NEWH - Summer 2019 - 42

SUSTAINABILITY | POINT OF VIEW

Advancing Green Voice Conversations at BDwest
By Stacey Olson, Southwest Regional Design Resilience Leader, Gensler

elcome to our conversation! As an NEWH member, it's my
pleasure to recap our 2019 BDwest trade fair and conference
involvement through our annual Green Voice conversation and
education program.
Every day designers face new challenges and hurdles in their quest to provide experiential, cutting-edge spaces
while carefully balancing budget and schedule. Keeping tabs on emerging trends, not to mention the complexity that
comes with sustainable integration, is just one of those tasks that often falls short in the list of priorities. We hope to
make that task simpler by promoting best practices in design through complimentary sustainable education sessions
that achieve balance among environment, health, and social equity at industry tradeshows like BDwest.
The NEWH Education Committee is committed to moving the industry forward
through conversations from challenging concepts to unique innovation. Speakers
volunteer their efforts and the program is made possible by generous NEWH Green
Voice sponsors Florida Seating, Tarkett, and Stickley Contract.
The BDwest sessions did not disappoint, with three content-packed discussions.
NEWH's Green Voice leader (yours truly) hosted Eco-Charretting for Integrated
Sustainability, an immersive, hourlong interactive workshop with attendees. Often,
we discuss sustainable integration too late to be effectively included in design. The
purpose of an eco-charrette is to discuss high-level sustainable integration at the
project's onset-to hone key overarching concepts, which can be further vetted
STACEY OLSON
beginning in the design concept phase-where strategies are most effective-
Green Voice sessions at HD Expo will be
and further fine-tuned throughout the design process. Attendees compared their
Thursday, May 16 in the Wellness Pavilion
suggested environmental, health, and well-being strategies with those of a 5-Star
on the show floor, booth #1107. Beginning
confidential resort and spa presented as a basis of design.
at 1:00pm, join Katarina Terranova of Las
Responsible Organizations: Why Supply Chain Sustainability is Critical to
Vegas Sands Corp and Rhiannon Jacobsen
Hospitality was an excellent 200-level course following last year's Making LEED Easy:
of USGBC, moderated by Cara Rude of
A Materials & Resources Discussion. Moderated by Thomas Ventura, design director
MCG, as they investigate The New Luxury:
for Gensler, and presented by speaker Deidre Schwartz of American Hotel Register,
Purpose-Filled Experiences. Following at
this conversation dove deep into the crux of materials transparency while guiding
2:00pm, I will discuss Embodied Carbon:
listeners toward strategies that reduce risk, and optimize aesthetic and responsibly
A Rapid Solution to Mitigating Climate
sourced material selections.
Change with Lisa Conway of Interface and
Our final session, Biomimicry is the New Black, included a dialogue between me
Barbara Rodriguez of the University of
and Lorraine Francis, design principal for Cadiz Collaboration. With much of the
Washington College of Built Environments.
industry keen on the trends of biophilia, we explored biomimicry-a close cousin.
Attendees benefited from Lorraine's examples in scale, style, form, and massing-
and left with a detailed process and resources for future project integration.
If you missed BDwest, not to worry! Please reach out directly to any one of our speakers for more information about
their Green Voice conversations, and join us at HD Expo for two hourlong panels on exciting new topics! ❙❘❚

Thank you to our Green Voice sponsors _______________________________________________________________________
C O N T RAC T

For more information about NEWH Friends of Green Voice sponsorship visit newh.org/education
42 www.newh.org

http://www.newh.org/education http://www.newh.org

NEWH - Summer 2019

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