Rethink Real Estate. For Good.

Environment

Flat is the new normal.

“Mass-market production and the commodification of housing has led to a ‘flattening’ of design into a limited set of bland, homogeneous options” writes Diana Ionescu for Planetizen.

Once upon a time, houses used to have unique features. Today, if you drive around any American city, you’ll see neighborhoods full of cookie cutter homes and rows of surprisingly similar, cheaply constructed apartment blocks. Architecture critic Mark Lamster, from Dallas Morning News, writes: “To call this ‘architecture’ is an insult to the art. Rather, think of these buildings as spreadsheets bumped up to three dimensions.” He calls this “The Flattening, a gradual draining of character from just about every corner of our lives.”

How did this happen? Cookie cutter suburbs are not new, but the trend seems to have accelerated. The status of houses has changed from family home to commodity. This has led to their design being driven purely by economics. Builders who want to appeal to a wide range of buyers, to embrace the demand for greater efficiency and to use the cheapest materials available, now favour quantity over quality and character.  

Will this shift be kind to us in the long run?  We think not.

For economic and sustainable reasons, we need to shift our focus to long-term growth of cities. This means designing and building a variety of housing types for the ever-increasing variety of family types.  And it also means designing and building to improve our cities, making them delightful places to live, not flattening them.

Read the Planetizen article here or the original Dallas Morning News article here.

Image by BrianScantlebury licensed by Canva

From beetles to mass timber.

Sandra Lupien is the Director of MassTimber@MSU, a program at Michigan State University that harnesses outreach, communications, research, education, and partnerships to advance mass timber construction and manufacture in Michigan and the surrounding region. Sandra has two decades of diverse policy, communications, external affairs, and leadership experience in the non-profit, public, and private sectors, most of it working at the intersection of climate change, natural resource policy, and equitable and sustainable community development. 

While pursuing a mid-career Master of Public Policy at University of California Berkeley, Sandra caught the mass timber bug in 2016, which led her to do at least three things: 1) research what it would take to pivot her small beetle-kill pine furniture company to mass timber manufacturer; 2) to write her Master’s thesis “Removing Barriers to Cross-Laminated Timber Manufacture and Adoption in California: A gamechanger for forests, wildfire, and climate;” and 3) to seize the opportunity to harness her knowledge and passion to help advance mass timber construction and manufacture in Michigan – her home state – in this new position at MSU. 

Before joining MSU in July of 2021, Sandra served as Deputy Director for External Affairs and Communications in the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research and the California Strategic Growth Council.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:12] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo in order to build better for everyone. And speaking of building better, I’m very excited to share that my company, Small Change, is now raising capital through a community round that is open to the public. Small Change is a leading equity crowdfunding platform for impact investment in real estate. For as little as $250, anyone 18 and over can invest in Small Change, helping to fuel our growth as we disrupt the old boys club of capital that routinely ignores so many qualified people and projects. Please visit wefunder.com/smallchange to review the full details of our raise and to make an investment if you can. And remember, investing is risky. Don’t invest more than you can afford to lose.

Eve: [00:01:48] Today, I’m talking with Sandra Lupien, Director of Mass Timber at Michigan State University in Lansing, a program focused on her outreach, research and education, all to advance mass timber construction and manufacturing in the state of Michigan. Sandra is passionate about the potential of mass timber. She came to it after exploring possible uses for wood ravaged by a beetle infestation, the result of years of drought in California. Now she’s part of an energetic community, advancing mass timber as materials for all construction types. You’ll want to hear more.

Eve: [00:02:32] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do, share this podcast and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:02:57] Hello, Sandra. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Sandra Lupien: [00:03:00] Eve, thanks so much for having me.

Eve: [00:03:03] You pivoted your career in a very fascinating way, basically from beetles to mass timber. And I was wondering if you could tell me about that journey.

Sandra: [00:03:13] The pivot from beetles to mass timber was just kind of one step in many pivots, but I’ll share this. So, I spent a good number of years, 15 years or so, working in the nonprofit sector and then a little bit in the public sector on mostly climate and environmental and sustainability policy. And I decided very much at mid-career in my early forties to return to school and do a Master of Public Policy, which I did at UC Berkeley. And the timing of my arrival in that program at UC Berkeley was fall of 2016. At that time, California was facing, which was to that point, the worst drought it had ever seen, and that was creating conditions on forests that bark beetles really like. And so, beetles were infesting many, many, many, many thousands of acres of California forests, killing off hundreds of millions of trees and as somebody with a climate change lens, I thought, wow, well, there’s obviously a reason on the causation side that this is happening. Right? The drought is exacerbated by climate change. These beetles are coming in. Lots of trees are dying. But if all of these trees are so many of these trees burn or rot at a fast pace, that’s going to emit a lot of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that we really can’t afford to be emitting, right.

Sandra: [00:04:28] And so, at first, I thought, I had a friend, His name is Sam. He and I worked together and then we did this same master’s degree program at the same time. And we were talking about, well, what could we do with this wood that’s on California forests that would be better served coming out of the forest, right? To achieve healthier forest density and to reduce the amount of fuel on forests. What can we do with that that would store the carbon absorbed by the trees in the forest for a long time? So, first we started making furniture out of this bark beetle pine made like slab-based furniture with steel bases. Very simple stuff. And we were selling it under the brand Sapphire Pine, a company that we started reflecting on the fact that this beetle kill Pine has this beautiful blue stain that’s created by larva left in the woods. So we’re making the bark beetle furniture. It’s very cool. And it was compelling for people. They liked the story, and we were like, well, that’s nice that we’re making this furniture and we’re having fun doing it, but, you know, the volume that we’re able to do and that we’re ever going to be able to do is about a billionth of a spit in all of the oceans of the world.

Sandra: [00:05:32] In terms of the scale of this problem, there’s so much of this wood and fuel on forests. What could we do to use more of it in a sustainable way? And that’s when we learned about mass timber. And most of your, some of your listeners might know what mass timber is, but I’m just going to define it. It’s an umbrella term for a variety of large, engineered wood building construction materials. So, picture a really big columns and beams or even large wall panels made out of materials that you’re very familiar with. Two by fours, one by two is all different types of dimensional lumber usually pressed together with a hydraulic press with adhesive between the layers. Right, so these are.

Eve: [00:06:08] We’ve been using, for quite a long time, laminated beams, right?

Sandra: [00:06:12] That’s right. Yes. Glue lam.

Eve: [00:06:13] Part of the mass timber movement, right?

Sandra: [00:06:15] That’s exactly right. Yeah. glue laminated timber has been around for a long time.

Eve: [00:06:19] Glue lam is what it was called. Yeah, that’s right.

Sandra: [00:06:21] People have seen those, and now it’s been adopted into this larger family known as mass timber. So, we thought, well, this is a compelling use case. You know, these, these materials are big. They can be used structurally; they can be used decoratively. And if you use them instead of other types of building materials that are less sustainable, you can store carbon in a building and have generally a lower carbon footprint in your building. So, we were excited about that. So, first we started investigating, what does it take to manufacture mass timber? Could we do that as a company? And we were learning all about the business side of this, you know, potential. And then we thought, well, we’re trying to use materials like these dead wood or smaller diameter trees that aren’t really in the marketplace yet, and so it’s difficult to get them there. So, what types of policy interventions, we’re policy students at the time, would be helpful?

