Alaina Money-Garman, Founder and CEO of Garman Homes, and Matt Daigle, Founder and CEO of Rise, join us on this episode 173 of Art of Construction.

This episode was recorded live from the Rise booth at IBS 2020, where we did a Deep Dive Series with industry experts to uncover their vision for sustainability in the building industry. ​Co-hosting this series with Devon is Rise Founder & CEO Matt Daigle, who we’ve previously featured on Art of Construction episode 123 titled Sustainable Building Made Easy for Professionals and Clients.

On this first episode of the series we were joined by Alaina Money-Garman, who with her homebuilding brands Garman Homes and Fresh Paint, as well as her online blog Build Like a Girl, has been making waves in the industry. With Fresh Paint, Alaina strives to address affordability by simplifying the home buying process, condensing square footage and adding more features. She also strives to create unique relationships with her clients and the trades based on mutual attitudes and passions, a strategy that ultimately works to waste less of everyone's time and leads to a more sustainable model for how we build homes. 

Join Devon and Matt as they go on a journey with Alaina live at IBS to hear her insights and see what the future has in store for sustainable homebuilding!

Sean McCreanor, Co-Founder and CEO of Assignar, joins us on this episode 172 of Art of Construction.

Assignar is an end-to-end operations platform for construction sub-contractors and self-perform GCs. Assignar helps grow revenue, productivity, efficiency as well as gaining visibility and eliminates paperwork. Their clients operate in road, rail, civil, commercial, mining, oil & gas, infrastructure & other construction disciplines across the US, Canada, Australia & New Zealand. 

Sean’s journey to creating Assignar began with an extremely relatable problem of drowning in paperwork, operations and logistics. In 2013 Assignar was built as a proof of concept to solve operational challenges that came with the growth of his rail subcontracting business, which was expanding nationally. Being a tech guy, he designed and built the Assignar prototype, and once implemented into his sub-contracting business there were measurable results within 2 months.

As they say, “the rest is history.” Since launching into the market, Assignar has continued to experience 300%+ annual growth and counts many sub-contractors, asset owners, large General Contractors and publicly listed companies as customers. 

Join Devon as he goes on a journey with Sean to learn all about what led him to create Assignar, how Assignar can be used to drive efficient workflows and reinforce company culture, and how all of this allows us to do the one thing we all want to do: BUILD MORE!

Visit assignar.com/AOC to sign up and receive a special offer just for our listeners!

Matt McMullen, Justin Gross and Mallory Gaylor, former Associate Principal and Associates at Abel Design Group, join us on this episode 171 of Art of Construction.

Several months ago we featured the founder and managing director of Enscape, Moritz Luck on AOC episode 157 entitled How a Video Game Became Architecture’s Most Powerful New Tool. Now, after hearing the story of how this amazing new company and tool came to be, we wanted to take a deeper dive into Enscape and what it has to offer the AEC community. We’ll be doing this by interviewing three power users who utilize Enscape in their architecture firms.

In this second episode we spoke with three members of Abel Design Group, a firm that has recently adopted Enscape into their workflow within the past year. Building off of our first episode in this series, Justin and Mallory reflected on how using Enscape has improved their pitches and overall design process.

So far in this series we’ve been focusing on the power of Enscape to let designers create stunning presentations of their projects to stakeholders. But the ability to visualize as you design, instantly rendering BIM-designed buildings with beautiful graphics that give the utmost attention to detail, undoubtedly has effects on the entire design process as well. 

In the old days, the architect’s design was mostly in their heads, and they did the best they could to translate that onto 2D drawings or long, drawn-out rendering processes. But now, Enscape lets architects and designers  instantly see and experience their design decisions in real-time. This means that architects can make a design, virtually walk through it, and then decide whether or not they succeeded in what they were aiming for. If not, they get back to work. And if they are in the project stage where they've already sold their design, they can do the same with their client to gather feedback.

This sort of virtual, real-time design feedback certainly has huge implications for the Art of Architecture as a whole. In the end, all of these improvements mean more design freedom for architects, and increased visual communication between those who designed the building, the contractors and affiliates that end up building the building, and the ultimate owners and users of the building. This means we are all on the same page. And as we all know, when every party in a construction project is on the same page, everything turns out better. 

