(27) Prefabrication, Mass Timber, and Sustainable Construction - Matt Bolen from McCallum Sather

In this episode of the Real Estate Development Insights Podcast, we welcome architect Matt Bolen, who has been a pioneering force in the field of  prefabrication & mass timber construction. Matt discusses his extensive experience and passion for innovative building technologies, focusing on sustainable design and prefabricated methods. We delve into the definition of sustainability, the challenges of incorporating mass timber, and the potential of prefabrication in modern construction. Additionally, Matt shares insightful thoughts about the benefits of single stair exits in mid-rise buildings and the importance of focusing on the ultimate goal of constructing efficient, community-centric buildings. Join us for an engaging conversation that spans practical approaches to overcoming conventional construction challenges and future-focused strategies for sustainable development.

• What is Sustainability in Architectural Design?
• Practical Tips for Sustainable Design
• Challenges and Opportunities in Mass Timber Construction
• Pros & Cons of Prefabrication and Modular Design
• The Importance of Commitment and Innovation
• Historical Context and Industry Examples
• The importance of Prototyping and Real-World Applications
• Required Changes to Industry Regulations

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Transcript

Payam 0:05

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Real Estate Development Insights podcast, where we bring you ideas, experiences, and best practices from the real estate development industry. My name is Payam Nhi. And I'm your host here. My guest for this episode is Matt Bolen. Matt is an architect and he's a director at McCallum Eder. Matt has a very long CV and resume Atlin, and I think he refers to it on the podcast as well. That is, at least for the past 10, 15 years, he's been very focused on innovative construction methods, designing buildings, which are in line with. Our current needs, which is sustainability to deal with climate crisis and its effects, and also affordability and housing crisis. And he has been some sort of a pioneer. I know I came across his work a couple years ago when the code changes first happened in in Ontario, allowing more use of mass timber in residential, especially mid-rise buildings, when I was looking for people who are working in the industry who know, and so I can go and learn from them. Definitely his name was one of the names that kept coming up. We have had the opportunity to meet finally and have a conversation with a lot of mutual friends and colleagues in between us. In this particular episode, Matt walks us through his definition and his vision of. What a sustainable design is, how to incorporate it into your next projects, and what are some of the maybe low hanging fruit, if you may. He walks us through his experience in dealings with mass timber as a new way of doing things, at least a new error way of doing things in the mid-rise building sections, the lessons learned and how. Between mass timber, the modular products or the volumetric modular products and technologies, prefabrication in construction, and how we can use all of them to basically try and put a dent into this housing crisis, affordability crisis. It also talks about the learning curve that is included or is part of this journey when you're introducing new systems to your building, how to optimize it, and the importance of having the right team on board, the importance of having the right. Team that is willing to work with you on these new systems and using them as another tool in your toolbox and how you can actually benefit from the repeatability of the particular system. As always, you can find more information about our guests, this episode and what they do on our website. Realestate development insights.com. Realestate development insights.com. That's all one phrase, and I hope you enjoy listening to this episode. Please remember to subscribe to the show and even better, please tell others about it. Help us grow the show and get the word out. Thank you very much. Hey Matt, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Uh, very much appreciate your time. I don't know if you know the story, but, um, I, I heard of you and your work about two years and a little bit more probably. That was the first, uh, time that I started researching mass timber and trying to figure out who's doing work in the mass timber area. And your, your name keep popping up. You had done some work back then and uh, I know you've been very busy. You've had multiple projects, you've, you guys have done. Pioneering work in that area, and I'm glad to report that two years later I, I've had the pleasure of working on a few master peer projects and we have one on the ground, which is very exciting right now. With that being said, with that little background, I will ask you to introduce yourself to our audience, give yourself, uh, give a, give you a little bit more information about yourself, what you've done, where you come from, and I guess we go from there. Sounds great.

Matt 3:52

Well, it's really a pleasure to be here. Uh, thank you very much for the invite and the, and the kind words to start off. I, my name is Matt Bolen. I'm an architect, uh, based primarily in the kitchen Waterloo area, so Southwestern Ontario. Uh, very, very fortunate to, over the last I could say 10 to 15 years, really had a, an interest and a passion for both mass timber and, and this new innovative building, uh, technology. Uh, but also housing and, and just how we can find innovative solutions for construction to help solve or, or work towards solving the, the housing crisis that we face and so many others face. And how we can do that across the entire continuum of need. And one of the big ways we feel that that's going to, uh, be possible is through prefabricated methods. And so we've found there's a real nice synergy between. The innovation, the low carbon nature of mass timber construction and that prefabricated housing push. And so really our, my work and our firm's work, uh, over that time has really focused and honed in on that and just trying to be advocates and leaders in that space and, and building and connecting, uh, as many different people as we can, whether that be other architects. Constructors, uh, developers, fabricators, other consultants like ourselves. And, uh, and so yeah, we've, uh, it's, it's been a, it's been a fun ride, uh, as we've worked through it and meeting people like yourself, uh, along the way has also been, uh, a really rewarding part of the journey. So, again, happy to be here.

Payam 5:25

Pretty good. Thank you. Okay, so with that being said, thank you for the introduction. I want to start with, um, you touched on multiple topics there, the carbon footprint, there is the ar, embodied carbon, there's the sustainability, there's design, there's fabrication, there's lot, lot you and I can talk about for the next probably few hours, but let's talk about sustainability. Like what is, what is sustainability from your perspective? How do you, like, there's, there's uh, obviously technical definitions for it, technical for in terms of material. But you as an architect who's been, like you mentioned, working in this area or arena, uh, around sustainable projects, what is it? What is sustainable design? Not necessarily the material. What is sustainable design? If you're thinking about. I wanna build a new building. We want to make sure we are sustainable, as sustainable as possible. Define that a little bit for us, because I think there's a lot of hype out there. There's a lot of also technical verbiage around it. Maybe our average or technical, non-technical person. Has a hard time wrapping their head around it. Do I go fully silver, bullet, master, timber, everything. Do, can I find somewhere in between? Walk us through that, please.

