piper: decoding healthy & regenerative design

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 in northern California, Massey knew natural building was in her DNA. She felt an instant connection and over time came to see earthen materials and the ancient techniques used to assemble them into shelter as poly-solutions to the current polycrisis.

As the director of the California Straw Building Association (CASBA), co-founder of Verdant Panel, a panelized straw wall system, and natural materials specialist (and sometimes, chemist), Massey has made it her personal mission to scale the values of open-source, natural building while being careful to uphold the traditions of it.

This episode examines the technical foundations of working with site-sourced and regional materials and the broader movement to scale natural building. Massey discusses supply chain development, prefabrication innovation, and policy engagement and the need to preserve the community-centered, transparent values that distinguish these living traditions from industrialized construction. Throughout the episode, she renovates a tool shed into a home office using five natural building techniques and three ingredients.

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 structures from half a century ago no longer suit the needs of their occupants or the environment. And that was the case for the AIA headquarters building in Washington, D.C.

The organization needed a building that more accurately reflected its values, the principles of the Framework for Design Excellence and the value architects bring to the table. So, they tapped EHDD, a San Francisco-based architecture firm with a decarbonization secret weapon, to lead the renovation of the existing headquarters and bring it to net-zero carbon.

In this film, Rebecca Sharkey, principal at EHDD, walks through the team's approach to achieving zero carbon. And Melanie De Cola, director of Climate Action Pledge Programs at the AIA, Terri Stewart, chief financial and administrative officer at the AIA, and Kevin Watkins, chief operating officer at the AIA, share what it's like working in the building now.

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 Degrees was motivated to do something about it. Where there were barriers, they saw opportunities––opportunities to expand their services, skill set, and creativity.

Over the past 25 years, after adding building services to their architecture firm, they've steadily taken on more challenging reuse projects. Along that journey, they also added an in-house fabrication team, The Guild, which up-leveled their ability to reimagine materials.

In this episode, James Trahan, AIA, a partner and principal at 180 Degrees, talks about some of the challenges of reuse in the built environment and how mindset (and storage) play a big part in overcoming them.

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 Colloquium-Southwest, a touch of serendipity, and a few too many in-flight cocktails shared between three California builders.

It was 1995. Turko Semmes and Greg McMillan, builders from the San Luis Obispo area, had just wrapped up an inspiring week at the colloquium held in the small town of Kingston, New Mexico. They felt like they had found their tribe––people from all corners of the world interested in straw, earth and bamboo building materials, alternative energy technology and natural building systems.

How could they share this with people in California, they wondered?

This is the story of the start of the California Straw Building Association (CASBA), how they sparked a statewide straw bale building movement, impacted natural building at the national level, and built a support network along the way. Now, the founding members are passing the torch to the next generation to uphold the values of the straw bale community while also addressing the needs of today.

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 building muscle, but also design a place that was resilient, regenerative and as fire resistant as possible.

This is part of the story of their multi-year journey and a look at some of the materials and strategies they used to achieve their vision. They also share some lessons learned.

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 where vice and violence met. It was the Wild West. At least that's what the Hollywood myth-making machine and opportunistic local entrepreneurs would have you believe. And at the heart of all of this legend and lore sits the Bird Cage Theater. Built in 1881, this unassuming building has endured a lot in its nearly 150 years on this planet, and yet, it has somehow remained perfectly preserved. Its story, on the other hand, has been altered significantly over the years.

And that's what led historical researcher, art photographer and now author, Michael Paul, to research and write a book about the Bird Cage Theater. In this interview, Michael describes what his research revealed about the truth and mythology that surround the Bird Cage, what piqued his interest in researching it, and how the legend and lore surrounding the theater helped preserve it all these years while simultaneously eroding all this building contributed to the community.

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 intrepid group, which included designers, developers, builders, farmers, foresters, educators, suppliers, manufacturers, engineers, and policy makers, formed what is now known as the Bio-Based Materials Collective (BBMC). And in less than two years since that November convening, the focus and size of the Collective have broadened dramatically. No longer focused on just the Northeastern US, the Collective is now attempting to solve the scaling challenge across North America. Luckily, the membership base has scaled alongside that expanded focus, growing more than 12-fold since its inception.

In this episode, James Kitchin, director of the Abundant Futures Design Lab at MASS Design Group; Catherine Murphy, director of education for the Parsons Healthy Materials Lab; and Jacob Waddell, president of the Hemp Building Institute, describe how the BBMC came to be, how the members are working to advance the use of bio-based materials in the built environment, and where the group is headed.

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 he puts it: was a backcountry-skiing, motorcycle-riding, mountain bike guy in full send.

Eventually, Joel found his way into documenting environmental stories from all around the world. But years of covering environmental destruction started to weigh on him. Around that same time, following a trip to the Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa, Joel discovered the miraculous world of eco restoration and rewilding––suddenly that helpless feeling shifted to one of empowerment. And every story since has been from that vantage point.

Through the art of storytelling, he's on a mission to demonstrate there's no gesture too small, particularly in the built environment. Material choices, plant choices, sourcing choices all have an impact.

In this interview, Joel talks about some of his most recent documentaries, why he believes storytelling is so powerful, particularly the rewilding of our damaged ecologies, and how he finds stories.

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 interiors can actually surpass the embodied carbon impact and waste burden of the initial building over its average 60-year life. This is because of the rate of interior renovation, which in commercial environments is now occurring every five to 10 years, roughly. And because materials used in interiors tend to be more complex––they're often mixed, bonded or composites––they're typically harder to recycle. Rather than given a second life, things like carpet, wall systems, FF&E, ceiling tiles, and mechanical and electrical equipment are relegated to the landfill.

Enter, David Bergman. A self proclaimed eco-optimist, David has built a career around inspiring those in the design field and beyond to consider a mindset shift––that sustainable design and lifestyle choices don't have to equate to sacrifice. From his ecology club days in high school and college to authoring a book on sustainable design, and helping bring more sustainability courses to the Parsons School of Design in New York, to his latest venture, the Center for Circularity in Interior Design, sustainability and circularity have simply been a way of life for David. To him, these should be the standards of design, rather than considered part of the "green movement". And though the interest started in childhood, it was a fortuitous exhibit of eco-materials in the 90s that challenged him to shift his thinking.

In this interview, David shares what it will take to make circularity the standard in interior design rather than an afterthought.

David Bergman is the program director of the Master of Professional Studies in Interior Environments at the New York School of Interior Design, founder and director of the Center for Circularity in Interior Design, and adjunct professor at the Parsons School of Design, author of "Sustainable Design: A Critical Guide".

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 produce, these certifications can offer some peace of mind, but they don't tell you the lineage, where specifically the wood came from, the forest management practices, or how it was handled along its journey. As the use of wood and mass timber continues to grow, sustainability leaders across the design and construction industry are starting to require more transparency to meet rigorous sustainability goals. And that's where organizations like Sustainable Northwest come in. This environmental conservation nonprofit does many things, but one of them is connecting responsible forest owners with buyers and specifiers, creating transparent, regional supply chain networks…from forest to frame.

Seeing the impact Sustainable Northwest was having on forestry, mass timber and local, rural economies, compelled Evan Schmidt and Oliver Ogden to join the organization as part of the wood market team. Though each took different paths to the nonprofit, they ultimately started from the same place: a lifelong passion for nature.

In this episode, Evan and Oliver discuss some of the challenges and barriers that exist in the responsible wood procurement process, how they're working to connect responsible forest and land owners with designers and builders, and how those person-to-person connections impact the wood products industry.