Category: Climate Action

O+A’s Eco Playbook: How to Design with the Future in Mind

During the pandemic Studio O+A looked inward as many firms did. We started on a journey by simply asking – “how is our design impacting the planet? And  – How do we design with the future in mind? We started to look at the materials and resources we use, and ask if there is a more effective and sustainable way to design. We decided to write our own playbook from our perspective on how we need to address design and what needs to change.  We were excited to share the content of the Eco Playbook completed in 2021 with our peers in San Francisco.  We talked about specifying healthy materials and design for reuse. We engaged in conversation about the role of the client and contractor and how we can build sustainability into the design process at every level.  We all agreed that conversations with experienced eco-conscious contractors is crucial to seeing our efforts through project completion. Everyone at the Climate Crawl is interested in bringing about the needed change to our industry.  We need to get to net zero, we need to engage in larger questions, we need to get regenerative –and we need to do all these things very quickly.  Climate Crawlers think we can transition more quickly if we share resources and learn from each other.  We can all be leaders in this journey.  New ways of working aren’t easy to implement, radical change is uncomfortable but we pledge to embrace the change the profession needs and to move fast to address the climate crisis.

You can download the Eco Playbook here: https://o-plus-a.com/project/eco-playbook/

The Carbon Question: what do interiors have to do with it? 

With global climate change growing in severity and urgency, architects and engineers have been grappling with the embodied carbon of new buildings for years. Because most building foundation and structural systems are such carbon hogs, the impact of an interior fit out for a new building appears as a blip – no need for designers to bother themselves with LCAs or other carbon footprint calculations. Take a deeper look: most of the global building stock already exists, and renovations never stop. New buildings exist for 25 – 50 years. Consider how many interior renovations occur within that lifespan. Interior products, from flooring to furniture, have major impacts on global warming.  

Christine Tiffin from Arup joined Suzanne Drake from Revel and the Climate Crawlers to establish a baseline understanding of what exactly embodied carbon is. Christine also shared some case studies of how Arup has used generic material types and general carbon information to drive early decision about materials to create projects that start at lower embodied carbon point. Suzanne then walked the group through some EPDs, highlighting key data points and where to find them. After the presentation, we went into workshop mode, working in small groups to “treasure hunt” for useful nuggets and discussion of how best to use these documents during the product selection phase. 

Early Phase Integrated Carbon (EPIC)

RMW’s objective for every interior project is to consider the health and wellness of our clients and most importantly the impact we have on the planet when building these beautiful interior spaces. Every project we strive to learn from our past projects and build in a more efficient climate conscious way. It is an arduous task to calculate and quantify our climate impact for each project, completely on our own.

Through much trial and error, our team found Tally, a carbon calculator tool. This tool can use our project information from Revit and give us a rough measurement of our climate impact. Tally is not a perfect tool and comes with its own challenges. We found it is a great tool for comparing design options in the beginning phases of a project. To really delve into specific interior materials, we found we needed to combine the use of Tally with EC3. EC3 is another program that connects with Tally and allows us to take the design to a DD level and compare specific products and their climate impact. We are currently working with a repeat client on a new interior buildout. With the use of Tally and EC3, we can compare our past projects with this new one. We can compare the specific materials used in the past projects with the new materials we want to use. This allows us to see if we improved our climate impact and how we can reduce even more. We hope to continue using these tools to evaluate our design and material choices throughout the design process for every project.