Sandra: [00:07:11] So, I did a thesis on how could California remove the barriers to the manufacture and adoption of mass timber in order to achieve benefits for forest health, climate change more generally and to reduce wildfire hazard, and then, of course, to reduce the carbon footprints of our buildings. So, that was kind of my pivot. I got super obsessed with mass timber. All I wanted to do was work on mass timber all the time. And even though Sam, my business partner, and I decided we’re not going to manufacture mass timber and we’re not going to make furniture anymore either because we both kind of got interested in other directions. I wanted to continue to stay engaged in mass timber in terms of helping to create markets and policies that would help support those markets. So, that’s what I’m doing.

Eve: [00:07:51] So where are you doing that now?

Sandra: [00:07:54] I work at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan and Michigan State University is a large research and teaching university, one of, I think it’s the first land grant university in the United States. So, created in the 1800s. And MSU has a triple mission for research, teaching and outreach. So, where I fit in at Michigan State University is kind of in that outreach space. I’m what’s called an academic specialist with an outreach focus. My working title is Director, Mass Timber at MSU, and this program is a collaboration across our Department of Forestry, our School of Planning, Design and Construction, and the extension, which is the outreach wing of our university. A lot of people are familiar with that extension concept at US universities. And so, what I like to say is we’re uniting forests in the built environment through outreach and education to really achieve sustainability on forests as well as in our built environments. So, that’s where I am.

Eve: [00:08:53] So, the problem in California with the beetles, I mean, what are the problems that you’ve seen in Michigan? Are they different?

Sandra: [00:09:01] In terms of forest health and such? You know.

Eve: [00:09:03] Yeah.

Sandra: [00:09:04] All forests in North America are seeing a variety of different problems, some of which are exacerbated by drought. There’s always different types of pests on forests that create issues. But in Michigan, some of the forest density and forest health and certainly that wildfire hazard is less pressing, which is a good thing. In Michigan we have a strong culture and a strong history of having a forest products industry that has been a very important part of our economy for the last several decades. That industry has been less robust than it used to be. Still going, we still have some major mills and forest products producers in Michigan, but there’s room for more opportunity here. So, one of the things that is very compelling for the state of Michigan is the idea of, and when I say state, I mean the state government of Michigan, is having a mass timber manufacturer locating here. I mean, Michigan is a history of innovation, of manufacture, of fabrication. All of these things really support the idea that, you know, we also have one of the densest forest canopies in the country. So, it very much supports the idea that, yeah, we could be making mass timber panels and columns and beams here and supplying, what we’re seeing here as increasing demand, for these materials in Michigan and the Great Lakes region. So, that’s a very compelling thing for the state of Michigan. And that’s part of why I’m doing what I’m doing. The state of Michigan helps fund the position that I occupy at Michigan State University, and I’m really here to help mobilize what MSU can do, the university where I work, which is research again, education, outreach in support of sustainable mass timber construction as well as manufacture here.

Eve: [00:10:49] So, like really big picture, what problems can mass timber solve in the construction industry and also for climate change. Like, really big picture, not just beetles, but big problems.

Sandra: [00:11:04] Yes, absolutely. So, I tend to put these things into three different buckets. So, on the construction side, I think I’ll talk about construction first. So, buildings and the construction industry are responsible for about 39% of global carbon dioxide emissions. About 28% of that is attributable to the energy used to operate buildings. So, that operational energy. So, the keep the energy that keeps the lights on and keeps your air conditioning running and pumps water. So, that’s 28%. The other 11% is construction industry. And that has more to do with the materials that we use to build buildings, how those are mined and sourced and manufactured and transported and all of those aspects. So, that’s the 11% in the built environment that mass timber can really help address in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. So, because wood, which is what mass timber is made from, is a renewable material, it has an edge in terms of its carbon footprint from the outset, right? Other building materials are not renewable, they are finite, and wood is different. If we’re doing sustainable forestry and we’re doing replanting and succession planting, after we harvest, we can have an infinite resource in the form of wood. So, that’s very compelling. And, of course, kind of biology 101, trees do photosynthesis, right? They absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as part of their respiration and they emit oxygen, but they absorb carbon dioxide and then they store that as carbon in their branches and trunks and leaves and roots and everywhere.

Sandra: [00:12:48] And so, when we use wood as a material for building, we are able to extend that carbon storage benefit of trees while the wood is in use in the building. Right. So, wood is 50% carbon. We’re storing that carbon in buildings when we’re building with mass timber, and that’s very compelling, right? So, we really want to think about, you know, how powerful that is. You know, there’s a need to stop greenhouse gas emissions as part of mitigating climate change, but there’s also a need to buy time, which is delaying carbon emissions. So, as much carbon as we can store in buildings instead of, you know, emitting as we’re making materials, the better. So, that’s a very compelling use case for mass timber. We like that. In forests, you know, it’s very important that we continue to maintain the number and volume of forest that we have. It’s also important that we add new forests, right? We need forests to perform a lot of different services, right? They help clean the air, they help clean the water, they provide habitat, they provide recreational opportunities and beauty and all those things. They also provide products for things that we build and that we need as humans, and we rely on them.

Sandra: [00:14:06] So, part of keeping forests as forests is valuing them for all of those ecosystem services that I mentioned first, but also for those products, you know, as humans who are part of a society and, you know, we are a capitalist society, right? We make products from resources. And if we are saying forests are valuable in part because they produce these resources, we have a strong incentive beyond the ecosystem services side of that to keep them as forests instead of converting them into other uses like big parking lots or subdivisions. So, we want to keep forests as forests. So, that’s another important part of why a high value product like mass timber, which is a long-lived durable product that stores carbon, you know, why making that and emphasizing that as an important forest product helps keep forests as forests. So, another important case.

Eve: [00:14:57] So, where are we in our adoption of mass timber across the United States and also compared to other countries?

Sandra: [00:15:06] Yeah, great question. So, mass timber emerged from Europe 40, 45 years ago and has been slowly making its way into North America by way mostly of the Pacific Northwest and the western coast of Canada. But now we’re seeing mass adoption.

Eve: [00:15:21] Well, there’s a lot of wood there, right?

Sandra: [00:15:23] Exactly. And particularly the types of soft woods that mass timber is most frequently made from, right. So, in the Pacific Northwest there’s a lot of Douglas fir, which is a great wood for making mass timber. So, it’s making its way across and throughout the continent in that way. So, what we’re seeing in the United States is significant growth. So, for example, in 2018, according to Woodworks, which is a nonprofit organization that provides technical education, etc., related to building with wood, and they track demand for mass timber in the United States. In 2018, they found that there were 439 buildings that were either completed or in design or under construction using mass timber across the United States, 439. By 2022, in September, there were more than 1500. So, we saw that demand almost quadruple in as many years. So, that’s a big uptick in interest and demand. Here in Michigan, where I’m operating, we have currently about, we have four mass timber buildings completed. We had five new ones break ground this year. And overall, I’m tracking over 35 projects in this state alone that are either definitely planning to use mass timber or where project teams have clients that really want it. And those project teams are working to figure out the right path to delivering it. So, we’re seeing a lot of interest.

Eve: [00:16:51] So, what do you think is driving growth? Are mass timber products becoming less expensive? I’ve heard that there are zoning issues around the use of mass timber or at least building permitting issues that have to be resolved. So, I think there’s a lot of features of the built environment that have stopped it from taking hold before. How is all of that progressing?