Matt 6:34

Sure. Um, well, it's a broad topic as you say, and there's lots of opinions on it. Unfortunately, it's become a bit of a politicized issue these days in terms of environmentalism, climate change, and this word sustainability, that that gets. Connected to those, to those ideas and those concepts. Of course, it's not new. It's, you know, since the seventies and, and maybe even before 1970s and before, uh, environmentalism and, and, and some of these things have been pushed in, in, I'll call it the North American culture. But what's been really interesting and, and through a lot of the education that I've been through over the last, you know, even five and 10 years has been specifically five years, I would say. Has been that this is not at all, you know, a seventies, this is much, much longer than that. If you start to look at sustainability through the lens of indigeneity and, and respecting the earth and, and, and those sorts of ideas and philosophies, uh, this is much, much older than that and has been done, uh, you know, for generations and generations. And I think that's what we're ultimately, or I'm ultimately trying to get back to is this idea of, of really respecting the earth and all the people and, and things on it. That's, that's a very broad concept and it's hard to then filter that down into, you know, the very technical aspects of what we do in our profession. But I do think it's great to, to start off with some, some larger mission and larger, uh, vision statement about what's really driving you to do the work that you do and, and make decisions and align with the people you wanna do it with. So, in a, in a more, you know, as we start to sort of granular down to, well, what is sustainability for us in our, in our work. It really, it really comes to, I, I had this great experience about, it was about 10 years ago, uh, with, uh, I was actually a professor of mine who's a really well known building science guru engineer named John Troub, uh, in this part of the world, and, and I think pretty well known across North America. I. I was sitting down saying, I, I want to push on sustainability in the projects. I don't feel like I'm doing enough, uh, in terms of benefiting, you know, the world and the na and the built and the built and natural environment through the, the work that I'm doing. What should I do? I'm looking, and I was looking at passive house at the time and he, and he told me, you know, it's a great, great building science education and building performance education. Just beware of the dogma. And, and then, uh, you know, that's, that was a good lesson and I think I've taken that. In most ways, in all the different tools and methods and materials or certifications that get tied to sustainability. Uh, I think now I'm, I'm looking at it through a much more holistic lens of not, I'm trying to find the right tool for the right project and the right objective. And what I like about that is when you talk about sustainability, you know, most people or a lot of people will think about environmental sustainability. I really like this idea that sustainability is, can be more than that. And, um, we don't wanna have, you know, as a profession or as people who are ultimately concerned about the world and climate change, you know, just be screaming into the void about all the bad things we're doing. I like the idea of actually taking action and figuring out how to execute these things that we're doing. And when you start to look at th ding, then as the overall sustainability, that that can actually tie to, well, what is the sustainability or viability of doing a given measure on a given project? And that's complicated. Um, especially in buildings with different clients who have different needs and different users and different, you know, pro forma financial metrics for what, what guides their decision making. It's really important for, for us, I think, to, to build out a set of tools and those tools that can be doing things in a sustainable way, uh, looking at things holistically, but yet making sure that the tools that we're using on a given project, uh, fit and, and allow us to actually. Execute on those things to the highest possible level of sustainability, uh, possible. So that's, that's my operating current, uh, idea of what sustainability is.

Payam 10:42

That's, that's, I, I love that response because first of all, it gives me a lot to work with. Here it, the second of all, it goes very closely to what we try to promote on, on our website, on our podcast that we we're about. I'm, I'm a very pragmatic person. I, I, I like p practical stuff. I like. Great ideas out there. Great theories out there. But what, what can I do tomorrow morning? I'm on a job site. I have a project. I'm literally going through a new project proposal right now. What are the things I can take away? And if, I guess if I were to push you and I asked you and say you've been working on this, uh, topic for a long time. A new, I have a new project going on right now. I'm probably gonna do it in concrete because I'm used to it and I've done it in the past. Can you give me a couple, maybe two or three low hanging fruits? As a designer? As an, as an architect, as someone who's worked with these systems, give me a couple of ideas and say, listen, okay, you can't use mass timber Maybe. Maybe you can not use this. You still need to use concrete, but. Give us a couple pointers.

