Building Good

Buildings from around the world represent the culture they were built in. From gothic cathedrals in Europe to glittering glassy office towers. So why don’t we always think about local culture when we start designing? Why don’t we talk to the community and ask for the stories they grew up with, so they can tell us about their culture? That’s what Chris Cornelius, founder of Studio:Indigenous, does. He joins Building Good to tell us how listening is the starting point for any of his projects.

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If you head downtown in any major Canadian city you will see a lot of construction, and it is mostly large residential towers that are going up. That means more people living there, but the roads stay the same size. More residents, more cars, more traffic. So we have to rethink how we use those roads, and how we get people on to more efficient modes of transport. The cheapest, easiest alternative is the good old fashioned bicycle. Dana O'Born is the chair of the board of Cycle Toronto and a year-round cyclist. She’s here to talk about how construction can work better with cyclists to help us build better cities for users of every kind of transport. 

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Human nature makes the future a scary place. Scientists had predicted pandemics for decades, but the Covid-19 pandemic still felt like it came out of nowhere. Our tendency is to react to events, rather than get ourselves ready for likely eventualities. Markku Allison and Molly Connor have developed a free tool to help change our thinking and learn how to be ready for the future. They’re on the show to talk us through the tool, which you can get at https://chandos.com/futureready, and to discuss what the future might hold for the architecture, engineering and construction industries.

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If job sites can be hostile environments for women and nonbinary people, how do we get them into construction in the first place, so they can change those workplaces? Nora Spencer founded Hope Renovations. They run a programme to bring women and nonbinary folks in the trades, which includes training on dealing with job sites and then they employ them in internships. They’re also a nonprofit providing renovations to seniors so they can age in place. Nora joins the show to tell us why her trainees are proving to be the perfect people to do this kind of work, straddling construction and social work. 

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When we’re starting a new, dream job, we can overlook some annoyances, thinking they might get better. As we get older, more experienced though, we might realise that annoyance was a red flag. That coworker’s “jokes” were actually a sign of an intolerant attitude, and that promotion you wanted is given to someone less qualified. You still love what you do, but would you tell a young person to go after that job? Jamie McMillan has been a welder and ironworker for 27 years and she’s the founder of KickAss Careers and Made In The Trades, and she spends a lot of time getting kids excited about the trades… but she also understands that getting them in is only half the battle. We have to change the industry so that they stay for the long haul, too.

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Afdhel Aziz is a “recovering marketer”. His purpose used to be helping some of the biggest brands on the planet sell their products, and he did that by connecting them with “cool”. Now, he thinks that “cool” has been replaced with “good”. He’s even written a book about it: Good is the New Cool. He joins us to talk about how companies need to have a purpose beyond just making profits, because that purpose ultimately does lead to profit.

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Heading into downtown Toronto you see a forest of cranes and partly built condo towers. These buildings are providing new, much-needed housing… for a certain type of resident. They’re mostly small, with good amenities and high fees. So where will all the families live? Where do our low and fixed income neighbours move to? Cheryll Case is an urban planner who puts affordable housing and inclusion at the heart of her strategy, through her non-profit firm CP Planning. She’s on the show to help us understand how we in the construction industry can help people like her plan for more affordability and equity in housing.

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Cities are phenomenally complex, living spaces that can generate an overwhelming amount of data, so collecting, managing and using that data is also phenomenally complex. There are huge pitfalls to avoid, privacy being the obvious one, and misuse by private entities another. Data is an incredibly valuable tool though, especially as we look to manage massive increases in electricity use. The “Smart City” is a concept that John Lorinc has covered in his book “Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias” and he joins the show to tell us how smart cities are operating in the real world, what’s gone wrong, and what technology we desperately need to transition to a green economy.

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What’s so scary about being the man who speaks up for women at work, especially when courage and accountability are traits that so many of us feel “make a man” in the first place? David G. Smith, PhD and W. Brad Johnson, PhD are “The Workplace Allies”, and they’ve drawn on their military and academic experience to write “Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace”, so we invited them on the show to talk about how that applies to industries like construction with varied places of work and differing cultures.

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Planning cities requires a lot of data. That data can be difficult to penetrate, and that’s where synthetic cities come in. Myrna Bittner and RWI Synthetics create complex visual models of cities that are used to experiment and model what might happen with new projects like transit, housing or even if every resident owned a guinea pig. If you’ve ever played SimCity you’ve probably got a pretty strong image in your head right now… it’s like that, but much more complex and far more useful. 