Sandra: [00:17:11] Yeah, absolutely. There are certain barriers and obstacles which I’ll talk about in a minute, but I’ll answer the first part of your question first, which is what’s driving the interest in mass timber? And I think more than any other thing, it is the interest in building our buildings more sustainably, right? We’re seeing policies emerge at the state level in a lot of different states across the country saying we’ve got to have net zero carbon by X date, right. In Michigan that’s, we want to have net zero carbon by 2050 with some interim goals that we want to achieve by 2030. And so, for example, here the state has written mass timber into what’s called the Michigan Healthy Climate Plan, which is the roadmap to achieving that net zero carbon goal. You know, mass timber is one important tool in a robust toolkit to reduce carbon emissions and achieve net zero.

Sandra: [00:17:58] So, we’re seeing policies like that crop up across the country. We’re also seeing large corporations with ESG goals, environmental, social, governance goals, saying like, hey, we emit a lot of carbon in our operations, and we want to find ways to offset that in other parts of our operation. One way of doing that is kind of through procurement, right? So, companies like Microsoft or Google are saying, oh, you know, we’re building these data centers. We acknowledge that even as we’re trying to get, you know, the carbon footprint of our energy down, right, using more renewable sources to operate these data centers, we can also build our new buildings using more sustainable building materials. And many of those companies have already built mass timber buildings for that purpose, really to help execute against their ESG goals, which is critical in terms of how we’re driving this forward.

Sandra: [00:18:48] You know, and then there’s also some, I would not say that the materials cost of mass timber is coming down quite yet. I think we still have a need domestically, and on this continent, to increase the supply of mass timber to meet the growing demand. And we are seeing sometimes delayed delivery timelines, not always. And then anyone who’s doing a mass timber building who just heard me say that I would suggest you shop around and make sure that you’ve checked in with multiple suppliers because some of them don’t have those delays. You just need to look around, don’t get discouraged. But we will see that materials cost coming down as we get more supply online in North America. But right now, what we see are materials, costs up front are typically more than with a more traditional structural system. However, we do see the ability to achieve some cost efficiencies by reducing the amount of time it takes to build a mass timber building. And the reason why that tends to happen is because mass timber materials are usually prefabricated, so they come to your site, cut to size with all of your holes for connectors. Predrilled openings for doors and windows are cut where they need to be. And so, when it arrives, your construction team, your erectors can kind of put up the building a little bit like Lincoln Logs or an erector set. So, and as more and more builders know how to build with mass timber, and everyone who does it is like it’s not rocket science. It’s just a new thing, you need to learn to do it. But as they become more experienced, they’ll be able to reduce project timelines more and more. So, that’s one of the cost matters.

Eve: [00:20:21] Interesting, yeah.

Sandra: [00:20:22] Eve, you asked about codes and zoning too.

Eve: [00:20:25] I asked about codes because I’ve heard that can be problematic, yeah.

Sandra: [00:20:29] Yeah. The building codes in the United States, there’s a lot of variation as to what version of the international building code different states and local jurisdictions are in. So, just briefly, so states tend to update their building codes three years behind the cycle that the International Code Council uses to adopt new international building code. So, the 2015 International Building Code, IBC, it started talking about cross laminated timber, a type of mass timber as being allowable and provided instruction on how to build with mass timber and guidance in the code for that. And that was a really important breakthrough in building codes for making it possible to build more buildings with mass timber in North America and the United States and really around the world. So, that was a big deal. And many states in the US and I would say even most states in the US have adopted, at a minimum, the 2015 IBC into their state building codes.

Sandra: [00:21:30] So, in Michigan, for example, we’re on the 2015 Michigan Building Code, which is based on 2015 International Building Code, and that allows us to build a lot of different buildings with mass timber. However, subsequent versions of the International Building Code 2018 and 2021 expanded the allowable uses of mass timber, and 2021 in particular allows you to build much taller buildings with mass timber, to leave more mass timber elements exposed in your building, not having to cover them. And so that code, the 2021 International building code, is kind of seen as people who are working to advance mass timber adoption in the United States as the one, at a minimum, that we want all of our jurisdictions to have adopted. Right. So I think there’s a lot of, I would say. Some jurisdictions are slow to adopt 2021, just mostly because of bureaucratic processes and the way we do things, right. I don’t think most jurisdictions are opposed to what 2021 says, it’s like, okay, we’re getting there.

Eve: [00:22:31] It’s a lot of work to adopt it, yeah.

Sandra: [00:22:34] Exactly. It just takes some time. But in the meantime, even if your jurisdiction is not in 2021 yet, you know, you can still build a lot of different types of buildings with mass timber. For example, in our campus at Michigan State University. This is one example of many buildings that have been built under 2015 code, right. We built a 120,000 square foot three story building that uses mass timber, glue laminated timber and cross laminated timber in hybrid model with steel to create the structural system. And it’s a beautiful building with lots of exposed mass timber. And you know, you get the benefits of storing some carbon, you get the benefits of having this beautiful material in your building and all of the wonderful benefits of mass timber. So, use your codes, use your codes to build with mass timber and, you know, advocate for updated codes so you can do more with it is what I would advise.

Eve: [00:23:26] Yeah, I imagine really small jurisdictions are going to be very slow on the uptake. So, we’re going to see this emerge first in cities, larger cities or forward-thinking states maybe.

Sandra: [00:23:37] Yeah, and I think there’s at least 12 states now that have adopted the 2021 International Building Code mass timber elements. And I think most, probably most states are on that pathway. And right now, the International Code Council is working to develop the 2024, you know, mass timber elements. And so, we’ll be seeing even more permission to build with mass timber. But even then, we’re seeing jurisdictions approve variances to builders who want to go farther. I mean, the kind of like the most prominent and example that you’re reading a lot about now is the ascent tower in Milwaukee. That’s the tallest mass timber building currently in the world, although I think another building is just coming up right behind it. But it’s a 25-story building. It’s 17 stories of mass timber on like an eight-storey concrete podium. I think that’s the right split there. But, you know, the city of Milwaukee, the fire official in the city of Milwaukee, worked directly with the project development team there to do the variances that were required to get that amazing mass timber building in place. So, if you have local code officials who are like, yeah, I want to try something new, I see the benefit of having this landmark building in our city and I want to help make that happen. Then you’re in you’re in a good place to do something really innovative.

Eve: [00:24:54] So, who’s at the forefront of this movement? Like it’s a mass timber movement. And who’s pushing it along, would you say.

Sandra: [00:25:01] Sector wise, I mean, it’s been interesting. I think I would say that particularly in the Pacific Northwest, when things really started to move in the United States, I think we saw a lot of architects really coming together and saying like, we want to be designing with this stuff. This is really cool. And, you know, we love this kind of, you know, value proposition that this is more sustainable, that this material allows us to design in different ways, that we have this beautiful natural wood look inside, all of the things an architect would like, like this is innovative and cool and I’m pushing the envelope. So, we saw architects really doing a lot of advocacy in the Pacific Northwest, but at the same time in the Pacific Northwest, we also saw the forest products industry coming together and state governments coming together and saying like, we understand, you know, the potential benefit of really moving some of our wood products into, some of our lumber, basically, into these innovative value-added wood products. We see it as a way to increase revenue for sustainable forest management in our communities.

