It is not every day that we get to speak directly to a highly motivated group of young people about building design, and rarer still that we would be able to suit up in safety gear and walk through a dynamic construction site with them having a focused discussion around sustainability.

We were so pleased that New England Biolabs asked us to present to the Ipswich Green Team about the two buildings we are currently working on. New England Biolabs has put together a series of meetings with the Ipswich Green Team to help them understand how a leading-edge company can be a good steward to the land they care for.

Two ARC’ers took part in this discussion. Alisa Nagano who is a strong voice both internally and externally for sustainable building practice, and me, the principal designer of the two newest buildings on the Ipswich campus.

Our discussion was twofold. Alisa talked about how the profession has moved from thinking of sustainability as a feature to be added to a project, to something that is essential for all designers to incorporate to the greatest extent possible. I then detailed out several concepts being brought to the two projects to help everyone understand that no one solution fits for every project. Each project needs a strong set of goals, and a rigorous design process to understand what strategies should be acted upon.

The best part of the day was hearing and responding to some very tough and thoughtful questions -some of which even challenged several of our assumptions. In the end, it gave us a very good feeling that through these motivated young people, the world of building design and building sustainability will continue to evolve into the future.