Building Good

As Building Good wraps up its sixth season, we’re looking back at the big ideas shaping the future of construction. A few key themes kept emerging. First, sustainability still faces financial and regulatory roadblocks. Second, meaningful change needs community buy-in to succeed. Third, bold ideas are the skeleton keys to unlocking the construction industry’s biggest brain teasers. Co-hosts Jen Hancock and Geoff Capelle revisit the season’s most thought-provoking moments: from researchers developing sci-fi worthy building materials to expert navigators of the twisty, ever-evolving road of regulatory landscapes to multihyphenates using generative AI to reimagine community engagement.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

For thousands of years, humans have built with wood. Today, mass timber is changing the way we design, build, and experience our spaces. It’s strong, fire-resistant, and capable of storing carbon, offering a sustainable alternative to traditional building materials. And beyond its structural benefits, wood also connects us to nature, improving well-being through biophilic design. Andre Lema, Business Development Manager at Western Archrib, breaks down the benefits of biophilic design, how mass timber is reducing carbon emissions, and why architects and developers are embracing wood for everything from rec centers to high-rises.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

Canada’s path to net zero hinges on electrification. As the world’s fourth-largest producer of hydroelectricity, we’re primed to take a global leadership role. With the provinces and territories at different stages of grid decarbonization, electrification doesn’t have to be “all or nothing” — regions with a longer way to go can take a phased approach, incorporating supplemental energy sources. But what about chilly Canadian winters? Cold-climate heat pumps now operate efficiently at -25°C. Of course, the best time to electrify may be during the initial build. But the second best time is now. Mariko Michasiw, program manager for B2E, the Building to Electrification Coalition - a program area of the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre (ZEIC) - explains how cold-climate heat pumps, strategic retrofits, and grid planning are key to scaling electrification.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

Climate change is polarizing. Between inflation, investor pressures, competitiveness, high interest, and economic sluggishness, climate change can seem like a far-off problem — just another thing to worry about. Sustainability often takes a back seat, becoming a “nice to have” instead of a “need to have.” But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Heather Taylor of EY Canada breaks down how prioritizing climate action is actually a smart investment strategy.Editor's Note: After publishing, we received an email from Heather & her team with two further points. First, during the episode, we mentioned that global warming could reach up to 3 degrees by 2100. In January, a report came out saying that 2024 was the first year to exceed 1.5 degrees of global warming. Second, Heather & her team shared this excellent observation: "For the construction industry which is seen as an economic driver in Canada - there is an opportunity to for the industry to inform and influence public policy. The construction industry can stimulate jobs and domestic investment when the industry is thriving. Given the significant capital it will take to get buildings to a resilient and lower carbon footprint, there is an opportunity for Canada to ensure the construction materials are domestic products. The new Trump administration’s threat of tariffs may create a tariff war which may create a significant impact on the construction industry." Thanks to Heather & her team for the engaging comments!Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

In Asia, bamboo has been used as a construction material for thousands of years. Prized for its availability, strength, and flexibility, it has over a thousand uses—including scaffolding during the construction of high rises in Hong Kong. So why has it been slow to be adopted by the global construction industry? It’s a sustainability advocate's dream: it sequesters carbon; provides wildlife habitats; supplies biofuel. Some species mature in just five years and can auto-regenerate after harvesting. But how does it stack up against concrete, steel, and timber? With the right ingredients, engineered bamboo shows major promise as a regenerative building material of the future. Brock University's Dr. Amir Mofidi is an expert in bio-based composites and he's developing cold-hardy, construction-ready strains that can handle North American climates.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

What if your city wasn’t just a place to live, but a tool to keep you healthy? Dr. Avi Friedman, Professor of Architecture at McGill University, and Alexandra Pollock, landscape designer and urban planner, discuss how our cities impact our health—and how they can be redesigned for a better future. Avi and Alexandra dive into the concept of cities as “exercise machines,” where walkable streets, green spaces, and accessible design promote both physical and mental well-being. They explore how planning for “15-minute cities” can combat urban sprawl, reduce isolation, and bring communities together, all while tackling environmental challenges.Read Fundamentals of Planning Cities for Healthy Living (Anthem Press, 2023).Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

New York Times science journalist Emily Anthes, author of The Great Indoors, has spent a lot of time thinking about how buildings shape our lives, from mood to mortality. From designing hospitals that speed up recovery, to developing autism-friendly apartments, to rejigging offices to boost productivity — the interior of the built environment can be a crucial factor in determining human health and happiness. After all, we spend 90% of our time inside. So why not use soundproofing, plants, and universal design to make our inner worlds a dreamy place to be?Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

Because of the Indian Act, Indigenous communities have been blocked from accessing capital markets, which means they haven’t been able to invest in critical infrastructure projects happening in their territories. For the past ten years, First Nations Major Projects Coalition has been working to change that. FNMPC is a non-profit, Indigenous-led organization working to empower Indigenous communities to secure equity stakes in mining, clean energy, regulated utilities and pipelines. FNMPC’s Chief Sustainability Officer Mark Podlasly Mark explains how First Nations are becoming full partners in the next chapter of Canada’s development—and why it’s a crucial element to meeting Canada’s international obligations around accessing export markets.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

NIMBY. It’s a cursed acronym that can send chills down an urban planner's spine and jettison approved building permits into liminal space. It stands for “not in my backyard,” and it can stop even the mightiest projects in their tracks. Blamed for gentrification, urban sprawl, and a myriad of other evils, NIMBYs tend to oppose land use change. So, how does a NIMBY evolve into a YIMBY? (A “yes, in my backyard!”) It’s not magic. It’s just good public consultation. And there’s an app for that. Farhaan Ladhani is the CEO of Digital Public Square and Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy. His latest project, Goodbit, is here to transform how we talk with each other about the topics that get us the most… heated.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