Enscape is certainly an amazing new company that’s making waves in the industry, and we are honored to help tell their story in this Deep Dive Series. Stay tuned for our final episode with Turner Fleischer!

Charlie and Wendi Getcher of BOA Builders join us on this episode 170 of Art of Construction.

BOA Builders build new construction, renovation and design/build projects in Mesa County, CO and are local customers of Devon’s company Mountain View Window & Door. Over many years of building custom dream homes for clients all over Colorado, Charlie and Wendi have taken in many lessons learned about the entire process and how to ensure a custom home build works out best for both the client and the builder. 

There are a lot of elements to account for when it comes to building a “Dream Home,” and the homeowner might not be aware of many of them when first entering into the process. The problem is that many lesser-known factors, such as local building codes, soil condition, the fine print of a bank loan and more, have the potential to completely derail a project if not properly accounted for at the beginning. 

It for this reason that Charlie and Wendi chose to get out in front of the process and write their book Building Your Custom Dream Home: What You Need to Know. To begin with the end in mind, this book is aimed at all those who may be thinking of building their own dream home, and walks the reader through extremely valuable insight, tips and precautions that can only come from a long career of building homes and learning something new each time. 

We at Art of Construction are a global megaphone with a global audience. But it is always nice to return to our roots here in Colorado and spotlight a company that is locally working to evolve their business and their industry by creating tools for contractors and affiliates such as this book. This book is an amazing tool to put in your arsenal, AOC Tribe. Join Devon as he goes on a journey with Charlie and Wendi to learn about why they wrote the book, what you can find out from reading it, and how you can take these lessons learned to grow your own business today!

Enoch Chow, Director of Digital Practice at EYRC Architects, and Matt McMullen, Associate Principal at Abel Design Group, join us on this episode 169 of Art of Construction.

 

Enscape's company statement starts with this message: “Enscape has a passion for 3D and VR. Our mission is to realistically experience the design of any project ahead of construction. This creates higher confidence and leads to better and faster decisions.”

 

Several months ago we featured the founder and managing director of Enscape, Moritz Luck on AOC episode 157 entitled How a Video Game Became Architecture’s Most Powerful New Tool. Now, after hearing the story of how this amazing new company and tool came to be, we wanted to take a deeper dive into Enscape and what it has to offer to the AEC community. We’ll be doing this by interviewing three power users who utilize Enscape in their architecture firms.

 

On this first episode in the series we spoke with Enoch Chow, who as Director of Digital Practice has lead the charge of incorporating Enscape into business operations at his firm. Devon, Matt and him spoke at length about the history of rendering in the architecture and construction worlds and why it’s so valuable that what used to take up to 2-3 weeks can now be done in a few hours with Enscape. This is the power of real-time rendering. 

 

Ultimately, Enscape is about setting up architects and designers to create the best possible presentations they can for their project’s stakeholders. Those precious hours in front of all relevant parties on a construction project are architects’ time to shine, and the moment most vital for the financial success of their firm. More than ever before, Enscape allows users to use these precious hours to really tell the story of their design, what their intentions were, what it will feel like spatially, and to really leave all stakeholders with that “WOW” factor that is never possible to get from a drawing on a piece of paper. 

 

As we always say on Art of Construction, this platform is about connecting technology to handshakes. In this case, the technology is Enscape and the professional’s hand we are shaking is Enoch. It’s great to be able to take a bird’s-eye view on all this new technology and talk over what it means for our industry, but to really get down into it and speak to those who are putting these new tools into practice in their daily lives is where the path forward becomes the most clear on how we all can best use these new tools.

 

Enscape is certainly an amazing new company that’s making waves in the industry, and we are honored to help tell their story in this Deep Dive Series. Stay tuned for more episodes featuring team members from Abel Design Group and Turner Fleischer!

Scott Brown, Owner and COO of Franklin Window & Door, and Patrick Gruetzmacher, CEO of Summit Automation, join us on this episode 168 of Art of Construction.