Sandra: [00:26:04] We see it as a way to revitalize our wood products industry and they really also came to the table. So, I think we saw those two sectors. In Michigan we’re having something fun happening where architects are engaged, you know, academics obviously, particularly at Michigan State as well as at our, another university here in Michigan, Michigan Technological University, there’s a lot of engagement. And even state agencies here are seeing the value. But we’re also really seeing the construction industry come to the table. So, whereas when I was doing my research at Berkeley, one of the barriers I kept hearing was like, the construction industry is nervous about trying something new, and it’s difficult for them to adapt to new technologies because, you know, you might build your whole building with an existing system and software that’s available, but mass timber is not yet part of that system. And so, that’s really challenging. But here we’re seeing a number of different construction companies kind of taking the lead and taking leadership roles here. And I think that’s very exciting.

Eve: [00:27:03] That’s very exciting. It is, yeah. So, how do you think things will change over the next 5 to 10 years? What’s five years look like?

Sandra: [00:27:12] Oh, that’s such a good question. Yeah. I think we’re going to see more domestic mass timber suppliers coming online, which is going to make it, make materials less expensive. And hopefully we’ll bring the cost into kind of a parity with other materials that we typically use to build large buildings. I think we’re going to see, we’re going to be seeing more states update their building codes to provide greater permission and clarity around how we build mass timber buildings. I think that’s just imminent. That will happen. Research is showing that we can expect demand for mass timber to double every two years until at least 2034 in the United States. So, we’re going to be seeing more of these buildings.

Eve: [00:28:01] That’s a complete industry, yeah.

Sandra: [00:28:04] Exactly. And having that supply coming online is only going to help facilitate those buildings getting built quickly and affordably. I think we’re going to see more and more multifamily, affordable housing developers starting to look at mass timber and we’re going to probably see more suppliers trying to work with those types of developers to make mass timber a really smart option for affordable housing, particularly since sometimes those multifamily dwellings have really repeatable footprints and mass timber panels can lend themselves really well to that. If we’re designing them in such a way that makes sense. So, those are some things I think we’re going to be seeing. I think we’re going to just see greater awareness across all of our sectors. My hope is that local community or urban planners and community developers will start being like, oh, mass timber is something we should always be looking at. I get this. This is becoming a mainstream thing, right? And just more and more people in the architecture and engineering and construction industry will be educated and aware of how to use this stuff. And we’ll have a workforce that is more trained to do that. There’s a lot of workforce development and training efforts underway right now that are going to help move that.

Eve: [00:29:17] So, there’s a lot going on. So, I have one last question for you, and that is, are there current trends in mass timber that you’re particularly excited about that we should keep an eye on?

Sandra: [00:29:27] Yeah, I mentioned affordable housing and I wouldn’t say that we have an affordable housing trend yet in mass timber, but we have a lot of interest in building affordable housing with mass timber and figuring out how to make that.

Eve: [00:29:39] Affordable.

Sandra: [00:29:39] Really economically, yeah, really economically practical. But bringing those really wonderful benefits to people living in affordable housing units, I mean, they should have beautiful, healthy places to live. We all deserve that. And that, I would argue that should be a human right. So, building units that are lovely to live in and affordable to me is a no brainer. And I think we can figure out how to make mass timber work there. There’s innovation happening in Canada along those lines. There’s some new innovation happening in the Pacific Northwest along those lines, we have an affordable housing developer in Michigan who’s looking at mass timber for a project. So, I think we’re going to see that emerging as a place where there’s a lot of opportunity. So, I’m very excited about that. I also think that there’s going to be a movement toward finding ways to use mass timber and more modular types of buildings and prefabricated buildings rather than just prefabricated panels and elements. So, and I think that’s going to be very exciting for people, and I think that will speed up the pace at which we’re able to get new buildings online, whether that’s housing and I would argue that getting housing done fast is super important, as we all know. So, I think that’s a place where we’re going to see some movement.

Sandra: [00:30:54] And then one thing that we’re very excited about at Michigan State University and it’s a research priority for us is figuring out, you know, we’re saying these buildings store carbon, but they store carbon as long as these materials are in the building. And then what happens when the building stops being a building? What do we do with those materials? And what we do with those materials really, really matters. And so, we’re very interested in thinking about how do we design buildings now, with an eye toward the next life of the mass timber materials in the building. So, how do we make sure that they’re easy to deconstruct and turn into something else? How do we make sure that when we design the building, we’re actually thinking like, what is this next? Is this another building? Do these materials turn into a new building? Are they going to turn into a bridge? What is going to happen with these? So, we’re very interested in starting to think about those things now. One thing we know is that when humans create new technologies, we’re not very good about thinking about the next life of their components now, and we need to be getting ahead of that curve. So, that’s something we’re super excited about.

Eve: [00:31:58] So, I know there are architects and developers in Europe who’ve been building commercial residential buildings with mass timber, partly because it permits flexibility. You know, as a family unit changes inside. They can really easily make a door opening through a wall if it’s timber versus you can’t do that if it’s concrete. So, I think that’s sort of part of the same thing. There’s flexibility there. That’s kind of, that’s really interesting I think, in the long term.

Sandra: [00:32:30] Yeah, I think we’re hearing more and more about that flexibility and especially people in the construction industry have been asking questions about that recently too. So, I think we’ll be seeing more innovation along those lines, too.

Eve: [00:32:42] So, what’s next for you?

Sandra: [00:32:44] What’s next for me is that I am kind of really preparing for the coming year and ramping up. We are going to be organizing a contingent of Michigan delegation to the International Mass Timber Conference in March, which is the kind of premier mass timber conference in the world. Last year we took 50 people from Michigan to learn together, and it was really exciting and I’m hoping to take a similarly sized group this year. So, I’m very focused on building out the knowledge bank for mass timber in Michigan, continuing to get people more interested and empowered to build with this material and really helping everybody who’s engaged in this space in Michigan feel like they’re not in it alone. They’re a part of something and it’s growing and it’s a very exciting time to be involved. So, for me it’s continuing to to do those things.

Sandra: [00:33:38] And then we also received some, quite a few grants for different types of mass timber research this year, and it’s now starting to be time to implement those. So, I’ll be engaged in helping to do a mass timber supply chain analysis and demand survey for Michigan. So, really understanding from the manufacturer perspective, what is our feedstock supply look like, what’s our transportation context, what are the, what types of materials and what species and how much and how big might we make in Michigan? And who would buy our products. So, I’ll be engaged in that. I’m engaged in a project with Dr. George Berghorn on our construction management faculty to develop mass timber, architecture, engineering and construction curriculum modules that existing courses can drop in to expose students and community colleges and universities to mass timber early in their educational careers. So, those are just some of the projects that we’re engaged in, and they’re going to be really ramping up in the next year.

Eve: [00:34:38] That’s a lot. Well, I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. I love your passion and the incredible depth of expertise you have. Who knew that beetles could bring you here, right?

Sandra: [00:34:48] I never would have thought it. I don’t know that I knew that I would be working kind of in the construction industry. And I think it’s really an exciting place to be.

Eve: [00:34:56] It sounds like it is. Thank you very much.

Sandra: [00:34:58] Thank you, Eve.

Eve: [00:35:07] I hope you enjoyed today’s guest and our deep dive. You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at RethinkRealEstateforGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. You can support this podcast by sharing it with others, posting about it on social media or leaving a rating and review. To catch all the latest from me you can follow me on LinkedIn. Even better, if you’re ready to dabble in some impact investing yourself head on over to wefunder.com/smallchange, where you can invest directly in Small Change and our mission to democratize capital formation to create impact in commercial real estate development. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music, and a big thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon. But for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Sandra Lupien

$0 Fares.

“Kansas City’s Zero Fare transit program shows major success – and what still needs to be done. It’s been three years since Kansas City voted to make its public transit free. Can it keep going?” writes Sandy Smith for Next City.  

