Design the Future
Women are living, learning, and leading towards a sustainable future. Their stories can help us all accelerate toward that vision in the built environment. Design the Future is a podcast created to elevate and explore the voices of women driving sustainable practices in the built environment and related fields. Lindsay Baker, a sustainability and social impact leader, and Kira Gould, a writer and communications strategist, host these conversations.
Episodes
110 episodes
Kritika Kharbanda on evidence-based design and storytelling
As the Head of Sustainability for Henning Larsen, Kritika Kharbanda spearheads the global sustainability team’s initiatives, goals, and growth. She serves on the ULI New York’s Climate and Sustainability Council and is the co-chair for AIA New ...
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44:56
Krista Egger on healthy, resilient housing for all
As VP of Building Resilient Futures at Enterprise Community Partners, Krista Egger stewards the nonprofit’s national environmental programs, including Green Communities, Health Action Plan, Resilience Academies, and Decarbonization Hubs. <...
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41:39
Upali Nanda on design for human health and perception
Dr. Upali Nanda is Partner and Executive Vice President at HKS. As the firm’s Global Sector Director, Innovation, she oversees HKS’s Research, Advisory, Sustainable Design and Cities & Communities services. Based in Ann Arbor, Upali has ext...
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54:46
Shannon Goodman on building reuse and building community
Shannon Goodman is the Executive Director of the Lifecycle Building Center in Atlanta, which has redirected nearly 13 million pounds of usable materials away from landfills and generated over $6 million in community savings, including 450 in-ki...
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46:24
Alison Mears and Jonsara Ruth on collaboration and healthy materials
Jonsara Ruth is co-founder and Design Director of Healthy Materials Lab (HML) at Parsons School of Design, where she is an Associate Professor and Founding Director of the MFA Interior Design program. Alison Mears is Associate Professor of Arch...
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47:12
Meghan Lewis on embodied carbon, research, and policy
Meghan Lewis is the Program Director of the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF), where she leads strategy, research and resource development to execute CLF’s mission to eliminate embodied carbon in buildings, materials, and infrastructure to create a...
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43:59
Billie Faircloth on transformation and platform shifts
Billie Faircloth, FAIA, is a design leader and educator who has transformed practice-integrated research and earned a reputation for demonstrating its value, methods, and outcomes. Billie was a partner and research director at the P...
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38:01
Joel Todd on understanding the whole and working synergistically
Joel Todd has been working in the green building field for more than 30 years, most recently as a USGBC Senior Fellow focused on social equity. Her career focused on green building methods and metrics development; she contributed significantly ...
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41:17
Efrie Escott on research and bringing in more people to scale progress
Efrie Escott is the Decarbonization Technical Program Leader for Digital Energy at Schneider Electric. As a licensed architect and life cycle assessment practitioner, Efrie’s previous experience in reducing carbon in the built environment was a...
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35:48
Myrrh Caplan on sustainability in construction and leading with passion
For our latest podcast, we talked to Myrrh Caplan, who is Senior VP for Sustainability at Skanska and leads the construction company’s national sustainability team. Since joining Skanska as a Project Manager in 2005, Myrrh has helpe...
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40:45
Mae-ling Lokko on biogenic materials and practices
Dr. Mae-ling Lokko is an Assistant Professor at Yale University’s School of Architecture and Yale’s Center for Ecosystems in Architecture (Yale CEA) and the founder of Willow Technologies Ltd., in Accra, Ghana. As an architectural s...
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51:15
Lu Salinas on consulting and doing what's right for the most people
Lu Salinas has been working in the green building industry since 2006 -- with firms and on projects in the US, Australia, Southeast Asia, and Mexico, where she works today. Her consulting firm, THREE Environmental Consulting, has worked on ever...
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39:37
Cristina Gamboa on quantifying the benefits of a decarbonized economy
Cristina Gamboa is CEO of the World Green Building Council, an influential local-regional-global network focused on “the transformation to sustainable and decarbonized built environments for everyone, everywhere.” She is an economist with a bac...
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46:01
Stephanie Phillips on valuing materials and a silo-busting mindset
Stephanie Phillips leads the City of San Antonio's Deconstruction & Circular Economy Program. Housed in the Office of Historic Preservation, the program prioritizes building material reuse as a tool for affordable housing repair, traditiona...
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41:33
Sandeep Ahuja on technology tools for sustainability
Sandeep Ahuja is co-founder and CEO of cove.tool, an AI-first consulting platform that aims to break down barriers in the design and construction cycle, creating a new network of shared information, interoperability, and accountability across p...
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33:34
Nora Rizzo on materials and ethics
Nora Rizzo is Grace Farms Foundation’s Ethical Materials Director. She works to advance the Design for Freedom movement to eliminate forced and child labor from the built environment. For the past two decades, Nora has been dedicated to creatin...
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43:45
Alyssa-Amor Gibbons on cultural heritage and resilience
Alyssa-Amor Gibbons designs environmentally conscious, energy-efficient, and resilient architecture that reflects a deep reverence for nature and human interconnectedness with the world. She has degrees in structural engineering and architectur...
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Episode 94
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48:14
Janice Barnes on climate adaptation as part of design
Dr. Janice Barnes is founder of Climate Adaptation Partners, a NYC-based partnership that focuses on climate adaptation. With technical training in architecture and organizational behavior, s...
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Episode 93
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49:01
Paula Melton on green building knowledge and education
Paula Melton is the Editorial Director at BuildingGreen, which supports the international sustainable building movement with learning resources, community building, and other services. She works with editorial teams to develop and deliver webca...
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Episode 92
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48:15
Laurie Schoeman on climate risk, resilience, and finance
Laurie Schoeman is the Director of Climate for Enterprise Community Investment and has served as senior advisor at the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President. Her aim is to develop and implement innovative pol...
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Episode 91
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45:17
Noorie Rajvanshi on sustainability as part of everyday work
Noorie Rajvanshi is Director of Sustainability and Climate Strategy at Siemens USA, part of a multinational technology company. Noorie talked to us about her family’s sustainability roots, her mechanical engineering background, and ...
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Episode 90
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39:14
Veena Singla on environmental health and justice
Dr. Veena Singla is Senior Scientist with the People & Communities Program at the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). She seeks to address health disparities linked to harmful environmental exposures using an interdiscipli...
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Episode 89
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41:54
Seema Bhangar on human health, data, and buildings
Seema Bhangar is a Healthy Buildings & Communities Principal at the US Green Building Council; she focuses on research and innovation. She is also a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment. If you are intereste...
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Episode 88
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41:00
Annie Bevan on materials and thinking about impact holistically
Materials maven Annie Bevan is a facilitator, consultant, and collaborator focused on creating large-scale change and leveraging sustainability as a strategic business enabler. She’s effecting this through two roles: she is CEO of SMS Collabora...
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44:39
Alejandra Menchaca on design analytics and opening windows
Through her consultancy, AIRLIT studio, Alejandra Menchaca provides expertise in mechanical engineering and building science to owners and design teams. One of her current projects will be the first performing arts facility in the US with full ...
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Season 1
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Episode 86
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44:40