20 - Lindsey Love - Regenerative Building Solutions
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[00:00:00]

James: Hello and welcome to Marketing Passive House, the podcast where we hear from architects, designers, builders, suppliers, owners, and other experts in the passive house and high performance building space. We'll be talking about what's working and what's needed when it comes to marketing buildings that meet or aspire to the passive house standard. I'm your host, James Turner, and today I'm joined by Lindsey Love, architect and founder of Regenerative Building Solutions. Lindsey, welcome to the show.

Lindsey: Thank you so much, James.

James: My pleasure. So before we get into it, and for people who are just meeting you for the first time, could you share a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you started on your passive house journey?

Lindsey: Sure. I decided to pursue a career in architecture when I was, you know, at that time that most of us make those decisions, like after high school. I went to a little liberal arts college 'cause I wasn't certain at the time what I was doing. And [00:01:00] at that liberal arts college, I met someone who introduced me to the idea of building buildings with natural things like.

Lindsey: Pretty raw materials that come from the earth. I think I first learned about cob probably, and then maybe straw bale. And I knew that's what I wanted to do. So that's not, this is a indirect route to passive house. But,

James: Hmm.

Lindsey: Through my experience in architecture school, learning about craft, taking pride in craft and quality and, then bringing that into construction and learning about construction, doing construction and also being interested in affordable housing. It kind of set me up for a foundation of a, a good fit for passive house. I am still very, very interested in that same thing that I started out in. They just, they both come from the same set of values [00:02:00] really, of wanting to be resource efficient and, and striving for a strong connection with nature and valuing health, the health impacts of our choices.

James: Nice.

Lindsey: So I learned a lot about natural materials and then, and then delved into passive house from there I co-founded a small firm in the Rocky Mountains called Love Schack with my brilliant partner, partner Lindsay Schack, who was already a certified passive passive house consultant. And she like, I was already like interested, but she sort of helped me like, go all the way in.

James: Nice, and it has to be said the best named architecture firm out there.

Lindsey: Yes. Yes. It's, it is a good one. And we had zero choices in what we could potentially name ourselves. One choice. We had. One choice.

James: [00:03:00] That's right. And

Lindsey: Yeah. Yep, we

James: good work.

Lindsey: did.

James: A hundred percent.

Lindsey: Yeah.

Lindsey: Thank you. Yeah.

James: Yeah. I had, interestingly, I had a similar. my route was through Earthships. I was really

Lindsey: Oh yeah.

James: in Earthships and building with berms and building with Earth. And got into same cob

Lindsey: Mm-hmm.

James: cordwood, there's, there's a couple around here. And then in talking to someone about all those things, I was told no passive house is the way. And, and now, you know, come around to Nev being like, oh, how about both? So, is that what you did? How about both

Lindsey: Exactly. Yep. How about both? They seem like just a natural pair, a natural fit. Mm-hmm. Because it's ultimately like the main, I mean, I love the natural materials, like for the, [00:04:00] for the fun of it, for the, the empowerment that comes with being able to source things kind of in your backyard, or not necessarily there, but like within a region,

James: Yeah.

Lindsey: local region.

Lindsey: I love the potential like modernism with natural materials. It's just, to me it's more like fun and engaging to design and work with not a cavity wall. Like I don't love, personally, I don't love cavity walls. I find a cavity wall with sheet good application to be not less authentic. To me, it's, I don't feel like it's the most elegant way to construct a building.

Lindsey: And so using things like straw clay or straw bale or hemp lime and applying plasters to that, it's more authentic. Okay, I'm getting in the weeds a little bit, but it all comes down to like authenticity, quality and craft. And passive [00:05:00] house is very much about quality and metrics and craft. You can't accomplish a passive house by checking boxes.

Lindsey: On some list, like it has to be executed in the field very well.

James: Yeah. I like that. And I like too that it, you could build a very toxic passive house if you wanted to. Like you could use

Lindsey: could,

James: whatever materials you wanted,

Lindsey: yep.

James: end of the day, if it doesn't perform, it doesn't perform,

Lindsey: Right? Yep.

James: vice versa. So.

Lindsey: And most of the people in the community of around passive house recognize that if we're pursuing health benefits then we probably should look at what materials we're using.

James: Hmm. Right. So you can interest align generally.

Lindsey: Yes.

James: And now

Lindsey: Yeah.

James: about the, the builder side, but then thinking about the, the people who want, who, you know, who commission these houses to be built, do [00:06:00] you find that, I'm curious to know, because I feel like selling passive house is one thing and selling natural buildings is another thing and having to do both maybe is twice as hard or, or maybe not, I dunno. Did you find that?

Lindsey: Yeah, it may, it probably is actually, it's twice as hard. I'm a, maybe a glutton for punishment. But it, I don't feel like in. Principle they should be. It seems to me like it, you know, like it should be easier. And I, I really try to help educate clients and just people who are interested to understand that the materials that I personally like to use are simpler to achieve high performance.

