MarketScale Manufacturing

Globally, there are 2.4 trillion square feet of constructed environment, a number slated to double in the next 40 years. Instead of racing to build faster and cheaper, there is a growing demand to build better and more ecologically responsibly. What better material is there than two age-old renewable resources that are finding popular use as high-quality building materials: wood and wool.

Today on the Marketscale AEC Podcast, host Tyler Kern sits down with two company founders in this burgeoning renewable materials space: Andrew Legge, founder of Havelock Wool, and Andrew Linn, co-founder of BLD.US.

“There's a very simple but important notion in building: materials matter,” said Legge. Havelock Wool is a Nevada-based insulation manufacturer which uses 100% sheep wool as its natural and high-performance home insulation.

Havelock Wool recently teamed with Linn’s BLD.US to build its ecologically-sustainable home office. The Washington, D.C.-based company creates durable and affordable buildings built mostly of renewable materials like wood and bamboo as alternatives to steel and concrete.

“Wood is a technology that’s being rediscovered,” said Linn.

As unlikely as wood and wool seem for durable building materials, Linn says these Mother Nature-developed materials are helping minimize the need for drywall and fiberglass insulation-- two particularly ecologically-taxing materials to produce and install.

While high-quality, sustainable materials may cost more, the worldwide customer demand is more than a trend; it’s a movement, Linn said. Though it seems the needle moves more in commercial high-rise buildings, Linn said he hopes builders will start shifting the tide to sustainable materials in smaller buildings and single-family homes.

“For builders, it’s a differentiator,” he said. And in a market where builders are desperate to differentiate themselves from similar home builders, sustainable and ecologically-sound building materials could be the real change-maker.

Plenty of trends come and go within the realm of home design and interior decorating, but how do you balance the hot trends with functionality, especially when designing for a family? How is this family-focused design evolving season to season, and which materials are the most popular for those designs?

Survivor was a wonderful fit for Spradlin, who knows how to make the most out of the least number of things, as the name minimal animal would suggest. She has made a name for herself and her business by not only being a minimalist, but by using other beloved elements, like vintage ones, in conjunction with a minimalistic flair.

Spradlin has also had to adjust her designs based on the makeup of users, and in her own case that meant making things suitable for her three young children.

“Everything was brass and glass and super fussy and having this troop of toddlers take over my home, it really has changed the way that I approach design. Form really does follow function in our home,” she said. “If it’s something that they’re destroying, it really doesn’t have a place here anymore.”

A big part of finding that balance comes down to the materials. Spradlin found that quartz, specifically from HanStone Quartz, was appealing to clients for its natural look, but also its durability.

"It gives that organic feel, but also it gives you the functionality for a family where you can literally just go to town," Spradlin said.

For Spradlin, everyone has a different idea about what minimalism is, and for her, it’s about the ability to work with each individual client to make a space that's clean, aesthetically up to date, but functional. Her experiences on Survivor have given her a unique perspective on adaptability.

“It was really about being adaptable, the way I played Survivor, and that really translated into the home,” she said. “It’s all about being fun, functional, and enjoyable.”

Anyone who has ever flicked through DIY shows on HGTV has gotten the itch to renovate an outdated kitchen or bath. But then the questions hit: "Where to begin?" and "how do you make the room reflect a specific personality or vibe?"

Design guru and Director of Marketing for Walker Zanger, Erika Egede-Nissen joins today’s MarketScale podcast to walk us through past and current trends in refurbishing the kitchen area while educating listeners on the benefits of restyling a home with rich layers of texture, tone, and color.

Before ever entering a tile showroom, consumers have already spent 70 percent of their time researching design inspiration and products online, Egede-Nissen said. The influence of Instagram and Pinterest in the home decorating market is enormous. The platforms set and sell a mood. They elevate unique design solutions and empower others to make bolder decisions in their home that really reflect the people living in it.