In 2019 Kansas City council were unanimous in their vote to make pubic transit free, making it the first large city in the US to implement a $0 fare program in an effort to move towards more equitable transit options. Now anyone living anywhere in Kansas City can catch a bus for free. When the COVID pandemic began, Johnson County, Kansas, joined in.

The Public Transportation Association reports that over the last two years there was an annual drop in ridership of 25 – 26%. This may seem like a big loss, but it’s a much lower ridership loss than some other cities. St Louis Metro Transit, for example, lost almost 39%t of its riders in 2020 and more than 55% in 2021. 

According to the 2021 State of Black KC study, Zero Fare provided many riders with greater access to the city. Of the surveyed riders:

  • 90% ride the buses more often 
  • 92% can shop for food more easily 
  • 88% have better access to healthcare providers 
  • 82% can get or keep a job 
  • 86% feel that the city cares about their needs
  • 84% can explore new places

In other words, the program has seen early success. An added bonus are the savings for riders which can go towards groceries, health, education and more. 

As well as increased mobility and financial benefits, nearly 80% of riders also now feel safer on buses, a feeling backed by statistics in the 2021 Zero Fare impact analysis by Mid-America Regional Council (MARC). And let’s not forget the environmental benefits of increased ridership. MARC’s analysis suggests that Zero Fare could eliminate 7,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Of course, there’s still plenty of work to be done. Service frequency is an issue which definitely needs improvement. And more importantly, a continuing source of funding still needs to be found to make Zero Fare permanent. But Zero Fare is a step in the right direction.

Read the original article here.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Dump it Right There.

In 1992 Julie Bargmann founded D.I.R.T (Dump It Right There) studio, a landscape architecture firm in Charlottesville, VA. She set out to focus on regenerating contaminated and forgotten urban and post industrial sites. Early on, one of the studio’s first major projects catapulted her work into the spotlight and became the early poster child for D.I.R.T.

The Vintondale Reclamation Park, a 25 acre park on a former coal mine near Pittsburgh, was designed in collaboration with an artist, an historian and a hydrogeologist. An acid-polluted stream was diverted into a series of six pools, where limestone, engineered soil, and plants leeched toxins out of the water. Vintondale became a model for bioremediation and was featured in the Cooper Hewitt National Design Triennial.

Many other projects have followed, like Urban Outfitters Headquarters at the abandoned Navy Yard in Philadelphia, transformed with pathways, lawns, and dog parks. Julie won a 2014 Honor Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects for this project. Or Core City Park in Detroit, a collaboration with Philip Kafka of Prince Concepts, converting an abandoned parking lot into a public park. Completed in April 2019 this project was featured in Landscape Architecture magazine.

While studying at Harvard, Julie came under the wing and influence of Michael Van Valkenburgh. “Her energy and enthusiasm made her stand out”, he recalled, and she later worked in his firm. She was also influenced by Frederick Law Olmsted, the 19th century architect of Central Park, and Robert Smithson, the artist-designer known for “Spiral Jetty,” a large-scale earthwork sculpture in Utah.

Julie is a professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia, and was named Professor Emerita this past summer (2022) after teaching there since the 1990s. In 2021 she was named Innovator of the Year by Architectural Record and that same year was awarded the inaugural Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize (described as the landscape architecture equivalent of a Pritzker Prize). In 2001 she won a National Design Award for Environmental Design, and in 2007 was awarded the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Urban Edge Award. She was a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome for Landscape Architecture in 1990, and a United States Artists Fellow in 2008. She was named as one of the most influential people of the 21st century by CNN and Time Magazine.

Read the podcast transcript here

Eve Picker: [00:00:07] Hi there. Thanks for joining me on Rethink Real Estate. For Good. I’m Eve Picker and I’m on a mission to make real estate work for everyone. I love real estate. Real estate makes places good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or not. In this show, I’m interviewing the disruptors, those creative thinkers and doers that are shrugging off the status quo, in order to build better for everyone.

Eve: [00:00:42] Meet Julie Bargmann, the inaugural recipient of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize. This prize has been described as the landscape architecture equivalent of a Pritzker Prize, so it’s a really big deal. What makes this most exciting is the work that is being honored. In 1992, Julie founded Dirt Studio, which stands for Dump It Right There. She was intent on regenerating contaminated and forgotten urban and post-industrial sites. And it all began near Pittsburgh at the Vintondale Reclamation Park, a 25-acre park on a former coal mine. The end result became the early poster child of her business, a model for bioremediation that was featured in the Cooper Hewitt National Design Triennial. Today, she is often referred to as the fairy godmother of industrial wastelands, as she crafts amazing new landscapes out of the contaminated and toxic sites she works on. You’ll want to hear more.

Eve: [00:01:59] If you’d like to join me in my quest to rethink real estate, there are two simple things you can do. Share this podcast and go to rethinkrealestateforgood.co, where you can subscribe to be the first to hear about my podcasts, blog posts and other goodies.

Eve: [00:02:20] Julie, it’s really an incredible honor to have you on my show today. Thank you for joining me.

Julie Bargmann: [00:02:25] Yes, I am honored. I love that you chose a landscape architect to enter into this realm of speaking about real estate. I’m actually quite passionate about it in terms of what landscape architecture’s role is within it.

Eve: [00:02:41] So, you know, I agree with you. And too often I think architects think about landscape as an afterthought, but it should really be an integral part of building and design. Absolutely, absolutely. So, I’m going to start by saying you studied to be an artist. So, where did your fascination with degraded and toxic landscapes begin?

Julie: [00:03:05] Well, I often tell the story of driving with my, riding in a station wagon down the New Jersey Turnpike and being completely fascinated by the refineries. I don’t know what it was. It was just kind of this perverse attraction, wondering, like, what is going on there and who’s working in there and what’s it like in there? So, I think that was a little kernel of it. And then I just kept finding myself attracted to working landscapes and working cities. So, off I went to Pittsburgh to study sculpture at Carnegie Mellon, and I love that city. I just, when I was there, the steel mills were still along the rivers. They were still belching smoke. It still smelled, which I thought was great, was all part of it. As an artist, I actually went into the steel mills because I wanted to see how they worked and who was working there, and I think that really did it. I still had no idea what I was going to do with my life. When later I discovered what landscape architecture was and that I could be kind of venturing into all these different types of landscapes, that was it. And not that landscape architecture at the point was kind of working in working landscapes, but I was kind of determined to do that.

Eve: [00:04:39] Yeah, but there’s a lot of very precious landscape architecture out there and what you’ve. And I think you really work in some of the worst and most toxic landscapes to be found. What about that is really interesting to you?

Julie: [00:04:56] Well, I think, first of all, I think the range that I like to be clear about with my work is that it does go to the biggest and the baddest, to the toxic, but also to the degraded. That is part of the kind of repertoire of industry. Right. It can be wicked and sometimes it can be kind of, quote unquote, inert but still impactful, you know. And the toxic ones, for a long time, I did projects with the EPA, and I was working on Superfund sites, which are the sites that are designated as kind of the biggest and the baddest. I think what I brought to that, which was completely unknown right then by the EPA for years and maybe to date, is the kind of cultural and social aspect of these landscapes. You know, they were totally focused on the remediation, right? The quote unquote, cleaning up of these landscapes. But I was like, well, come on, there’s kind of more to it than that. There are generations that still live around these sites whose grandfather probably died, black lung. And so, there are connections there. And I actually stopped working with the EPA because I just felt like I was being in my head against a wall where it was difficult to integrate that kind of factor. They always felt an enormous amount of urgency in kind of doing the fix and getting out of there versus actually engaging the community in what might be an incremental regeneration of that site. So, they’re quite myopic.