Matt 11:45

What

Payam 11:46

should I

Matt 11:46

look for? It's a great question, and again, lots of alignment between us then and in terms of how we think about things. Clearly, I, people in our offices here probably get sick of, uh, hearing me say it, but I'm, I'm constantly saying that we need to understand conventional construct design and construction, and within that understanding, look for opportunities where innovation and sustainability can solve conventional problems. That, to me so far. Has been the way that we've been able to do it. Again, if you come off as just screaming into the void, I'll say, or coming into the room, uh, maybe with, with naive or unformed, uninformed really cool concepts or really sustainable concepts, it's hard to actually have them get traction. So if you can understand deeply that, which does take time, of course, and a lot of, uh, experience to understand those conventional systems and conventional delivery and conventional design, and why they are being done. You can start to look for the holes and then look for the end through communication. Talking to the people that are doing those, uh, con conventional things. Understand, well, what are their pain points? Where, where are the things that actually aren't working out that well for you? Because oftentimes what I've found in that conventional industry, if you try to push them into something. Um, that, that is just pushing'em outta their comfort zone. They're much less likely to buy into it, versus if you can say, Hey, by the way, you know, that thing that's already causing you problems and causing your team problems, we actually have a solution for that. So to your, to your question specifically, that's where mass timber for me right now is a really effective solution to mid-rise construction. So mid-rise construction. Some people like to call it that missing middle housing. You know when when you go to travel through Europe and you see this four to six story, really comfortable massing that that feels normal, uh, versus going to North American suburbia, uh, with McMansions and, and housing spread out or into very urban dense conditions with towers that some people again just find, um, a little inhumane and uncomfortable. That missing middle is that piece that most people would agree is what we need more of. And yet, particularly in the North American context, it's been very, very difficult to execute because, and that's, and for a lot of reasons, one and, and one of the big drivers is just the efficiency, the eco, the lack of economy of scale. When you're doing that type of development, you still have to have all the process that goes into it, all of the. Elevators and stairs and fire ratings and all these different things that you have to do on the very big projects with lots of a company at scale, and that you don't need to have on the, on the small single family type of projects. So right there, that became this target of, okay, well, what. Can we do in that, the conventional delivery of those types of projects to make it easier? And what we found is those two groups that were either the do the, the groups that were building and developing the low-rise versus the groups that were building and developing the high-rise, neither of them were that effective at doing the mid-rise. It was a little clunky because, um, they couldn't seem to pull together the best of both. Both in terms of cost and speed and. All these things. So Mass Timber got introduced The mass timber is essentially mass penalized, compressed wood, small growth wood, so it's very sustainable to get outta the forest. It's not, you're not cutting down old trees, cutting down new trees. Very sustainable forestry practices. And comes together and it gets compressed either through gluing or nailing or dowling them together into these very large panels. And these panels actually similar to a fire, uh, a big log on a campfire that won't burn if you try to light it. Have that same property against fire, they, they are able to just char on the outside but not burn through and therefore are able to achieve the same type of fire ratings that you require in that high rise type construction. But, but they're able to do so and, and that versus using what they would call stick frame wood. So dimension lumber just spread out and, and having cavities between it, that actually is very much harder to achieve Fire ratings out of. So in our experience as we've been working with the conventional delivery of mid-rise construction, we found that even in talking to framers and talking to people, um, about how you could expedite the construction, which of course reduced costs, how you could make it more attractive through, you know, exposing the ceilings of this beautiful Mass Timber Pro product, that the actual mass timber solves a bunch of problems to that mid-rise space. It allows'em to go faster. It allows it to be built at a comparable price to anything else, and also creates an aesthetic benefit on the inside, all while, you know, being a product that is compatible with the type of trades, um, that are coming from the single family world in terms of being familiar and comfortable with wood, um, that they're able to just plug in there and, and, and be quite effective. So that's an example. I would say at least one example of where. Mass Timber solves a very, that tool solves a very specific problem in a very specific area. Um, and now there's lots of, of course, applications outside of it, but we've found that, for example, mass timber in single family homes, we get asked about that sometimes we don't do a lot of single family homes. It, it doesn't necessarily solve the same problem. It, it definitely provides the aesthetic benefit and can do a lot of interesting things. But because on that midrise, we're always having that horizontal break between units. That horizontal separation, that's a pain point in the conventional delivery of mid-rise that hadn't really been solved in a, in an effective way. And mass timber solves it. So not only are you getting the aesthetic and the. Biophilic, that sense of warmth and wellbeing of being in a, a nice timber space, but also you're, you're solving a very logistical, uh, challenge that, that, that those types of projects have. And, and, and again, you don't have to solve that problem on the single family because the same fire ratings aren't required. And then also moving up into the high-rise, there's some really exciting and interesting initiatives on how that same product can be used in those high-rise developments. But be, but those ones don't quite have the same challenge, so it's, we're harder to break into that because there, there's more comfort in, again, doing cast in place concrete on those, or, you know, down in, in, in the states, they often use a lot of more steel, very well understood and know how to go fast with their slip forms and all the things that they do. So they're less likely to take on and, and. Use this system because it's not necessarily solving a problem to them. Um, and that's, that's again, been one of our big drivers is look for the, the problems in, in the conventional delivery.

Payam 19:39

I. Amen. Amen. We, uh, we definitely are on the same page on that front. And you, you touched on a whole bunch of different things, so you have to bear with me because I want to go back and recap a few of them. The, one of the things that I've, I think I've also heard you say, and we've, we've, I've been also talking about it, and we've had a couple episodes before about this, is that if the construction industry, the development industry, it's the story of the old dog and a new trick. And even for myself personally, for the longest time, I thought that was a very bad thing. We should be learning new tricks as we go much faster. But as as, as I have gathered more experience in industry, I'm actually a believer that this lag on the industry side is not a necessarily a bad thing. Things that we do take time, they will take time for people in the industry to catch up, to learn to feel comfortable with, and to debug, because basically once we build a building. It will be there forever. It's not, we're not writing another code for another update on your iOS, which updates every few weeks. We are building a building to be there for hopefully a hundred years or more. And with that said, I want to go back to the point you made about transitioning. And that's very important because, uh, we, I think on the overall scale, if you look at it, and if our listeners have listened to a previous episode we had with Madie. One of the executives from Homes, which is a pretty large company in Canada, he even explained to us that why they are shifting their focus from low-rise single family housing and subdivision projects to mid-rise section. Because, and, and I like keep hearing that all day, every day, pretty much that the whole industry, the whole country, our society is transitioning and perhaps it's evolving from going one type of, uh, living lifestyle to another type. And this has been happening for as long as we've lived. Different shapes and formats, obviously. So the whole midrise section, definitely very important. I totally agree with you that there's, and that the good thing about the midrise section, as you, uh, pointed out, and I totally agree with, is that it lends itself. To being a great playground for new systems, for mixing of new systems and trying to educate more people, it's really hard to to, it's great point there. It's really hard to compete with stick framing on a single family dwelling. On a custom house, it's very hard. Unless you're going there for a very super expensive structure, it's really hard to compete with that. And I would also go on the other side and say, I think it's very hard to compete with CIP. If you go on a 14, 15, 20 story building, at least at this point in time. And this, this middle ground is good for us to try. And to your point, mass Timber lends itself to being the. Product potentially that is, that is helping the whole thing. And I wanna, I want to go through the mass timber a little bit more and I'm just gonna open a bracket for those of our audience who are listening, who are interested. There's an episode with Phil Silverstein and from Maria Sima Architects. He did a very good job at working us through George Brown College Project. And I think Simon Edward Edwards did one on, we did one on acoustics of, um, mass timber building. Mass timber building. So. What is the biggest challenge today that you think we need to focus on as an industry when it comes to building mass timber buildings?

