Design the Future

Liz Ogbu is a designer, urbanist, and social innovator. Her multidisciplinary consultancy, Studio O, works with communities in need to leverage the power of design to catalyze sustained social impact. Which is not, strictly speaking, what most people learn in architecture school...but Liz has been redefining things since she decided to study architecture. Liz is finding ways to use design to embrace spatial justice; she sees this as a way to create cities where people can thrive. Instead of building places, she asks, what if we were helping build a capacity to stay?  In tackling inequity, we can look for ingredients that allow us to step forward. 

Gail Vittori, the co-director of the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems in Austin, Texas, has been a change agent in the green building movement for many years. She says that she brought a “beginner’s mind” to the industry. She saw a gap, early on, when green building was not addressing health (and the healthcare sector), and took steps to address that; today, the human health dimension is widely understood as a key driver. At a certain point, she says, we have to realize that we are either creating the conditions that are conducive to health -- or we are not.  

Mary Curtiss is the head of sustainability for HP operations, which includes 120 sites around the world. For her, this is a mandate about buildings and people. She explains why storytelling and empathy are as important as the technical side of buildings. She describes how she sees sustainability as something that engages everyone who enters a building, and how she thinks about that experience along with efficiency, renewables, and other specific sustainability factors. She also shares thoughts about the promise of (and challenges around) renewables today in the U.S. and globally, and how cities are helping to advance progress and innovation with regulation. 

Sarah Golden is the Senior Energy Analyst and Conference Chair, VERGE Energy with GreenBiz Group. We talk about the importance of storytelling and how stories can advance the movement. Sarah also shares her perspective on energy markets in the context of the pandemic and economic disruption, including insight about the fight for the shape of what will come next. We discuss feminine leadership traits -- crucial for handling the pandemic and climate change. 

Rosa Sheng is an architect and Principal with SmithGroup and the firm’s Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. We discuss how intersectionality plays out in architecture, pushing us to eliminate conventional silos and explore how sustainability, justice, diversity, equity and inclusion are interrelated. We talk about the diversity and gender pay equity issues behind the American Institute of Architecture’s Equity by Design initiative, founded at AIA San Francisco, and how that group’s research has spotlighted patterns across firms.

Our first guest, Sara Neff, Senior Vice President for Sustainability for Kilroy Realty, has brought that organization to a leadership position in sustainability within the real estate market. She talks about her career journey, advances being made in the real estate sector, why the business case matters (and isn’t everything), and what commitments to carbon neutrality mean in her sector. We discuss what’s ahead, including work in supply chains and efforts to quantify climate risk. She also tells us about the Neffletter (sign up at SaraNeff.com), her email newsletter that talks about her reasons for optimism.  

In our kick-off episode, meet hosts Lindsay Baker  and Kira Gould, who discuss their interest in exploring and sharing the amazing work being done in sustainability by women across the country and beyond.Lindsay and Kira have worked in a number of capacities in the sustainable design field: Lindsay worked at USGBC, Google, and WeWork, in between which she started and ran Comfy. Kira was an editor at Metropolis magazine, worked at architecture firms, and now runs a communications consultancy; she also co-authored Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design.Lindsay and Kira believe that there are connections between sustainability and women's leadership strengths, and that women talking about their paths can help other women who are seeking to chart or optimize their own. Starting this podcast in 2020, a year that has long been discussed as a milestone year for climate action and sustainability progress, seems appropriate. Starting it amid the first round of stay-at-home orders amid the COVID-19 pandemic added a layer of awareness to discussions about human health, what we design and build, and the health of our planet.