A 1930s home, for example, is brought back to life with handmade mint green ceramic tile from Mexico sourced by Walker Zanger. These bold design choices reflect the homeowner and make for a more personalized experience. The aesthetic experience is rejuvenating, and Egede-Nissen said it “doesn’t cost that much more.”

Though a pure white kitchen or bath may never go out of style, Egede-Nissen said that homeowners are getting bolder with their design choices. These consumer-driven trends are in line with the Walker Zanger mission to create unique kitchen and baths that reflect the human living in them. The Walker Zanger tailored service makes redesigning a kitchen or bath a personalized experience, where the finished product is a richly layered room of distinctive textures like ceramic tile, quartz, stone, and metal.

A&D professionals today have an abundance of information and options available to them when it comes to unique technology and specific building materials for every project, from product libraries to professional recommendations. So of course, they want to make the absolute best choices that are both architecturally sound, aesthetically pleasing, and financially responsible.

Kendal Carlson, vice president of new product development of FireRock Building Materials, is a building materials expert, and joined us on the podcast to explain why the trend toward creative steel use is checking all the A&D boxes for the next "big" material.

There has been significant growth in steel over the past several years and as the trend continues to rise, there are more suppliers, better price points, and products with better performance.

With all of the options available, “most people can figure out a way to incorporate this timeless look into their homes," Carlson said. Both homeowners and business owners have started turning to steel as the aesthetic choice for their window frames.

Although steel may seem like a new window material to some, it has actually been a popular choice since Frank Lloyd Wright first used steel windows in the 1930s in Falling Water. Steel was the standard for single-pane glass, but as glass itself advanced and many started using dual pane glass for climate control, steel had to adapt to support the thicker glass, and still continues to improve every day.

Today’s steel can be thermally broken to prevent the conduction of temperature from outside the building to the inside, and has a little bit of a leg up on wood for several reasons. It can pass energy codes nationwide, especially with thermally broken profiles, and can be galvanized to prevent rust with just light bathing required to keep it looking beautiful and preventing harm.

Renting an RV for a road trip has become a staple of American culture and family bonding. But for a vehicle meant to enable a closer connection to nature, renting an RV is also equated to funny smells and a machine that wasn't too friendly to the environment meant to be explored. Enter Homegrown Trailers, a company that is making something completely different.

Today we sat down with Corey Weathers, co-founder and CEO of Homegrown Trailers, and Andrew Legge, founder and managing partner of Havelock Wool, to look at a design partnership that's reinventing the RV. Wool doesn't immediately scream "RV" when its traditional uses are considered, but this green project has truly broken the mold of what a traditional RV has been and can be.

“There were people who wanted to travel healthily and couldn’t be in [an RV] or spend the night in one,” Weathers said, “so it limited their ability to have that kind of lifestyle. Our unit opened up new possibilities for them because of how it’s made and what it’s made with.”

After looking at the Living Building Challenge, wool came up as an option and Weathers happened to have a conversation with Legge about using wool for trailers. Originally, they were using loose fill that got packed into walls with netting to hold it into place, but Havelock was able to provide them rolls of wool, which streamlined the process, making it up to a third faster.

“There’s always a challenge going to a new material,” Weathers said, especially when using a green material. "It may not be the easiest material to work with." They both describe their design challenges, the pros and cons of wool in RVs, as well as the customer feedback they’ve received due to using wool in these units.

hopping malls used to be the bastion of booming retail business, attracting not only shoppers, but groups of people who were looking for a place to hang out. A study published in July of 2018 stated that approximately 20-25% of shopping malls would close over the next five years. What this means is a vast swath of unused real estate in desperate need of creative repurposing. Enter: the AEC industry.

On this week's episode of the MarketScale AEC Podcast, we'll take a look at the ways that developers and architects are rethinking empty shopping malls, revitalizing not only the former shopping space, but also the surrounding areas in the process. We'll also look at the growing possibility of a bullet train for the state of Texas and break down the positives and negatives of such a project.