Matt 23:05

It's a good question, and I believe that. The answer is prefabrication and, and kid of part based design. And I've had a lot of great mentors, teachers, and, and collaborators over the years. One specifically was actually, I worked with, who was an architect, Dave Warning, they in the volumetric modular space. So we did some work. On basically steel chassis that go down and some like think, think car, think automotive industry for buildings. And we sort of worked with that, with him and, and Greg Latimer and, and Zen Modular. A few others on some volumetric projects and designs where you really had just understand these. These chassis and volumetric spaces that then you build out and then get delivered to site. And there was a great conversation that happened, and David mentioned that if you look at the construction industry a hundred years ago, if you were building a house, you, you weren't putting in an order for your windows like you do today. You were getting glass and wood. You would literally be putting that, that together. I also, I mean, I grew up on a, on a family farm in, uh, Southwestern Ontario where the barn and the house were all made on site. The barn boards would go from four inches to 12 inches because they were all made with the wood from on, on site. Uh, and that's great and there's like a lot of the great nostalgia with that. But the same way that you'd be seen as crazy for trying to frame together your own windows on a job site today, and that the performance of those windows would just be abysmal. I think we need to start moving the industry in that direction more and more. And I think we have stalled out a little bit over the last few decades on that. And there's for no good reason. I think, um, I take a lot of the shoulder of the brunt of the blame for that, from the, the design side of the industry. I think we could be doing a much better job at thinking about our designs and actually creating repetitive designs in the sense of using the same components again and again and again. And then refining and building those components to be high performing, adaptable to different sites and different environments, but also able to accommodate different looks and, and represent. The community they're in and the client they're for and, and all of these different things. But still with that same prefabricated element, what we've found in the volumetric space, that's almost jumping a little bit too far ahead. And there's also so many logistical challenges with volumetric modular design where you're shipping. A lot of air, which becomes a major logistics challenge when you're installing it. Um, there's also workforce related challenges, especially if you're shipping it to, you know, remote communities. All of a sudden, yes, you have these great finished boxes that if everything goes well, you know, you have a foundation one day and a full building the next, but then the community has no connection to it. Know ability to work and, and help. Fabricate and assemble that. So balancing all these forces, understanding, okay, yes, we have a skilled labor workforce that is, of course, as most of us know, is shrinking. We're losing a lot of those, uh, really, really experienced trades, but we still are going to have a lot of people who need to, you know, contribute to the communities they live in. And construction is such a great way for them to do that. I think for us as designers and for with, I think a lot of. Maybe investment, both private and public into fabrication and, and the prefabrication of building components. I think that's gonna see a huge, huge payoff in terms of the quality of the work we're doing. Like I said, the windows from a hundred years ago versus the triple pane passive US windows today. That's a big difference there. I think we can do the same thing across our entire built, uh, delivery model, but, but do it in a way that. Doesn't cut out people from the actual process and instead it just helps them, uh, and helps everyone start to assemble this more in a kid of parts. I mean, it's, it's not great because it does have stigma attached to it, but for a lot of us, I mean our kids, uh, you know, when you start talking about Lego and IT, and, and some of these models that have done a good job of that, of that hit of part based approach that, you know. Working with things and figuring out how you, they go together, easy and clean and, and you know, just work. I think that is, um, without question, the biggest opportunity. And it's where I think I, again, I'm from myself and the design community where we need to be putting a lot of attention. It's good because there's a lot of really great people in the design community. I mean, you mentioned Phil, who I was with last week at the Mass Timber Conference in Portland and, and many others there. This is starting to get, I think, a lot of traction and we're, and we're seeing it when it comes to mass timber related to that prefabrication. It's just one of the best possible products you could use for it. It's lightweight, it's low carbon, meaning that it's sequestering carbon. It's incredibly easy to use on site. I mean, if you have a, uh, a screw gun. And some, and some long screws. Like it's the type of thing that it just makes so much sense and it's such a robust product, but also has all these other benefits, aesthetic, uh, lightweight, durable, like they're trees. I mean, trees are all around us and there are these amazing machines that we use for so many different things, uh, in our, in our daily lives. The fact that they can also become these great elements and tool, uh, and tools and products that we use. Our buildings over the long term. That is, I mean, to me that's the obvious, uh, opportunity. The only ask, the only maybe if that's one as the prefabrication using mass timber, the only, maybe second piece to that would be if we are able to do that and able to push on that. Then I think it also, something we're also really interested in is the idea of design for disassembly, and I think you mentioned even earlier in this talk, the idea that our buildings. You know, it can be around for a long time, and I think too much, the North American culture has been thinking about, well, everything but specifically our buildings as disposable. Wow. Yeah. Put it up for 20 years. Big buck store here, house here, whatever. And we'll just knock it down and throw it to the landfill and, and start again. This idea that if we can develop the, this kit of parts to be very, you know, really about quality, but also about the ability to be adaptable. And reusable, then those components can start to get taken and repurposed either within the same building or disassembled and, and used in other buildings. And that's where I think we're really gonna see in a whole other, uh, jump up in terms of, uh, our effectiveness as a, as a construction industry.

