piper: decoding healthy & regenerative design

Piper Republic

Piper explores the diverse stories of the designers, architects, builders, brands and wellness experts working to make the built environment healthier and more sustainable for people and planet. Each episode aims to decode the complexities of healthy and regenerative design to make it more accessible to designers of all backgrounds.

  1. Forging Transparency Pathways to Responsible Wood   With Evan Schmidt and Oliver Ogden, Sustainable Northwest

    -1 ДН.

    Forging Transparency Pathways to Responsible Wood With Evan Schmidt and Oliver Ogden, Sustainable Northwest

    For a material as seemingly straightforward and simple as wood, it has a very complex, layered and often opaque supply chain. While certifications like FSC, SFI and PEFC may tell you the wood came from responsibly managed forests, it's a very small part of the story. Like organic labels on produce, these certifications can offer some peace of mind, but they don't tell you the lineage, where specifically the wood came from, the forest management practices, or how it was handled along its journey. As the use of wood and mass timber continues to grow, sustainability leaders across the design and construction industry are starting to require more transparency to meet rigorous sustainability goals. And that's where organizations like Sustainable Northwest come in. This environmental conservation nonprofit does many things, but one of them is connecting responsible forest owners with buyers and specifiers, creating transparent, regional supply chain networks…from forest to frame.   Seeing the impact Sustainable Northwest was having on forestry, mass timber and local, rural economies, compelled Evan Schmidt and Oliver Ogden to join the organization as part of the wood market team. Though each took different paths to the nonprofit, they ultimately started from the same place: a lifelong passion for nature.  In this episode, Evan and Oliver discuss some of the challenges and barriers that exist in the responsible wood procurement process, how they're working to connect responsible forest and land owners with designers and builders, and how those person-to-person connections impact the wood products industry.

    45 мин.
  2. From Story to Seed to Shelter: A Library Emerges from the Badlands

    31.10.2025

    From Story to Seed to Shelter: A Library Emerges from the Badlands

    The badlands of North Dakota, much like a library, are rich with story. The layers of mineral deposits visible in the buttes and hoodoos that make up the region are like raconteurs of the ancient inland seas, floodplains and volcanic ash that once covered the area 28 to 75 million years ago. But while the badlands are now cherished for their beauty and history, they were given that name long ago for a reason. They're rigid, arid and harsh––a beautiful place to visit, a difficult place to traverse. But in the 1880s, when Theodore Roosevelt arrived in the region, he saw something different. To him, the Badlands became a place of reflection, introspection, healing, and deep connection to nature. In fact, Roosevelt said his time in the North Dakota Badlands was one of the foundational experiences of his life. And so, it was fitting that the area would become the home of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. And that's where the architecture and design firm Snohetta comes into the picture.  Not only did the team see the rich story embedded in the landscape, they saw various pathways to connect people to TR's legacy and the historical significance of the land, while restoring the diminished ecology of the Badlands prairie. It was likely this vision and deep respect for the landscape that contributed to Snohetta being selected out of some 40 other candidates.  From that point, the team embarked on an ambitious journey that would entail a rigorous set of sustainability goals––zero energy, zero water, zero emissions, zero waste––a number of firsts and the creation of the Native Plant Project.  It's been said that the badlands are a great place to learn about geology, and that, in large part, was where Matt McMahon, director of landscape architecture, and Aaron Dorf, director of architecture at Snohetta, started their journey.

    51 мин.

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Piper explores the diverse stories of the designers, architects, builders, brands and wellness experts working to make the built environment healthier and more sustainable for people and planet. Each episode aims to decode the complexities of healthy and regenerative design to make it more accessible to designers of all backgrounds.