 

We are so excited to be offering you this Deep Dive Series, Indoor-Outdoor Living brought to you by Summit Automation. In this series we will be diving deep into Big Doors! Many words are used to describe this hot trend like Moving Walls, Scenic Doors and alike, but no matter which term we use it is undeniable that floor to ceiling glass is the new big thing in home construction. What does this mean for contractors and affiliates? What adaptions must we make to take this new approach to design and construction head-on and use it to grow our business? Joined by PJ Gruetmacher, CEO of Summit Automation, we will be interviewing three owners of window & door dealerships across the US to find out the answers to those questions and so much more!

Big Doors might sound like a very specific topic, but as we've learned in this Deep Dive Series it is related to a huge shift in the industry as a whole. Prepping a house for things like automation tracks and floor-to-ceiling glass is no easy task, and requires a huge shift in the way buildings are built. In essence, the rise of the Indoor-Outdoor Living Movement forces us to do things differently.

When you're putting a 10 by 20 foot hole in a home for one of these doors, it could lead to unforeseen obstacles that require a different knowledge base than that of the builder installing the door. Something at this level of technicality cannot be handled in its own silo, but must be be done in collaboration with all other members of a construction project. Because replacing wood and metal structures with more and more glass requires so much technical knowledge, the key is not to try to gain all that knowledge by yourself. The key is to form strong, transparent relationships where you can all work as a team to best create the Indoor-Outdoor space the homeowner has envisioned. 

Scott Brown has a been at the forefront of the industry with Franklin Window & Door for many years, and was a great guest on this final episode of our Indoor-Outdoor Living Series brought to you by Summit Automation. Join Devon, Scott and PJ as they close out this amazing series at Window Dealers in Atlanta, spotlighting the way Big Doors and automation are pushing our industry forward today.

Zach Soflin, COO and Founder of Layer, and Matt McMullen, Associate Principal at Abel Design Group, join us on this episode 167 of Art of Construction.

 

Layer is a flexible data management app that encourages team collaboration and integrates directly with Revit. Layer makes it easy for architects, engineers, and building owners to manage project data, files, notes, and tasks from one intuitive workspace that organizes everything by its building context.

 

Before Layer Zach was a working architect, and he originally created Layer as a solution to a very specific problem he faced on a project at his firm. The original software was used in beta by his design team restoring the Nebraska State Capitol to successfully document and organize building data for more than 3,000 rooms and windows. Rather than choosing the typical workflow of keeping separate spreadsheets for data, separate file folders for photos, and long email chains and word documents for tasks and notes, the project team chose Layer. The app saved the team countless hours by syncing project data and centralizing communication into one easy-to-use dashboard that they could use on site while also working within the Revit model.

 

Eventually, Zach saw a gap in the AEC industry as a whole that he believed Layer could fill, and so launched Layer as it’s own company in April of this year. This type of integration of design, management and operations with data capture has been a hot topic in recent months here on Art of Construction. But one thing that makes Layer especially unique is that they are not trying to disrupt any specific workflow or other platform, but rather attempting to serve as the all-in-one connection tool to bring all these other platforms together under one roof.

 

And, for all our contractors and building owners out there, it all began by solving a specific pain that we can all relate to.

 

Join Devon and Matt as they go on a journey with Zach to learn all about the story of how he came to create Layer, why they’ve chosen to integrate with as many platforms as they can, and what the future looks like for using captured data from a variety of sources to help you grow your business and work more efficiently!

Chris Guido, Owner of Guido Materials, and Patrick Gruetzmacher, CEO of Summit Automation, join us on this episode 166 of Art of Construction.

 

We are so excited to be offering you this Deep Dive Series, Indoor-Outdoor Living brought to you by Summit Automation. In this series we will be diving deep into Big Doors! Many words are used to describe this hot trend like Moving Walls, Scenic Doors and alike, but no matter which term we use it is undeniable that floor to ceiling glass is the new big thing in home construction. What does this mean for contractors and affiliates? What adaptions must we make to take this new approach to design and construction head-on and use it to grow our business? Joined by PJ Gruetmacher, CEO of Summit Automation, we will be interviewing three owners of window & door dealerships across the US to find out the answers to those questions and so much more!