Eve: [00:06:45] Yeah, it sounds like they’re focused on fixing a problem, whereas what you saw was a future asset, really, for the community.

Julie: [00:06:54] Correct? Yeah. I don’t know if you remember way back to spell check.

Eve: [00:06:58] Oh, yes.

Julie: [00:06:59] Yeah. When I used to type in remediation, it would say correcting a fault. And then if you type in regeneration, it says creating a new. And I was like, Boom, that’s it. I’m never going to use the word remediation anymore because that’s not what this work should necessarily be about.

Eve: [00:07:20] So, I read somewhere that the Vintondale Reclamation Park, which is actually it’s a 35-acre site near Pittsburgh, was pivotal. But I’d love to know why.

Julie: [00:07:31] Well, you know, at the time I was really, really interested in this work. I did, as part of my academic research, because that’s around the time I started teaching. I did a tour around the United States just to kind of get a sense of what was going on. And I got this call, kind of out of the blue to join this team to work on Eve: Vintondale and. Well, actually to work on acid mine drainage, right. Which is the by-product of coal mining. And we were looking for to actually look at prototypes and models for, you can imagine, there are so many towns, post mining towns, former mining towns, that are plagued by acid mine drainage. So, to be on this team was my dream come true. There’s multidisciplinary. There was an artist, hydrogeologist, historian, who I, historians I love, you know, scientists, too. I love them too. And the community involved and AmeriCorps volunteers. It was just this collective effort to look at basically making the transformation of acid mine drainage visible, not behind a fence. You know, let the community know. One of the by-products, too, is yellow boy. Yellow boy is yellow boy. This is what it is. And this is you being a part of the next evolution of that landscape.

Julie: [00:09:14] Much like I was saying with the EPA in terms of trying to advocate for the community to be involved and not even maybe intensely involved, but at least a participant or a witness to what was going on in terms of the transformation here of acid mine drainage. That was, to me, a breakthrough in projects. And for me, it was a breakthrough in landscape architecture. This coincided, by the way, with a lot of the great projects that are in the Ruhr Valley of Germany. So, what we did was, in essence, make that science visible so that they could say, oh, I get it. You know, the acid, mine drainage is coming from mine number one, and it’s going through this system, and it’s coming out as biologically rich and being drained back into the streams. So, I basically, I call it an ecological washing machine. And that’s what was right near a bike trail. So, lots of folks are able to see it and nicely enough, it remains a model for the region.

Eve: [00:10:29] Interesting. So, when you work on a project like this, how does your work begin? Where does the inspiration come from?

Julie: [00:10:36] Oh, the history. Absolutely. Every time. Every time it’s the history of the site, which means the history of the people there. I just can never think about starting a project without really knowing what happened there before, because I feel that you cannot really propose anything about the future of the site unless you know it’s past, because it is all part of an evolution. It makes the process inclusive. It’s what I was thinking about in terms of private development, infusing the public in it for the public good. It’s the history. It’s the history. The history levels the playing field in terms of everyone who’s working on a project, because there’s a bigger story and a bigger picture. I feel that we want to be responsible to.

Eve: [00:11:35] So, is there an example of a project where the history took you in an unexpected direction or.

Julie: [00:11:43] Well, oh man. I guess I flash right to Detroit and I’m working with a wonderful, wonderful young developer there. And he is doing amazing things of investing in the public realm in the neighborhood, along with his private developments. And it was our like our I call it our first date. We just, I just came out and I was like, okay, you know, let’s look at the site. And we’re standing in front of like a blank, seemingly blank, parking lot covered with concrete. And he said, what would you do? And I knew that there was a historic engine house that was there. And I was like, Hmm. And it was raised in the seventies. And I was like, Hmm. I think that’s when they pushed, you know, the buildings into their basements. And I turned to him, and I said, dig. And he went. Okay. And he had a front-end loader there the next day. And I just was crossing my fingers about what would come up because I wanted to, I thought about integrating it into this public park, this community park we are making. And sure enough, beautiful redstone came up to make these, kind of, scattered little terraces. And then one day up came a giant piece of sandstone that said 1893 on it.

Eve: [00:13:22] Oh, wow.

Julie: [00:13:23] I was like, Oh. I was both very happy and very relieved. I was like, That’s it, that’s it. We found it. We found the material evidence of that history, and the park suddenly became actually quite old. I can’t tell you. I just got goose bumps again. I do every time when I think about it. The developer, he tells the story to everyone and the story kind of spreads. And everyone is knowing an essential part of history of their neighborhood, of Core city. That was unexpected and wonderful.

Eve: [00:13:58] That does sound wonderful. Is this the developer who’s working on the Caterpillar housing?

Julie: [00:14:03] Yes.

Eve: [00:14:04] Very unusual architecture as well. Quonset huts, right?

Julie: [00:14:09] Yes. He is having some architects do a little twist on Quonset huts because he wants to take something that’s very affordable and make beautiful spaces that are not terribly expensive so that they’re accessible for more folks. So, he’s quite adventurous that way and he, I just feel like, you know, his name is Philip Kafka, has his heart so much in the right place. I mean his, the proportion of like, I can’t remember, he loves trees, and I can’t remember what number he’s up to. But he’s very proud of the number of trees that he’s planted in Core City. For instance, the caterpillar. I think we planted 200, maybe 300. I can’t remember. He goes 200 trees and eight units. That’s how he thinks of it.

Eve: [00:15:04] Do you find that you need to educate people on this? Because this makes me think immediately of the people around where I live who are who are mowing down enormous old historic trees.

Julie: [00:15:17] Yeah.

Eve: [00:15:18] Because they want a flat piece of land to build their house on. But the tree seems to be the most valuable asset they have. I don’t understand it.

Julie: [00:15:27] Absolutely. I mean, everyone is quite used to a tabula rasa. You know, it’s the kind of easiest way to go. And that’s why, you know, again, I want to emphasize history of the site. Right? The trees are very much that history of the site. And you can’t replace that history, you know? Right. You just can’t. I mean, some history is buried underground like that park in Cork City, and some is just looming large, you know. And so, this is where I constantly go back to history, and I constantly go back to telling stories. Because most people like stories. And most people like to be part of a story. And that’s basically the form of education. Like I’m flashing to working with Ford Motor Company on the River Rouge plant and it took telling the story about the Coke ovens, which they wanted to wipe out. One, say we did our homework and said, you know, that part of it is toxic, that part is not, you know.

Julie: [00:16:41] So we did that homework, the environmental homework. And then when we did the history, we were reminding them that they were looking at a piece of incredible history of this Rouge River plant being the first manufacturing plant in the world. In the world. You know, so it occurred to us and they kind of came to that that was too important a story. You know, it was just too rich and too significant to so many people, so many generations that worked at Fords, they called it Fords, to obliterate. And they didn’t have to. They didn’t really have to. And that was the education part, too. You know, I called it homework and I found that, you know, especially as a woman, I needed to kill them with knowledge and just say, hey.

Eve: [00:17:48] Was it easy?

Julie: [00:17:50] Sometimes more than other. I have to say, I even changed my tone. You know, I think early on I was pretty insistent. And then, I think I was more empathetic, you know, to the folks who were really dealing with the EPA, and.