Mushroom bricks sound like something straight out of science fiction or an 80’s arcade game featuring an intrepid pair of plumbing brothers. But mushroom bricks are more than just fantasy—they’re a biomimetic masterpiece. Biodegradable, eco-friendly, non-toxic, waterproof, fire-resistant, and grown from mycelium—the fuzzy white, green, or black germinated spores of a mushroom—mycelia is a material that’s mushrooming with potential. Outside of construction, it’s being used in myriad of ways—as packaging, replacing materials like styrofoam and polyurethane; in fashion, as a substitute for leather; in acoustic treatment, as an alternative to cork and foam. Dr. Mercedes Garcia Holguera, Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Manitoba breaks down the science of mushroom bricks and how we can use them to stack the future of construction in our favour.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

Urban planning is a constant negotiation between the bold dreams of the built environment and the delicate balance of the natural one. After all, we have a limited amount of space to terraform, and plants got here first. Urban growth is exploding: by 2060, the global building footprint is projected to double. But instead of wreaking havoc on biodiversity with every new development, interdisciplinary artist Dror Benshetrit of Supernature Labs has a greener idea: bioplanning. An approach that’s rooted in nature, bioplanning is the idea that maybe (just maybe!) humans don’t have it all figured out. It’s the concept that Mother Nature is a brilliant urban planner and she’s happy to share the IP when it comes to efficiency and conservation. So, who are the brave souls ready and willing to take one big leaf forward?Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

Wood isn’t what it used to be. Virgin lumber is generally less dense and grown faster than wood that was harvested from natural old growth forests. But logging what’s left of those old growth forests isn’t a sustainable option, so why not reclaim old lumber when buildings are torn down? Until now that process was labour intensive and expensive, but Eric Law and Urban Machine have developed robots that are making reclaimed lumber into the building material of choice, and that might just change the way we build new buildings entirely.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

Buildings from around the world represent the culture they were built in. From gothic cathedrals in Europe to glittering glassy office towers. So why don’t we always think about local culture when we start designing? Why don’t we talk to the community and ask for the stories they grew up with, so they can tell us about their culture? That’s what Chris Cornelius, founder of Studio:Indigenous, does. He joins Building Good to tell us how listening is the starting point for any of his projects.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

If you head downtown in any major Canadian city you will see a lot of construction, and it is mostly large residential towers that are going up. That means more people living there, but the roads stay the same size. More residents, more cars, more traffic. So we have to rethink how we use those roads, and how we get people on to more efficient modes of transport. The cheapest, easiest alternative is the good old fashioned bicycle. Dana O'Born is the chair of the board of Cycle Toronto and a year-round cyclist. She’s here to talk about how construction can work better with cyclists to help us build better cities for users of every kind of transport. Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

Human nature makes the future a scary place. Scientists had predicted pandemics for decades, but the Covid-19 pandemic still felt like it came out of nowhere. Our tendency is to react to events, rather than get ourselves ready for likely eventualities. Markku Allison and Molly Connor have developed a free tool to help change our thinking and learn how to be ready for the future. They’re on the show to talk us through the tool, which you can get at https://chandos.com/futureready, and to discuss what the future might hold for the architecture, engineering and construction industries.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

If job sites can be hostile environments for women and nonbinary people, how do we get them into construction in the first place, so they can change those workplaces? Nora Spencer founded Hope Renovations. They run a programme to bring women and nonbinary folks in the trades, which includes training on dealing with job sites and then they employ them in internships. They’re also a nonprofit providing renovations to seniors so they can age in place. Nora joins the show to tell us why her trainees are proving to be the perfect people to do this kind of work, straddling construction and social work. Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

When we’re starting a new, dream job, we can overlook some annoyances, thinking they might get better. As we get older, more experienced though, we might realise that annoyance was a red flag. That coworker’s “jokes” were actually a sign of an intolerant attitude, and that promotion you wanted is given to someone less qualified. You still love what you do, but would you tell a young person to go after that job? Jamie McMillan has been a welder and ironworker for 27 years and she’s the founder of KickAss Careers and Made In The Trades, and she spends a lot of time getting kids excited about the trades… but she also understands that getting them in is only half the battle. We have to change the industry so that they stay for the long haul, too.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

Afdhel Aziz is a “recovering marketer”. His purpose used to be helping some of the biggest brands on the planet sell their products, and he did that by connecting them with “cool”. Now, he thinks that “cool” has been replaced with “good”. He’s even written a book about it: Good is the New Cool. He joins us to talk about how companies need to have a purpose beyond just making profits, because that purpose ultimately does lead to profit.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

Heading into downtown Toronto you see a forest of cranes and partly built condo towers. These buildings are providing new, much-needed housing… for a certain type of resident. They’re mostly small, with good amenities and high fees. So where will all the families live? Where do our low and fixed income neighbours move to? Cheryll Case is an urban planner who puts affordable housing and inclusion at the heart of her strategy, through her non-profit firm CP Planning. She’s on the show to help us understand how we in the construction industry can help people like her plan for more affordability and equity in housing.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn

Cities are phenomenally complex, living spaces that can generate an overwhelming amount of data, so collecting, managing and using that data is also phenomenally complex. There are huge pitfalls to avoid, privacy being the obvious one, and misuse by private entities another. Data is an incredibly valuable tool though, especially as we look to manage massive increases in electricity use. The “Smart City” is a concept that John Lorinc has covered in his book “Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias” and he joins the show to tell us how smart cities are operating in the real world, what’s gone wrong, and what technology we desperately need to transition to a green economy.Join the Building Good community today:https://www.buildinggood.caLinkedIn