Payam 30:05

You touched on a couple points there that I want to go back to. One is, uh, Phil, I think he mentioned, uh, on, even on the podcast that they are working on a kedo pars model for schools with mass timber. Correct. Which is a very Yes. Interesting setup. I, I, I haven't talked to him to see where they are recently, but I was probably six months ago. That's, that's definitely exciting. I would, I would personally be very interested in doing that and learning more about that. And I want to go back to something you said that sometimes it seems like where some of the things we do kind of go a little bit too fast, too much. The, the modular space that you call you, you named Z Modular. I, I had the pleasure of visiting their plant back in around 20 18, 20 19 when they were originally setting things up. I was very optimistic, uh, on their system. Like when I, I remember I went through the whole thing. We spent quite a bit of time trying to understand how things work and where to use it, because bottom line is that you have to be able to use it and make sense of it on a paper for numbers, for, for that product or for the system to actually be beneficial to the society as a whole. And, um, I'm, I'm curious to know your thoughts on that, but before I go there. I want to go back to the idea of going too much too fast. It's a good thing that we're using mass timber. It's a good thing that we're pushing for it, but at the same time, I've had the extremely well, uh, good opportunity and fortune of working on a very advanced mass timber system, which is one of a kind for the past two years in the pre-designed system, and it has been hard. Matt. Matt, it has been hard like. Everything has been hard, like there's not been a day that we've gone through this process and every single, every detail that comes up, it's a new detail. You have to invent new typical detail. We have a very committed client. We have very committed team. We have everyone on this team, which is probably 30 people on the team working together. It's been hard, and I'm bringing that up because I think it's important for people who choose to go through this route to be prepared for that. If you have a project that is barely working and you need to make sense on a dollar to pass the finish line, maybe don't go mass timber yet. At least on my, that's my 2 cents. I'll wait to hear what you think. But if, if you have the backing, if you have the will, if you have the capacity to make it through, definitely the pioneers are gonna get some rewards, uh, to be, for the, for being the first ones and learning, uh, and leading the pack. I'm, I'm wondering what you thought. What do you think about that?