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Nature has been engineering for billions of years, so why do we think we can do better than her? Biomimicry is taking that ancient evolutionary design process and using it to build buildings and design systems. Jamie Miller is Director of Biomimicry at B&H Architects and he joins Jen to talk us through how we can go further than just minimising harm to the environment, we can have a positive impact on the natural world, if we just mimic and work with it.

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Building Good is about making the built environment better. We’re a place for the conscientious construction worker, the innovative engineer and the environmentally conscious architect. We’re relaunching with a bigger and better show, and in this new season we’re looking at what buildings can learn from nature, whether smart cities are really that smart, and how men can do better on the construction site. We’re covering social justice in urban planning, and how builders can be better allies. We want to change the AEC space for better, for good. So join us at buildinggood.ca, and subscribe to the show so you don’t miss our new, bigger and better season. Coming July.

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With a labour shortage that isn’t being solved with only Canadian workers the solution should be obvious: immigration. Canada’s immigration system has values built into it which make it hard to recruit tradespeople though, and when workers do make it to Canada their qualifications are often not recognised. So how do we fix it? Bill Ferreira has an idea of how we can make immigration work for everyone in Canada. He’s the Executive Director at BuildForce, where he’s helping to create a workforce of skilled trades professionals domestically and abroad.

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Our host Tim Coldwell is not OK with the industry standard. There aren’t enough Indigenous partnerships and communities often aren’t involved in decisions around projects that affect them. That’s not just morally wrong, it’s a missed opportunity. Our guest Jodee Dick is CEO at Khowutzun Development Corporation and for her Indigenous partnership isn’t optional, it’s mandatory - and, it’s overdue. She’s been working with First Nations for over 30 years so she has plenty of thoughts on how we should be working together, because that will help us build good for settlers and Indigenous peoples alike. 

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Why does it matter if a construction project buys from diverse suppliers? If I’m a gay electrician, why should I be open about that? If an architect or carpenter is hiding their sexual orientation or gender identity, how will that affect the project? Geoff Capelle is our guest host and he’s chatting with the CEO of Canada's LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce, Darrell Schuurman. They talk about creating safe spaces and why making your supply chain inclusive of LGBT+ and other diverse suppliers is better for business, how it can create a better workplace, and lead to more innovative teams.

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Only 17% of construction jobs are going to women, and even those are mostly in off-site roles. Jeanette Southwood wants that to be at least 30%. She’s vice president of corporate affairs and strategic partnership at Engineers Canada, but right from the start of her career as an engineer she noticed the barriers and hostility that women can face in this industry. When the stereotype is catcalls and bad jokes, how are we supposed to make construction appealing to all genders?

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Did you know a water fountain is a form of accessible design? It’s not just ramps, automatic doors, and escalators. Thinking about accessibility from the ground up makes the spaces we create easier and more beautiful for everyone who uses them. Sean Crump, CEO of Universal Access, spends his time fighting to make the AEC sector more accessible, both in its workplaces and in the buildings we create. 

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“Diversity” is not a buzzword. It’s not just the right thing to do. Diversity is the solution to a labour shortage, it’s the key to new insights and perspectives, and it’s a way to make our spaces easier and more welcoming to everyone. In the new season of Building Good we’re exploring how the architecture, engineering and construction sector might look if it can address its diversity issues and become a welcoming space for everyone. 

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Buying carbon offsets when you take a flight or build a building can sound a little bit like cheating. Should it really be as simple as paying your way to net-zero? Do these offsets actually do anything, or are they more like sustainability cryptocurrency… just tokens that only have value because we say they do. David Oliver is CEO and founder of Greenlines technology, a company that allows people to access carbon markets. He’s someone who knows where your offsetting money goes, and how the carbon market works. 

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If you want to build a net zero project you need to predict its energy use. That’s where Matt Grace comes in. He’s an expert in creating virtual models of houses, extensions, or even entire communities to model the ways energy is used. This isn’t just a static input/output model. It changes with seasons, and as the climate changes they have to take into account rising temperatures and more erratic weather patterns. If we want to fight climate change, we need to use energy modelling to account for the already changing climate.

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