 

In this second episode, Chris Guido tells us all about the story of Guido Materials, his style of leadership, and how his company is tackling the expansion of the Big Door movement. As glass panel sizes continue to get bigger, jobsite safety during installation becomes a bigger issue as well.  That is why Chris’s team at Guido Materials heavily vets each Big Door project long before they’re on site to ensure a safety issue doesn’t arise later on. Along these same lines of increased safety, PJ dives a little deeper into how Summit Automation is working to ensure their products pass safety certifications that guarantee these huge moving walls won’t ever hurt someone in your home.

 

Ultimately, Chris and PJ both agreed that when it comes to these new, bigger projects, integrity is key. As homeowners continue to want to go bigger, building in these new Big Door products requires increased levels of coordination and communication between the builder, manufacturer and subcontractors. It also means sticking to your word if you want to be successful. 

 

Join Devon as he goes on a journey with Ben and PJ outside Window Dealer Days at Glass Build America 2019 in Atlanta to uncover all there is to know about the new Indoor-Outdoor Living Movement!

Eddie Wang, Growth Hacker at App Sheet, and Mike Saltijeral, Owner of Industrial Fence Inc, join us on this episode 165 of Art of Construction.

 

In many recent episodes we have discussed the Big Data explosion currently happening in design and construction. When on this topic, the question usually arises of what exactly the best way is to utilize this data to help grow your business. If you ask AppSheet, the answer is that there is no one best way. In fact, the best way will inevitably be different for each and every company. It is with this mindset that AppSheet provides a no-code application development platform that allows users to create mobile, tablet, and web applications using data sources like Google Drive, DropBox, Office 365, and other cloud-based spreadsheet and database platforms.

 

We’ve had a ton of construction platforms on this show before, but AppSheet is unique in that it is all about empowering the user to create a custom app instead of selling the user something pre-designed. In order to better tell the story of why this is powerful, Mike Saltijeral joined us to explain how AppSheet has given him the ultimate freedom to create unique and innovative solutions to the situations his fencing company faces.

 

Mike’s story is one that many business owners currently adopting new technology can relate to. And for business owners that have so far hesitated to adopt new technology, his story serves as an inspiration. Join Devon as he goes on a journey with Eddie and Mike to learn all about AppSheet, what it means to be able to build problem-solving digital solutions for your company without needing code, and what it takes to be a true leader and pursue these solutions in a way that benefits your entire team and your customer community. 

AppSheet helps construction process owners create the tools they need to improve their business without writing a line of code. ​Start for free on the platform and build any app for up to 10 users with all our features enabled. They have plans for every size team starting from pay-as-you-go model user licenses to business plans with increased functionality, security, and speed.​

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Take an extra 20% off your first year with discount code: "AOC" if you purchase by 12/15 at appsheet.com/AOC

We are so excited to be offering you this Deep Dive Series, Indoor-Outdoor Living brought to you by Summit Automation. In this series we will be diving deep into Big Doors! Many words are used to describe this hot trend like Moving Walls, Scenic Doors and alike, but no matter which term we use it is undeniable that floor to ceiling glass is the new big thing in home construction. What does this mean for contractors and affiliates? What adaptions must we make to take this new approach to design and construction head-on and use it to grow our business? Joined by PJ Gruetmacher, CEO of Summit Automation, we will be interviewing three owners of window & door dealerships across the US to find out the answers to those questions and so much more!

 

In this first episode, Ben Collins tells us all about what he’s done with his company Morrison Millwork to tackle the growing Big Door trend head-on, some of the biggest obstacles he’s faced along the way, and how he’s used the power of teamwork and strategic partnerships to overcome those obstacles. And PJ, being the owner of an automation company who allows these huge doors to move effortlessly, chimes in on the importance of planning and thinking ahead in order to prepare a home for a fully automated Moving Wall System. 

 

When it comes to evolving the way we build buildings, tribe, the only way we can truly do it is together. When it comes to Big Doors, success requires coordination between manufactures, custom builders and dealers alike. Thankfully, that sort of network is exactly what Summit Automation and Morrison Millwork are aiming to create. 

 

Join Devon as he goes on a journey with Ben and PJ at Glass Build America 2019 in Atlanta to uncover all there is to know about the new Indoor-Outdoor Living Movement!