Better Buildings, Better Society

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How can we make buildings better members of society? At the intersection of environmental awareness, entrepreneurship, and engineering, Steven Forrester (PE, BEMP BCxP CGD LEED AP BD+C, Passive House Designer) and expert guests explore this fascinating question and engage listeners with conversations that range from design and engineering to building operations and maintenance. We will learn more about the people, products, and newsworthy issues in our industry. Join us twice a month for conversations about the built environment!

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Tuesday Jan 24, 2023

There’s Power in Those Drawings

Tuesday Jan 24, 2023

“There's power in those drawings,” says Peter Ewers, founder of Ewers Architecture, about the often under-recognized influence his profession has on the world. An architect’s design choices dictate the business of everyday life and even the eternal character of major cities. With influence comes responsibility, and not enough people are on board with the push for sustainable building, including those in the wider architecture community. He cites examples already in place of fully electric buildings, those with net zero energy that eliminate the use of natural gas.

The technology and the know-how are already in place to make these practices the standard in the next 3-5 years, he says. It takes holistic thinking and communication, with those in the building community and without. Of course, the high price of materials, shipping costs, and supply chain shortages are posing challenges to sustainability and to building in general.

Clients also need to improve communication with their architect when building their homes. They should build from their values and lifestyle choices versus from an itemized checklist. Peter discusses the most common mistakes people make when hiring an architect and the advice he would give to all of those in the first stages of planning and building a home.

Quotes:

• “Truly we architects are problem solvers. That's what we're doing. We're identifying problems and finding solutions to them that other people might not think about.” (11:42- 11:52 | Peter)

• “Architects have a lot of influence. And I don't think I really got that. I don't think I really understood that until I had been working for a couple of decades. I realized we really wield a lot of power. And we need to be careful with that power. We need to be very thoughtful and diligent in what we design, draw, and suggest.” (28:31-28:52 | Peter)

• “I don't want to build buildings that are part of the problem, I want to build buildings that are a part of the solution.” (48:52-48:57 | Peter)

Links

Learn more about Peter Ewers:

Website | www.ewersarchitecture.com

Email | peter@ewersarchitecture.com

LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterewers/

Facebook | http://www.Facebook.com/EwersArch

Ewers Architecture pc

1420 Washington Avenue

Golden, Colorado 80401

303.271.0977

Resources: www.buildingscience.com