to what I love doing best, which is renovation work."

"I've got a personal interest in taking old and making it continue to work," Legge said. "Obviously there's something correlated to taking a thousand-year-old fiber in wool and using it for what it was originally intended for, which is insulation."

On this Architecture & Design Jobcast, brought to you by MarketScale, we sat down with Jessica Reiks of Watson, a furniture manufacturer creating user-centered, tech-ready, and future proof consoles, to discuss the open role of Sales Account Manager. Reiks said the ideal candidate is organized, interested in building solid client relationships, and always concerned about the experience.

"This role has a great impact on even more than what it seems and what meets the eye," Reiks said. "It impacts how people work."

The Sales Account Manager is an essential piece of the company that puts personability to work, partnering with and ensuring the long-term success of their customers. Developing lasting relationships to deliver solutions in a timely manner, the Sales Account Manager will be building cross-functional relationships with internal and external key players, striving to deliver a world-class client experience for products that are changing how we bring technology into our everyday work lives.

Jessica shared insight into the company's culture around the water cooler, so to speak, and answered one of our signature questions -- What fictional character best embodies this role -- with a nod to a rom com classic.

The job basics include:

If you'd like to apply for this position of Sales Account Manager, head to watsonfurniture.com/careers.

Today’s consumers are more and more concerned with their health and the health of the planet, and their buying choices reflect these holistic values. Construction materials, like insulation, are no exception to the rule. Though fiberglass insulation has long been the industry standard, there are healthy and environmentally conscious alternatives that are upsetting the market. One such company is Havelock Wool, a San Francisco based small business offering wool insulation to eco-conscious consumers. Here to talk about Havelock Wool is the founder, Andrew Legge, along with a satisfied Havelock customer, Christine.

“Whole Foods is growing, and McDonald’s is shrinking,” says Andrew, and this trend is what reinforces the notion that Havelock has real staying power in the market. Andrew says, “people are paying more attention to their health, and it starts with what you put in your body every day.” Havelock customer Christine agrees as she explains what drew her to Havelock: healthy values, sustainable wool, and using natural materials in the construction of her home. Though wool is, at the moment, a costlier alternative to fiberglass, Andrew often asks clients the question: “Why are you trying to spend as little as possible on basically the whole reason you’re building this structure—which is to protect you from the elements.”

“Wool is the most dynamic fiber on the planet,” says Andrew, and installing it in your home is an investment in the future, a future of rising temperatures and sustainability concerns. Smart consumers are driving the wave of wool in construction, wanting a healthier alternative to the harmful off-gassing of fiberglass. With wool’s added benefits of managing moisture and purifying the air, it is only a matter of time before the market catches up to this natural alternative.

As consumers develop an interest in healthy, high-performance building products, coarse wool products such as Havelock Wool are becoming the gold standard for a truly green insulation product.

Today on the A&D Podcast brought to you by MarketScale, host Tyler Kern sat down with Cameron Reith, founder and partner of Greenhome Solutions, a family-owned green building product supplier and Andrew Legge, founder and managing partner of Havelock Wool to discuss how consumers are finding their way to this unique replacement for traditional fiberglass insulation.

While fiberglass has replaced more hazardous asbestos insulation in recent decades, the thin fibers of plastic and glass are also dangerous for human inhalation. Pinpointing the safety issue, Legged asked: "If you won't touch it, why are you spec'ing it for your architect in your building?"

That's why construction experts like Reith have come to recommend Havelock and other green building products in his Seattle-based Greenhome Solutions store.

"Wool is an amazing fiber that performs no matter what application," Reith said, who made Havelock Wool its exclusive recommended insulation solution. "Whether for your socks or your insulation, wool is good with moisture and it's got comparable R-value to anything that's in those walls. It's really is a no-brainer for us."

Reith and Legged also discussed how green-minded customers in Seattle, specifically, are showing what interest and demand there is for green insulation solutions.

"With wool, there's just no better fiber for the purposes of insulation," Legge said.

Summertime is primetime for the construction industry, but those summer temperatures and bright sunlight serve as visible reminders for how important solar control products are for buildings and their occupants.

On this episode of the Architecture & Design Podcast, host Tyler Kern sat down with Jeff Miller, solar control products manager for Draper Inc. to discuss the key benefits of proper shading for buildings. The Indiana-based, family-owned company manufactures window shades for sunlight control and room darkening.

When you think of solar control products, more commonly known as window shades, energy savings come to mind as the obvious benefit. But Miller said occupancy comfort is a critical benefit of window shades.

“Energy savings is definitely a big part of window shades but we’re seeing more and more discussions about occupancy comfort and workroom productivity,” Miller said.

But how do window coverings affect employee productivity?