Eve: [00:18:05] Yes.

Julie: [00:18:06] And a lot of pressure to remediate. And I encourage them, I’m like, come on, let’s talk about this. Let’s show them a careful mapping. Because they didn’t know how to map. You know, they showed the flow diagram of the coke ovens, and we did another map of it and said, look, you know, this is the part that’s harmful. So, we need to deal with it in another way and this other stuff we can deal in another way. So, you don’t need a tabula rasa. You can have your cake, your coke ovens and you’re, there We put remediation fields and remediation gardens, which they just loved, you know, they just whew. You know, they put it on their website in all caps, you know?

Eve: [00:18:49] Yeah. Well, it tells an amazing story. When you work on a very large project, what does your team look like?

Julie: [00:18:58] Oh, wow. Well, sometimes I work with another landscape architect. A DIRT studio is modeled after an artist’s studio. So, the most folks I’ve had been working with me is maybe five. So, if it’s a really large project, I need, I look for a bit more firepower and so, that’s really fun working with another landscape architect. Always engineers are on there, and I think more unusually, is getting scientists on the team. I always insist about that. Like when we’re starting and the client, I’m like, no, we need this scientist. Which they, you know, they didn’t know would be at all necessary. And like I said earlier, I, which is really unusual for a client to hear, is to have a historian on the project. And then when I’m talking about like scientists, too, it’s just not even kind of like one type of scientist, soil scientist, wildlife biologist, you know, that when I had a phytoremediation scientist. And it’s, I have to tell you, it is so wonderful. I mean, my learning curve is always like vertical, you know, on these projects by bringing in. Yeah.

Eve: [00:20:22] Fabulous. So, you know, you’ve done a really broad range of projects. Like there’s some for retail clients and…

Julie: [00:20:31] Yes.

Eve: [00:20:31] …some remediation. What are some examples of the project you’ve taken on, what they were and what they became?

Julie: [00:20:40] The most kind of in a way obvious, because they’re out there, retail client was Urban Outfitters. And, with Urban Outfitters it was really interesting. They were moving from Rittenhouse Square into tight little quarters out to what was really at the time the hinterlands of the Philadelphia Navy Yard. And, you know, I worked very, very closely with the founder, Dick Kayne, which was a blessing and a curse. He’s quite something, but we got along famously. And for a project that was coming from some folks that are so aesthetically based to be kind of more, more like historically based and environmentally based was, you know, that was a challenge. I, quite frankly, learned at some point not to even talk about what I was doing, what I was proposing in terms of history and the environment. It just wasn’t of enormous interest to them. You know, as I say, I snuck sustainability out in the back door and.

Eve: [00:21:59] I hope he’s not listening.

Julie: [00:22:01] Oh, that’s OK. Dick is so cool, you know, he won’t mind. He knows I love him. We used to speak our secret language of Latin, of plants because he loved plants. So, we just got along great. And he was cool, he just was like, Yeah, bring it on. And he never really asked that many questions. There was an amazing amount of trust between us, and that’s something that I can’t speak enough about is, as you probably know from projects, that trust is enormous. And so, with the Urban Project, there wasn’t an enormous amount of remediation that needed to be done. Some lead soils had to be dealt with. And, you know, lead is tricky, man. So, they didn’t want to go through the process of other types of remediation. So, one okay way of dealing with it is actually to encapsulate it. So, it was encapsulated.

Julie: [00:23:04] But the big thing with Urban Outfitters that was tricky was when it was going into like phase four and being built around the historic dry dock that was right in the center of this gorgeous, you know, water body from way back when for the huge ships. I found myself in that precarious place of kind of, I say, I always kind of say, defending the public realm within a private enterprise. That’s when I have to say, I think design gets really tricky, you know, because there was really kind of like a teetering point where literally something that we would do, we were forming, would feel too private, you know. And how is it that we could make this campus that was private, but parts of it could be shared? So that’s, I have to say, a big deal.

Eve: [00:24:04] It’s like pushing against a gated community, right?

Julie: [00:24:07] Yeah. So, I mean, I have to say, that’s what I feel like in landscape architecture, because we’re dealing with ground, and I know this is the case in most development and I’ve had projects where, I’m just realizing I’m picturing a good old fax I sent sometime where it said I quit. Because, you know, the commitment to the public realm wasn’t there, you know, which I’m learning from working with Kafka in, you know, in Detroit is so essential. Maybe I knew it intuitively. So essential in terms of building that quality of common ground that then makes sense for the individual happily living in their private abode. So, yeah.

Eve: [00:25:00] That probably touches on my next question. You’ve written about the overlap between poor and minority communities and contaminated soils, and I certainly know of that. I mean, I have to ask, how and why did that happen and how do we fix it? Why is it that poor and minority communities have had the brunt of this mess, basically?

Julie: [00:25:23] You think about industries and how they would kind of most conveniently cite themselves, you know, and when industries were getting up and running before all the environmental legislation starting in 1973, when you think about it, my God, that’s not that long ago. You know, most of the industries started up then, you know, they were looking for floodplains to discharge all of their nasty stuff and they were looking at a lot of land that did not have a lot of value to have people be downwind and downstream from nasty stuff. So, poor soils, poor people, they go together. I mean, it’s just a thing to be conscious of now, which I think a lot of folks are.

Julie: [00:26:14] I mean, there is the kind of whole movement of environmental justice. Industries are being held accountable. I like to think that, you know, the ground that we live on is, and work on, is becoming more just. And I think it is, I think I like to think it is. I should say it should be because I think folks are much more aware. If you asked somebody what a Superfund site was, you know, what, ten years ago, 15 years ago, they wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. The level of environmental awareness has just gone up so high. But the next thing is the action to enforce it and act upon it. And I don’t think that most folks, in what the things that they’re proposing, you know, you look at developers working in Richmond, or any working city and their projects are going to be scrutinized. Yeah.

Eve: [00:27:18] Yeah, I think that’s true. So, there’s been a definite shift, but I always wonder whether it’s still too easy to forget about the poor communities. And you know, and if sufficient funds are being deployed to make those contaminated lands into assets there. Someone has to start a project, right. They have to have the funds to start it and I don’t think that’s equitable yet.

Julie: [00:27:48] Right. So, for instance, you know, I’m flashing back to Detroit where I’ve done these projects and I’m thinking about how, you know, and you probably know about some of these Eve, these deals are being struck with developers where it’s like, okay, we’ll sell you this land, you know, but you’re also going to be responsible for this land, which will be, you have to make something there to benefit the existing, often poor, community. I’m optimistic about initiatives like that. It’s kind of, or it is, forcing developers who I think could very well be just carpetbaggers, you know, in a disinvested, deep populated city like Detroit to make them more civic minded.

Julie: [00:28:49] I was running around Detroit with the former Planning Director Morris Cox. And there’s one man there who’s planting a bunch of tree farms. And I was kind of disgusted, as much as I love trees. And Maurice asked me, he goes, What’s the problem? And I said, I know it maybe improves the quality, the value of the land here, but who is it doing that for and what at all about tt is civic? You know, I’m like, where are the trees along the street where are the. And I just, I kind of went on my rant to just dissect it for what public good a private enterprise was doing, you know? And he was like, oh, and I said, you should insist. You should insist that, yeah, the city will sell you this land, but you need to do this and this for the public realm.

Eve: [00:30:00] I always thought there was just a little bit of a problem with our political structure because someone who has some power to make these decisions may have been an insurance agent in a past life. They don’t necessarily have any training on landscape or architecture or urban design or how to make better civic places. And they’re really given enormous power to control what happens in those places.