Lindsey: Therefore, potentially more cost effective than more conventional materials because you don't [00:07:00] have to rely on so many components of the assembly to do the same job. You can like stack functions within, within certain products or materials or components.

James: Right.

Lindsey: Reduce the number of trips around the building potentially pay for less shipping.

Lindsey: Source things that are really, really cheap. And then if there's just less layers there's less potential for harm. But then the main thing is that all of the things are hygroscopic, which means that they can store moisture

James: Hmm.

Lindsey: for a period of time before they start to degrade. They can release that moisture.

Lindsey: It's less of a mold. I mean, it all depends on the exact assembly layering and the climate that you're building in. I would not, never suppose that you could just build the same straw or straw clay wall in any assembly, or sorry, [00:08:00] in any climate, and never have any risk that that's not what I am supporting.

Lindsey: But what I am saying is that. With some research, with some rules of thumb, maybe with doing a little bit of modeling, but also studying what has been done in your local climate. You can put together an assembly of, of things that are pretty natural and also will be high performing.

James: I like that. Yeah, looking at local and just. Amping them up with a little bit of building science essentially,

Lindsey: Exactly.

James: Yeah,

Lindsey: Joe Lstiburek, I always say his last name incorrectly. Lstiburek the Building science guy.

James: Yep.

Lindsey: the building science guru guy that we all know and love. He said it best. I think when he said [00:09:00] that nowadays we're building higher performing buildings and we're having more mold problems as we're building tighter buildings and with newer materials.

Lindsey: And the fact is that the older materials manage moisture much better.

James: Hmm.

Lindsey: So the performance isn't always just about. Air, ceiling and thermal benefit. It's also about like durability and contribution to toxic molds within the environment.

James: Right.

Lindsey: Yeah,

James: Do you

Lindsey: the,

James: or, oh, sorry. Go on.

Lindsey: I was just gonna wrap that up and say, just acknowledge like the old materials happen to be natural.

James: Right.

Lindsey: Yeah. That's all.

James: do you find that. You would get into explanations like this with people like I, I'm, I'm always obviously trying to bring it back to the, the intersection [00:10:00] between people who know about this stuff and people who would benefit from it, but maybe don't. And so I always am curious, like hygroscopic, obviously you probably don't bring that out in conversations with clients, or maybe I'm wrong, I'm sorry,

Lindsey: No, that's a great question. A lot of my clients nowadays are professionals. I am with Regenerative building solutions. I'm doing a lot more education and consulting work than I am full services design work with clients who want to build a home or a building. And so I, I end up, I do have these conversations a lot, but yeah, I probably wouldn't use the word hygroscopic with.

Lindsey: A client who is not in this realm, you know, maybe with a certain clients. 'cause passive house clients honestly tend to be kind of nerdy.

James: Right.

Lindsey: Yeah.

James: Yeah.

Lindsey: like that.

James: [00:11:00] Yeah. So the education part, now, that's an interesting move. Is that, I mean, it, it can just make sense in a career, of course, but is there any part of it that is sort of seeing it, the need might be more people knowing about this stuff? Is that, is

Lindsey: 100%. Yeah, I think architects, peripherally are aware that passive house is a thing. But it's very peripheral and there's not a lot of knowledge about what it actually takes to get it done. And there's a lot of misperceptions about, I mean, I'm not gonna say the passive house isn't hard. It is hard.

James: Hmm.

Lindsey: There's a pretty substantial learning curve. The first time, the first few times maybe, but really just the first time you do it.

Lindsey: And then it gets so much easier after that. But yeah, I think there is a huge [00:12:00] opportunity for increasing awareness around what it takes to do it and the benefits of it. And then one thing I wanna mention is like there's a massive gap between. Not even in the passive house realm, but what architects know and what builders know.

Lindsey: You know, it's just very, very different. And I don't want to discredit builders because the, they have so much time and energy and effort into work in the field, on the ground. That is very, very critical. I always tell my clients that their relationship with their builder is the most important. It's more important than their relationship with myself.

Lindsey: I'm just saying like. There's a so much middle ground between those that like, we need to close that gap. I'm mostly teaching architects, but I have some contractors [00:13:00] that are engaged in this little course that I've been teaching and I very much enjoy working with contractors who have taken a passive house course.

Lindsey: It makes everything so much easier.

James: A thought that occurs to me is just by nature of having to go through so much schooling and testing in order to be allowed to be an architect versus learning on the job, learning from people who've been doing it this, doing it this way, or you know, the odds of you getting exposed to techniques like passive house is just so much higher, like you're just.

Lindsey: Right.

James: It's a hit rate of, of learning versus doing. I mean, you'd have to just be really lucky to be on a crew with a person who happens to know about passive house or to, you know, with a, a sort of risk taking contractor who's willing to say, you know what? That sounds smart.

