We look forward to talking with Sustainable Building Week attendees interested in holistic practices and collaboration that impact the health and well-being of our future. We asked some of the presenters at our open house to share their thoughts on what they are most excited to learn from the community and more. Be sure to visit as many of the talks and tours around the city as you can: http://sustainablebuildingweek.com/.

INTERACTIVE SESSION:
FROM LANTERNS TO CITY BLOCKS: CREATING MICROGRIDS AT ALL SCALES
Karina Hershberg, Electrical Engineer, PAE
Craig Collins, Electrical Engineer, PAE

1. What are you hoping to learn from the greater community at Sustainable Building Week?
The science has made it clear that the time is now for bold ideas and big changes. We are looking forward to finding inspiration for new partnerships across sectors that will help accelerate the built environment’s move towards a sustainable future.

2. What are you hoping people learn from creating microgrids?
Microgrids are a wonderful embodiment of where the energy sector is heading. The traditional model of a one-directional relationship between utilities and customers is being replaced with this more fluid system where everyone is both a generator and a customer. This fresh dynamic gives us exciting new ways to improve resiliency, advance the “greening of the grid,” and be more conscious participants in the larger energy system. Microgrids are a key part of this shift and provide benefits to both building owners and the utilities.

3. What has been your greatest sustainability challenge and accomplishment as an electrical designer?
Our greatest challenge and accomplishment is to help guide owners to see the potential their project has to be part of a bigger solution. Every building has the opportunity to be a local source of renewable energy, a smart user of energy, and an integral participant in the movement towards a more sustainable and resilient built environment.

INTERACTIVE SESSION:
VIRTUAL REALITY: EXPLORING THE PAE LIVING BUILDING
Gabrielle Serriere, Project Manager, Luma - Answering the questions below
Zach Suchara, Principal, Luma
Scott Simpson, Audiovisual Consultant and Associate, PAE

1. What are you hoping to learn from the greater community at Sustainable Building Week?
We cannot wait to hear what sustainable projects other firms are working on. Every year, there are new standards, new metrics for measuring sustainability, and it is exciting to keep up on the latest—down to the details of what designers and engineers are integrating into the built environment.

2. What will people take away from your station?
We hope the VR fly-through of our ground-breaking commercial Living Building provides insight into what is possible in the realm of beautiful sustainable buildings. The decision for exposed cross-laminated timber combined with other exposed, directly apparent structural material choices shows we want this building to celebrate the truth of what we are creating, and the boundaries that we are pushing.

3. What has been your greatest sustainability challenge and accomplishment as a lighting designer?
On the PAE Living Building, we are providing the most red-list free lighting fixtures we have collected on one project. We are attempting to source the most environmentally friendly options across the board, which gets very complicated when it comes to LED and power supplies. We love being on a project that is at the cutting edge of product availability because it lets manufacturers know we are ready and we want to use these lights now.

PAE INTERACTIVE OPEN HOUSE, CO-ORGANIZER
Ruwan Jayaweera, Associate Principal, PAE

1. What are you hoping to learn from the greater community at Sustainable Building Week?
I am hoping to learn what our colleagues are doing to address resiliency and decarbonization in their line of work. I hope this event will encourage discussion and sharing of ideas.

2. What are you hoping people learn from the open house?
That PAE is on the cutting edge of sustainable design and resilience—and we have fun doing it!

3. What has been your greatest sustainability challenge and accomplishment as a mechanical engineer?
There have been many interesting challenges throughout my career. Perhaps the one that comes to mind because it is so recent, is the high-rise residential project that I am currently designing with a goal of becoming Passive House certified. It was a challenge because it was not initially planning on the certification although we always had high sustainability goals. Working with the architect, we performed a lot of studies and provided the owner with data-backed options that showed that certifying as a Passive House made sense. We hope to finish this as one of the few high-rise Passive House certified buildings in the U.S.