Matt 32:34

Well, I think it should be noted that it's not easy, uh, that and anything new and ha uh, and innovative is not going to be easy to do. That's, that's, you know, and, uh, someone, I think a friend of mine recently, and it wasn't even related to construction, sent me the, it was in, uh, JFK, uh, video on going to the moon and that we should do it, not because it's easy, but because it's hard. Um, right. And, and, uh. I don't know if that, if that really applies to this or not, but I, I actually would go back to what I was mentioning about looking for the solutions to conventional problems. So again, if you, if you have the opportunity to do something, whether it be for r and d or a client that just really, really wants it, great. And I'm speaking now in terms specifically in terms of master prayer. I would say that, you know, we've, over the last 10 years specifically really shown an interest in NAS timber, and we've talked about that and we've built a network of, of like-minded people and, and people in the industry, fabricators and, and all these people, you know, we've been flogging that for 10 years. The first five, there was zero projects. There was a couple that got close because there was people who maybe got a little bit interested, but ultimately they all fell through. For one reason or another, one of the first sort of talking events I did a few years ago might have even been when you fir, when I first even came on your radar would've been talking about our experience in essentially not executing mass timber. Um, and how that experience on multiple projects where it didn't work, didn't pencil, or the circumstances, you know, just didn't pan out, led to the one where it worked. I think. That's one key is, is doing that. But there's two sides to it. I mean, you mentioned the, and I know we'll get into the volumetric. I want to be clear not, not because I'm trying to, you know, not appease everyone, but I actually think the people who are doing volumetric modular, I. That's not a blanket statement that I think volumetric modular is inherently bad. It's almost more like, at least from in my lens of where I see a big focus needing to be, particularly again in that housing type of space, um, or some of those other typologies that are really tied to communities. I just think that the, the prefabrication just makes more sense right now where we are at currently at in, in time. Probably lots of good examples of where a volumetric solution maybe does actually work and does make a lot of sense and it obviously has, has clear advantages. And, and to that end, I think the idea that people are pushing on the really innovative side of things, either with, you know, some sort of industry, again, private industry backing or. Publicly funded initiative. Brock Commons is a great example of an 18 story mass Timber high-rise building that got built, what, 10 years ago. Same with, you know, some of the great work that that Ellis Dawn and dialogue did with their a hundred story tower. I mean, they'll be the first to tell you that whether a hundred story towers actually make sense or is feasible is the right thing to do right now. The idea of pushing it out there into the industry as like, um, like for inspiration, almost that avant-garde piece. It is still really important'cause it creates that aspiration of what we can attain. Um, a lot of projects that we toured in Portland, uh, if anyone's ever been through the, the TRCA building, which is this just wild mass timber thing. I mean, these are all great aspirational projects that if you talk to people involved, it sounds like, you know, same with your project. They're very difficult and challenging. A lot of cases and maybe even frustrating for some involved because maybe for some involved, they're not thinking that this is solving a conventional problem. They're thinking it's creating new problems and creating new expense that otherwise wouldn't be there if we just did it conventionally. So I totally agree with you that if you have a project that is really tight and it's, and the team that's involved doesn't have the comfort or the, OR hasn't spent that time and energy getting. Familiar with not only the systems and the tools, but the actual people. You know, people build buildings, you know, j more so than the actual tools. Right? So I think that aspect is so important to, to have your head around is like, yes, if the budget doesn't re barely works and the mass timber. Doesn't significantly help it either in terms of speed or some other thing and you don't have that experience and that real energy there in the team to, to push it. It's gonna be very challenging and maybe in those cases, maybe not, not the right fit. That being said, I know for yourself on your project that's not the case.'cause I know you do have the energy and you and you're gonna push through it and you're gonna get on the other side. And whether or not everything perfect or not is completely irrelevant. The fact is you're gonna have that in your belt the next time you're going to have that experience. It's, it's why for us, we say that, um, we don't consider ourselves designers who just wanna put out vaporware on the internet, you know, fancy renderings or, or have websites and, and, and all of this stuff. We are true truest currency, even over and above our fees. We do have to get paid our fees just to make a living, of course, but our, but our truest currency. Is built projects, you get so much more from a built project than anything else. And if I'm thi, I mean, we have built now several mass timber projects that with clients who would never have agreed to do it, or with clients that have specifically sought us out, particularly in the public sector, not for profits who have come through and seen, you know, that first one we did. And realize it's exactly what they want. And when we are able to describe to them. Our delivery model of how it does, it just checks, boom, it goes. If we were to go and just talk to those groups, it wouldn't have the same effect. Getting into a building and having people see it, touch it, uh, in the case of wood, even smell it, it, it really, it goes so far. Even if it's things that ooh, wouldn't do that on the next one, right? Like it's, that feedback loop is absolutely critical, uh, for the industry and, and for all of us. And, um, yeah, I think the, I mean, the other thing too is we've often talked about design and the design process. As, you know, imagining a 7 47 or imagine, uh, Boeing playing and thinking about the design hours that went into that, or even thinking about, you know, a widget, a phone or something like that, and thinking about the design hours that go into that. And, and in, in the thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of design hours. Then once they get it right, then they start to replicate it, right? You have to get that prototyping right and then you start to replicate. And that's something that construction industry isn't typically known for, but it is something that we're trying to figure out how we could do and what's great about it. It seems daunting because it's, you know, we're swimming against the grain of how things work. But if you can, again, just more so, keep your eyes open for the opportunity and the aligned, uh, project partners members. Who, who have the same interests, you can usually find the opportunities. We have a good example of that right now with a, a project. We were doing a project in an infill location. It was a multi-unit, sort of multi-stack of, of, of buildings on the corner of this, you know, uh, up and coming neighborhood that was, you know, wartime housing and looking for, you know, a bit of a, a, a boost and, and densification. So we had a site, it was in for zoning approvals, and we had come up with design and talked to the client and talked to the group involved about how we were gonna use this as a, as a panelized, uh, prefabricated solution that could all show up to site and click together with a hybrid of mass timber and stick frame to have worked well. Six months into that process, that same client was driving around and realized that a house four doors in had burnt down and was up for sale on literally a fire sale where the, he, he was able to pick it up for, for very, you know, very, very cheap. And so what we immediately realized is that based on the new zoning that had come down from, from the city, the, and, and you know, had streamed down from the federal government through provincial. Allowing four units on a single lot, we immediately were able to take a prototype of one of our stacks that was going on the other's other development and build it on a fast track timeline with no planning approvals on this site. Now again, there was definitely times when we scratched our head and said, oh man, why are we doing this? This is painful. Because it was new and it was different, and it still took people to wrap their head around it. But as a prototyping exercise just based sur solely on. Keeping your eyes open for the opportunity to, to push forward with the concepts and the ideas. That's been, uh, you know, that's been a really exciting thing. And not even because it was something that we pushed, it was something that through the collaboration and connection and communication with a client in that case, that they were able to identify it and then bring it back to us as a team, uh, to work on the execution in that design. Prototyping almost. But in real time and, and with a real executed project.

Payam 42:04

That's, that's, that's very, that's a very good example of what could be achieved. And, uh, personally, for the past almost 10 years now, I've been pursuing, uh, it has been my personal goal to see if I can establish two or three building types and technologies. For per se, infill mid-rise buildings'cause that, I sincerely believe that there's gonna be huge need and market segment for that. And I've been fortunate enough to be able to work with probably, I don't know, maybe around half a dozen or more different system types combined together and hybrids and try to debug. I would like to say. Each of them and kind of figure out, okay, this system is good if you have a corner lot, this system is better if you have a middle lot and trying to do that. And I think going back to what we were discussing, some the, that idea with the stackability and repeatability principle will kind of work together. And one of the things I've been learning is that, uh, you also don't need to fall in love. With one particular system or method or material as much as you get comfortable with it, but you don't need, there are potentials for crisscross and just mismatch and just mix things up a little bit because sometimes it actually helps to have a steel beam in the middle of a, um, master buildings per se, or, or vice versa, just to make sure that something gets achieved. And it doesn't need to be exactly a hundred percent one way or another way. So that's good. And I want to. Switch gears a little bit. I want to go through the hypotheticals a little bit. We have a question in this podcast. We, we ask our, uh, guests that if we were to give you a magic wand, I don't know if you like magic or not, but let's assume you do. If we were to give you a magic wand and say, Matt, um, for a day you could change one law, one regulation, one guideline, what one mindset, one way of doing things. In the industry. Take your pick. What would you change right now that would overall help us as an industry, as a society to solve the housing problem? Solve the um, I dunno, climate crisis solve the affordability. Which one? Like pick one or two, like that would be great.