"It's encouraging to see old shopping malls turning into something new and helpful for the community," Sullivan says.

Reduced pollution, increased leg room, and easier ticketing are a few of the tangible benefits of the train for travelers in the Lone Star State. There are drawbacks, however, that have some residents and detractors speaking up. One of the primary negatives that people have cited is the issue of land acquisition. At this point, Texas Central has acquired roughly a third of the land necessary to complete the project.

Another issue is the problem of "last mile" transportation to and from bullet train stations. Integrating rideshare programs along with pre-existing public transportation will be crucial to the longterm success of this project.

In our MarketScale AEC podcasts, we often focus on products that are cutting edge as well as the innovative people that design and install them. Today, we to look at the sales side. It is equally important on the back-end to find out what the customer wants and needs, and to have someone who can coordinate the sales and installation of the product effectively.

On this episode, we speak with Alan Nudi, director of sales and marketing for Ergo Robotic Solutions, a company that was designed to increase safety during glass installations. With an aesthetic trend for glass in design, the kinds of installations hitting the market are growing in size; glass can be hundreds or thousands of pounds, and the outdated method of a dozen people trying to hold and move this glass with suction cups is never the safest. Solving an issue like this comes from understanding the needs of this niche side of AEC; Ergo has made it its mission to provide that solution, creating and designing machines to produce a safer environment for the glass installer.

These machines aren't limited in their use; they can lift wood, concrete, types of foam, or other materials. But they are always approached with the perspective of glass first because it's the most delicate. There are also machines that can rotate and turn items as necessary, or approach buildings that are not on level ground or that are extremely high up. For sales teams getting these assistive products to the AEC industry, Nudi explains why it's important for them to understand the environment. It dictates the solution that is recommended, whether it be self-driving, under hook, front mounted, or otherwise.

Give this episode a listen for more tips from Nudi about understanding the intricacies of every job and interfacing with the customer.

An automatic finishing system would historically be constructed like a Ford model production line system. You would have a monorail based system, and products would hang and move at a certain rate of speed through certain processes until each one finished. Differentiation of products would go by weight, with heavier products together on one sturdier chain line, while lighter products might be somewhere else.

What sets a city up for a great first impression? It's not the landmarks, or the people, or the food. Realistically, nothing sets a first impression quite like a city's airports. For visitors, it's the first representation of the culture, style and feel of the community they're about to explore. For residents, it's a hub of travel; a welcoming point of departure to the outside world.

Some of the nation's busiest airports are undergoing renovations, redesigns and upgrades in 2019. New York's LaGuardia Airport is progressing on its $8 billion expansion, Denver International Airport began its terminal renovations, and Salt Lake City International Airport gets the first finished tunnel of its $3.6 billion rebuild.

It's no surprise that these upgrades come at a high price point, and bigger bills means bigger stakes. Take Mexico City, for example. A $13 billion international airport scrapped after a referendum, leaving local architects puzzled and upset. Barring the political nature of the cancellation of the project, it all raises some important questions for AEC professionals. How do you aim to build something permanent and functional that is representative of what the city culture wants and needs, especially when it's a publicly funded project? How do you prepare for the unexpected, when city governments approach you with suggestions, alterations, or cancellations?

We sat down with Eric Peterson, Principal Architect & Head of Aviation for Alliiance, one of the nation's top airport architecture firms, to ask these questions and maneuver around the common pitfalls that come with such large scale, publicly funded construction projects. "One of the things that I think is problematic, is when designers and planners or even airport leaders lose track of what the common good is, and get lost in the aggrandizement of their vision as opposed to the collective vision," Peterson said.

Peterson also analyzes some of the biggest trends in airport architecture that are pushing for more accessibility and more authentic experiences, and how it all encompasses a "cohesive message." "Something that could be around for 50 years in society...there's been a lot of talk around authenticity, the importance of that. And I think in the airport environment and the relationship to a community, that's equally important," Peterson said.