Julie: [00:30:28] Yeah.

Eve: [00:30:29] That’s a shame.

Julie: [00:30:31] I’m sorry, did you say planning folks?

Eve: [00:30:35] Well, planning folks are a little bit better because to be a planning person, you’ve got to have some background in planning. No, I’m thinking like a mayor or someone on city council who has.

Julie: [00:30:45] Oh, my God,

Eve: [00:30:46] The power to make a vote and doesn’t really have any of the necessary education or understanding, right?

Julie: [00:30:53] Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I have to jump in here to, I mean, I’m so excited to say this because I always say, like, I have a huge crush on mayors, you know, and that happened from being part of the Mayor’s Institute on City Design.

Eve: [00:31:08] Oh, yes.

Julie: [00:31:10] And I was on many sessions and blah, blah, blah, but regional and national and I just think they’re brilliant. I just really think, you know, having been in there and, you know, just one on one or just the mayors, you know, talking about a specific project, but some more in general. Just everyone I know, I saw that light bulb go up above their head and they were like, we are the architect of this city. You know, if we can’t make an informed decision, we better surround ourselves themselves with somebody who could help them. Yeah.

Eve: [00:31:52] That’s a great outcome.

Julie: [00:31:54] Yeah.

Eve: [00:31:54] So, I want to ask you about this incredible honor that’s been bestowed on you. You’re the first inaugural laureate for the Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize. It’s not just National, it’s international.

Julie: [00:32:10] Yeah.

Eve: [00:32:11] What does that mean to you?

Julie: [00:32:13] Well, it means a lot to me, obviously, but I can’t not be. But for me, it’s what it means to the discipline, my discipline. And that has to do with, I think, what I might represent. And that is, much like Cornelia Oberlander, who it’s named for, I decided I could take risks and I wanted to take risks. I had the advantage of teaching, so I always say I was kept by the university. But what I found is that there was something that the jury was saying in terms of the value of having a critical practice, not a commercial one, having one that was going to get out there. And the other thing was to influence a good many students after 27 years of teaching. So, that was heartening to me about receiving the prize. I’m just enormously proud, and I’m enormously proud of my discipline. You know, I’m hoping that what my getting the prize communicates is for people to go ahead, you know, be fearless, kick some ass, you know, just do it. Don’t be afraid. Yeah.

Eve: [00:33:31] So, I have to ask you, is there anyone following in your footsteps? Anyone who’s coming up young in the ranks, who’s fearless, doing really interesting things?

Julie: [00:33:42] Yeah, there are former students who are doing it. I even swell up with pride right now. My former associate, David Hill, of Hill Works is just doing some amazing projects. He’s based in Auburn, Alabama. And another former student, and also a dear friend of an architect, I’ve known her since she was nine years old, Maura Rockcastle and Ross Altheimer with TEN x TEN architects, Chloe Hawkins. Nicely enough, I think I can list a good number of folks. And also I think that I have kind of a solidarity, a group that is kind of a support group, I think of Kate Orff. Kate is absolutely fantastic and she’s doing unbelievable work and I can’t think of names right now. They’re out there, and I just know that, you know, there are a lot of emails that just say, you go girl, you know?

Eve: [00:34:46] And so, you got a little bit of prize money. What do you plan to do with that?

Julie: [00:34:50] Oh, okay. Well, I’m looking outside at my Bambi. My Airstream, Bambi. She’s named Cornelia. And she and I are going to take that cross-country trip that I took, it will be what’s 1993? What is the arithmetic? But it’s a lot of time. That mining tour that I told you about. So, I want to do that again. I want to stop at DIRT projects along the way, see how they’re doing, you know, visit with the old pals that I built it with. Hit some more Rust Belt cities. I have a project in Pittsburgh to stop at. And, you know, I think I’m just going to keep going west and look at some big holes in the ground again. I liked them.

Eve: [00:35:45] So, I’ll be really interested to see what comes out of them.

Julie: [00:35:50] Yeah, I hope so. The Cultural Landscape Foundation who has bestowed the prize, I’m hoping they will put together some sort of blog or some sort of something, you know, of my time on the road. That’d be fun.

Eve: [00:36:07] Well, I really, thoroughly enjoyed talking with you. Your work is fabulous, and I can’t thank you enough. And I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Julie: [00:36:18] Thanks. Great. Thank you.

Eve: [00:36:21] Okay.

Julie: [00:36:22] It’s been a privilege.

Eve: [00:36:30] I hope you enjoyed today’s guest and our deep dive together. You can find out more about this episode or others you might have missed on the show notes page at RethinkRealEstateforGood.co. There’s lots to listen to there. If you like what you heard, you can support this podcast by sharing it with others, posting about it on social media, or leaving a rating and review. To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on LinkedIn. Even better, if you’re ready to dabble in some impact investing, head on over to smallchange.co, where I spend most of my time. A special thanks to David Allardice for his excellent editing of this podcast and original music. And a big thanks to you for spending your time with me today. We’ll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Image courtesy of Julie Bargmann

Agri-Crowdfunding.

“The world’s population is expected to have grown by over a third from 2009 to 2050, an additional 2.3 billion people. To feed this number of people, food production will have to increase by around 70% from the 2005/07 levels (source: The World Bank). Meeting this world demand for food is going to need innovation in agriculture: selecting what to grow, how to grow it, learning how yields per acre of land can be raised, and by how much can waste be reduced? Innovation and breakthroughs do not have a history for banks and other traditional lenders and investors to weigh up the potential risks and returns. Crowdfunding for agriculture will accelerate the innovation in new foodstuffs and agritech required to feed over 9 billion people by 2050” writes Clive Reffell for CrowdSourcingWeek.

Population growth is expected to impact our future food security directly while increasing livestock numbers will contribute more methane to greenhouse gases. Increasing extreme weather events will affect more crops and more foodstuffs will be used in the manufacture of biomass fuels.

But it’s not all doom and gloom.

There’s still room for a significant reduction in food waste. Hydroponic farming can increase efficiency; improved crop selection and harvesting as well as a reduction in crop infestations can improve yields; and robotics and AI can help with all the above. And equity crowdfunding is playing a significant role in this important emerging sector of the food industry. Some examples of companies that have raised equity through crowdfunding are

  • AKUA, who launched the world’s first kelp burger in 2019;
  • Aerofarms, launched in 2004, now has indoor vertical farms across the US, has been listed on the NASDQ and is valued at $12.2 billion;  
  • Drone Ag Limited, a UK company, improving farming efficiency through automated drone use – checking crops for soil health and infestations as well as spraying crops;
  • Small Robot Company, another UK company, using an autonomous robot and AI software to create a weed map for customers and to apply fungicides and biopesticides with precision;
  • SmartOysters, in Australia, using GPS maps to keep track of every stage in an oyster’s development including scheduling and assigning tasks for management and maintenance of the oyster lease. The data can be used to de-risk farm investment and certify sustainability and provenance;
  • Crover, a Scottish company, which builds robots to burrow into cereal crops in storage or transit, checking for humidity, temperature and pests.

“Crowdfunding for agriculture will accelerate the innovation in new foodstuffs and agritech required to feed over 9 billion people by 2050.”

If you want to learn more about robots and agriculture listen in to Mark DeSantis in this podcast.

Or read the original article here.

Image by Bildet er tatt av DJI-Agras from Pixabay