Heat build-up in a particularly sunny part of the office is one factor. Glare on a computer screen is another important one, he said. While the screen itself and harmful blue light can create problematic strain on eyes, a very common cause of strain is unfiltered natural light from a window.

“When it comes to window shades, two of the main characteristics to look at are the color of the fabric and the openness factor,” Miller said. “Color affects how you view through the shade.”

White fabric, for example, has a lot of reflectivity. That’s good for reflecting light back out, but doesn’t cut inside glare and can affect the occupants’ ability to see through the shades, Miller said. Interestingly, a dark color fabric helps minimize inside glare and has better visibility through it because the dark color absorbs light.

A low openness value (1%-3%) will block more sun and deliver a higher level of privacy but it will also allow for less view through.

Increasingly, buildings have adapted to the personalities of the businesses that inhabit them. Flexibility in the workplace has changed corporate functionality, but also brought about new challenges.

Not only are businesses looking for a certain aesthetic and design, but research has shown that elements of the office place can make a deeper impact.

“The built environment: buildings, places, spaces where we spend time, can have a real impact on human health and wellbeing,” Jessica Cooper, COO at International WELL Building Institute said.

Cooper recently delivered a keynote speech at Metrocon 2019 in Dallas, Texas, an architecture and design conference.

WELL Building Institute seeks to transform offices to improve performance of workers within them, not only at work but in life.

While it has been proven that design choices affect employee efficiency, health and morale, there is no universal blueprint, and Cooper must consider the obstacles unique to each individual project.

“There are other things related to region or culture that might impact the types of solutions project teams implement to achieve those same health outcomes,” she said. “You may have a different aesthetic, different technology, different design solution or even a different policy that works in one place better than another.”

There is no question that working standards and practices vary greatly across the globe and not every solution is applicable to all, but Cooper said WELL is focused on several key areas.

These include air and water, nourishment, light, movement, sound, thermal comfort, materials, mind and community.

Worker expectations continue to evolve as fast as the places where their work is done, and perhaps more companies will take these considerations into account moving forward.

Minimalism in home design has been all the rage for decades, and there’s no dearth of home renovation cable TV shows encouraging a simplistic lifestyle. But on this week’s episode of the Architecture & Design podcast, Erika Egede-Nissen, director of marketing at Walker Zanger, makes the case for maximalism in curating a tile collection.

To really open homeowners’ and decorators’ eyes to the beauty of tiles, Egede-Nissen invited them to Walker Zanger’s slab gallery, an impressive indoor facility where guests can find the perfect slab in a comfortable, temperature-controlled environment.

Walking through the showcase is like traveling back in time as the gallery displays slabs with fossils and gorgeous sentiment that has been pushed through stone over millions of years to form breathtaking patterns.

“You can’t help but think about the beauty of Mother Nature as you walk through the slab gallery,” Egede-Nissen said.

To her, Walker Zanger is a company of designers, creators, and artists, and her job as a marketer is to help folks doing a home remodel or building a house feel great about their decision.

One of the fresher trends she wants to see celebrated is maximalism, and argues that the concept isn’t about big bold colors or using multiple prints. Rather, it can be about selecting layers of colors and textures, or mixing styles such as gold and brass.

“More is more is okay," Egede-Nissen said.

She likend designing a living space to curating a museum collection which isn’t amassed all at once, but built upon over time. Similarly, home designers can collect tiles and slabs over many years and gradually incorporate them into a space.

In the end, Egede-Nissen just wants homeowners to fall in love with where they live and play.

“Have some fun with your design that brings you joy and gives you happiness," she said.

When a restaurant group or retail chain wants to build a series of new locations, how do they go about securing the properties and completing the construction? There are a number of pitfalls to navigate and complexities to be aware of in this process.

Anthony Amunategui and Vinny Catullo joined Tyler Kern to discuss how CDO Group helps some of the world’s most recognizable brands achieve their expansion goals in record time.

“Every one of the deals we look at has individual little values...so we really try to look at projects holistically,” said Amunategui. He went on to emphasize the need to have a process in place for how to approach every project rather than shooting from the hip, which he says wastes time and resources.

CDO Group is pushing the envelope and moving the industry forward when it comes to cutting down on construction times. Vinny Catullo highlighted the importance of the work letter in avoiding unforeseen issues and keeping a project on track, allowing it to be completed in as little time as possible.

“The goal was to get one group of projects down from six weeks to 21 days, and then down to 11 days,” said Amunategui. This emphasis on precision, speed and efficiency is beneficial for all the parties involved, including the contractors, who are able to move on to new projects more quickly.

“I think the biggest thing we do at CDO Group is...we look for people that are constantly challenging themselves,” said Catullo. “We’re questioning all different areas of our process, the construction process, our clients’ process so we make that better.”