Matt 44:18

Oh, that's a tough one. Okay, so I think I have a really easy one that maybe is a little bit of a cheat and then maybe I can think well on. Well, I. Reviewing that one. Maybe I'll think of something a little more ambitious.'cause obviously if you've got that magic wand, uh, I don't know how to, do you wanna use it? Well, you wanna use it? Well, yeah. The first one, which might not be, which might be a bit of a lane use of the magic wand. Uh, maybe I need to think more, bigger, bigger or, or more ambitiously. Uh, I would say the permit permission of single stair exits in this country. Uh, and I, I know that technically BC. Has permitted it. However, my understanding also is that there's still checks and balances with fire, uh, prevention that is making it difficult to actually execute even out in BC Con Conrad Becker, who you probably know, he should probably have on here'cause he'd be great if he hasn't been already. Obviously, Jack Keys, who introduced us, um, uh, as you know, close ties as well. We've all been part of Conrad's Drive to push single stair exits. And what's funny about that is that originally, I don't know, maybe five years ago or more, came to me with it to a bunch of architects, uh, with the concept. And I actually shot it down if it was me and some old, uh, old crusty guy that, uh, that didn't like the idea of it. Um, which is funny because it, it speaks to. Preconceived notions of what's the right thing to do and what's not. And, and, and buying into whatever you think is the thing. As you say, being flexible and open to, oh, maybe I need to shift my ideas and paradigms on what, what is the right way? And not, not being focused on dogma or what is conventional or what's being done, but sort of just being open to it. The single stair thing. Uh, we've now, after I've studied it, after I've started to look at our, uh, at typologies. Uh, that we have and, and the dramatic efficiencies you can see, and this is sort of me as a dorky designer, but the ability to not only create building efficiencies that I know make, uh, the go, no go on projects much more viable from a, from a financial standpoint, but also just the sense of community that you can get out of those Now singular circulation spaces, um, to me could create such a major impact. And similarly to what I was saying before about the work we've done and people being able to get into those buildings and then realize that this is what they want and doing it. I had a very similar experience last year when I was fortunate enough to travel to Europe and specifically to Scandinavia, and was able to visit. I mean, I went there to visit, see a whole bunch of stuff, but I specifically was able to visit a friend living with his wife and three kids in a place called Nord Haven in Copenhagen. Which is a, you know, relatively new development and they were living in a six story, essentially walk-up. It did have an elevator, so had full accessibility. But it, it's what, it's what exactly we're talking about. It's this, it's a single stair grouping and, and clustering of buildings with, you know, three or four units per floor. And it allows for, it's not just similar to mass timber, it's not just about one thing. It's the fact that it creates a more efficient building, building layout. More, more usable versus common area. It has, again, be shown clearly through, you know, fire, fire, exiting models and, and all kinds of really detailed information that from a safety, life safety standpoint, it has no, and in fact, even in some ways it might be better, um, at the right scale and the right design layout, uh, with the right limitations and systems put into that building. Also, again, it's got that added benefit similar to mass timber where yeah, you get all these logistics things or all these things that it can benefit your speed and efficiency and pro formas. But it also then creates these amazing community hubs where you actually see your neighbor because you're coming out and if you're on, depending on what floor you're on, you're likely going to take that central stair down and out through your space, and then that starts to drive. The entire urban fabric because we're actually designing for that within the buildings, within our building typologies that are still repeatable, that are still based on, you know, kid of part design and standardized elements that can be refined and adapted to a given place. That's the one that to me, from a nonbeliever to a believer, uh, we still have these barriers that hopefully, I mean, we've seen some really amazing things in terms of. Government driven, government initiating, initiating approval that I hope will, will continue regardless of, of, uh, where the political situation goes. I do hope that at the very least there is this push towards let's open, uh, in a, in a responsible way, but let's trust our consultant and construction, uh, design and construction community to, to do what they need to do, reliable and, and responsible for it. Anyways, let's take, you know, that restriction off and, and I would say. Specifically that one I think would be

Payam 49:31

really cool.

Matt 49:31

And, and that's, I am an optimist, so I hope, I hope it'll happen.

Payam 49:35

I would say that's not, that's not a frivolous one. That's actually a very effective one because it would, like you mentioned, it has trickle effect. I know of what, uh, unfortunately I know of multiple projects that, uh, especially when you're, um, in my niche where you're working on infill midrise projects where every square foot counts for you to be able to gain efficiency in the building. There are projects that could be a goal or no goal just because of a single stakers or two stake, or in most common cases right now, is the scissor stairs, which where you still lose a decent chunk of efficiency per floor and, uh, you have to do, and to your point, we have been seeing a lot of good progress in terms of easing up some regulations, allowing, allowing the industry to breathe a little bit per se in terms of, um, what they can build. And I think it was Mike Vernick on a few episodes ago that, uh, he, he was arguing that yes, incremental change is good. We definitely need it, but at the same time, be aware of not becoming complacent as an, as an industry. Just because we got the wind we need, we still need more. And I want to, uh, circle it back by saying that yes, we got the major streets in Toronto. We got, we got the whole eon going on, but you still need to work out the, the staircases. You still need to work out the type G. Loading and you still need to, to, to work out a whole bunch of different things for your, for, for, to actually pencil out. So I actually agree with your wish and I hope that, uh, uh, the genie, while he's working on the, on that, that one can also work on the, the type G loading condition because that also affects whole other types of projects. Um, I want to go and ask you on the flip side, in our community as a, as the professionals. Consultants, engineers, builders, developers. What are some of the important things that you think we neglect or mistakes that we make or things that we don't necessarily pay attention to? Which is, which could be improved on, or it could be it. It could be considered waste at this point in time. Does anything particular come to mind?

Matt 51:47

it's hard to do, but I, it's, it's also, it's a bit, maybe it's just been the week I've had, but it seemed pretty obvious. And that is, uh, the week of the, the year or the couple years I've had. But we have to absolutely start focusing more on the ultimate goal. On a project is the, the ultimate goal is to, is to build that thing and get it and get it built. And I think too many times there's too much focus from all the groups you mentioned on, on the process, on making sure that all the checks and balances and things and, and I appreciate, um, uh, especially'cause uh,'cause I don't work on, on very, very large, very, very complex projects that have, you know, massive budgets in every different. You know, specified section in trade and whatever and how and how you need to have very robust management practices in place for those types of projects. But what I'm finding and seeing is because there's those examples of how you deliver you mega P three hospitals, infrastructure projects, what have you, too often, I think a lot of the inherited process, dogma, whatever you want to call it. Is getting downloaded all the way down to some of this work that, you know, we're, we're doing and we need to get away from that. We need to really think a bit, a bit more with that, you know, triage, nasa, uh, based approach of let's put all the stuff on the table, get all the people around the table who know how to do it, and then just go do it. Not worry about as much the, that, the right set of, um. Documentation procedures or, or, or command chain of command was followed to go through the right thing. I think we need to get away from that a little bit more and really start focusing on what the end goal is. And if the end goal is delivering, uh, transitional housing in a community that's struggling with huge encampment problems and and safety of, of vulnerable citizens, that's something we have to, to look at and, uh, and focus on. And. Fortunately, I think there's some really great examples, and I'm even more fortunate, I feel like I've been lucky enough to be involved in some of them where, you know, the Rapid Housing Initiative, the, the first version round one was 12 months. 12 months not for design, not for approvals, but it was 12 months from the start of the project to occupancy. And that when, when that got stated pretty much across the industry, that was scoffed at, it was last at it. It's not possible. Um, there's just no way. And, and even still today, I think, I mean, the program has been expanded. I think it's more, it's, it's more like 18 months now and things have slid at it, but it still has a lot of the good elements of it. But what that was such a fun part to be a part of is included in our case and why we were able to be successful is be because it was the entire, the entire group was all aligned in terms of that execution, starting with the, the government and, and, and all the approvals. Authorities all the way down to the design and consulting and ultimately fabrication and construction. So that to me is where we absolutely need to be focusing ourselves more so, and I am seeing that in certain places. I just think it needs to be maybe incentivized more. Um, or, or, or just communicated more to, to focus on. On results. And if we can do that and promote, you know, it's about the results and because then I think similar to some of these strategies, we're talking about mass timber, there's like three or four or five totally different benefits that mass timber can offer Prefabrication. There's three or four or five different benefits, single stairs. There's three or four or five different benefits they can offer. The same thing is true for like executing projects with speed. Of course, I mean, you know, there's lots of people who say, well, you need the right amount of time to do your work and, and all those things. And I do get that, uh, especially from the consultant side. But it, and if it's going to be done in a way where you have to have the right people and the right mindset to do it. But I think if we can start operating in a more collaborative, less litigious mindset on, on again, uh, certain types of projects where it makes sense. And, and get the support for that from government and the, and the community at large. That's, that's where I see as something that we can be doing and focusing on more, is how to, how do we start tracking the executed projects and the finish line and celebrating them, you know, and, and really talking about that because I don't, I don't necessarily think it is as much, I think. In a lot of cases, we tend to get distracted too much about, again, we call it wa we call it here, vaporware. The, the stuff, you know, the, the sexy images and, and especially in today's day, you don't sometimes know if it's real or not. Is that a real picture on their website? Is it whatever? Uh, to me, a focus on, on more about how did they get that done and how, and how long did it really take them to get that done? And having the focus on that will, I think naturally we've seen it, it's, it naturally starts to take. The attention away from the noisy elements and just focuses everyone in on what really matters and solving the problems that matter in the order that they need to be solved, uh, in terms of importance and urgency.

Payam 57:24

Yeah, that, that, definitely agree with that. And I think I. Jonathan Diamond said it very good on this podcast a few episodes ago that, uh, it seems like some, somewhere around the way we lost the overarching objective and we everyone started optimizing for different top targets in the process and. At this point in time, we are optimizing for 200 different variables in the, in the process of building a building versus, and sometimes we just forget that we actually need to build this. Like, at the end of the day, if we, if we, and, and I'm talking, I'm not talking about just the design section, I'm also talking about the municipalities and people who have a jurisdiction over different things. If you keep making things optimized in a million different ways, it just will just not happen. He just adds cost. He just adds time and just, uh, defeats the whole purpose. But yeah, I could not agree more with what you just said. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that you wanna share with our audience? Any parting thoughts or final ideas? I don't think

Matt 58:24

so. No. I, I just really appreciate the opportunity. It's always nice to, to talk.

Payam 58:29

Thank you very much. We very much, I appreciate your time and who knows, maybe in the next year or so we have more updates and we do a round two of this conversation. And again, thank you for your time today.

Matt 58:40

Great. Thank you.