James: Let's try it. It might be hard, but let's try it. And I feel [00:14:00] like that that's the gap, right? That's.

Lindsey: That's a brilliant way to put it. Yeah. Yeah.

James: that when you were saying I, I could, I know that it, it can be like a little thorny to talk about, but I think it's important because it's, it's like they just haven't in the, there's, there has to be an incentive them to take time and money to invest in a method and, yeah.

Lindsey: Yeah. Whereas the architecture pathway is. Just there. It's inherently so much broader.

James: Yeah.

Lindsey: Yeah,

James: Yeah. And, and definitely now that I've talked to a fair few people, this has come up again and again, that, that really the, having someone to be able to build your plans is, you know, so cr, so obviously critical.

Lindsey: very much. Yeah.

James: So see that.

Lindsey: And it's. A very hard job. Like [00:15:00] I, I think that a lot of architects kind of, at least I, I can't speak for architects. I can only speak for myself that I could be a general contractor, but I know from the little bit of, of experience with construction management and building some of my own projects that I don't, I don't envy their job.

Lindsey: It is very, very challenging.

James: Yeah. Yeah, it sometimes seems that maybe we're, if one were going to market, passive house, really it would be to builders, not a homeowners yet, just to convince them like, Hey, you'll, you'll like work better. Once you get through that first project, you'll be more satisfied. At the end, you'll be like, you know, there's a sort of, I don't know, would use the term gamification, but there's something to be said about testing the performance.

James: Did, did we do what we [00:16:00] we would do?

Lindsey: I think it comes back to that craftsmanship. You know, people working in the trades often are people who enjoy making things and they enjoy making things well.

James: Yeah.

Lindsey: I think you're totally right that a lot of people, once they're exposed to it, they prefer it. That's what I've seen. Yeah.

James: So for your, teaching, you said you're mostly working with architects

Lindsey: Mm-hmm.

James: was that Yeah.

Lindsey: That's accurate.

James: you, do you want to teach the more builders? Is that kind of what you're, your

Lindsey: I,

James: be?

Lindsey: yeah. Actually, I am working on establishing an affordable housing slash trades training program. Starting here in Teton Valley where I live and we have a huge need for affordable housing. And it, it's based, my concept around this is kind of based on a [00:17:00] program that I participated in in Moab, Utah called Community Rebuilds.

Lindsey: I guess I could say I've taken two trades person specific courses. Over my career. One was in Moab and I was there for three months and we were building a home from the ground up, an affordable home. That program has expanded greatly from building one house at a time to 16 homes at a time. It's kind of like a Habitat for Humanity, but they're teaching a curriculum, it's not just random show up and volunteer for a day. They're teaching a curriculum. And that was really valuable for me and I think that we could push a model like that to build a small amount of housing, but with a curriculum that is a little more tailored to the trades, and [00:18:00] also a little more holistic and then have it find a way to create this curriculum and program with a national certification backed by a national program.

Lindsey: I don't know who that program is yet because I think it needs to be a holistic, holistic endeavor, not sort of like necessarily tailored to passive house, and not necessarily tailored to LEED, but all encompassing. Yeah.

James: That sounds really inspiring. And it makes so much sense. Like as you were talking, I had flashes of, I had flashes of beauty school, like where people go to learn to, to hair, hair cutters, hairdressers, and the only way to learn is to do it. So some, for some people that is their hairdresser, like that,

Lindsey: Right.

James: And I feel like that, it seems like such an obvious thing that you [00:19:00] could do that with houses. I mean, not, not like,

Lindsey: Yeah.

James: you know, I, not that they wouldn't be, perfect. Or you know, obviously there'd be oversight.

Lindsey: Yes, definitely oversight, I think. And the construction has to be managed by someone who understands construction, but also ideally understands how to work with students.

James: Right,

Lindsey: Those aren't always one and the same person. But they, it could be there exist, people like that.

James: Yeah. And just like a, a course where day you build the next part of the house and you, you learn all the things 'cause you're building all the things. That's, that sounds amazing to me. And

Lindsey: I mean, that's what happens.

James: there's a house

Lindsey: That's what happens in the trades anyways, right? Like that's how houses get built. Not everybody on a typical construction crew is a complete expert.

James: [00:20:00] Right.

Lindsey: We have the general contractor and a site superintendent and a project manager, and then subcontractors come in to do their part of it, and

James: Mm-hmm.

Lindsey: yeah,

James: But just like, I dunno, the win-win win of lower costs because the people are

Lindsey: always

James: and so then the

Lindsey: exactly.

James: is easier to. Provide to people who like in the affordable housing realm too, right? Like

Lindsey: Yes,

James: just seems like a really good circle and it, I mean, I don't know if you were training people also at a lower cost than if they had to go to school somewhere.

James: Maybe those people could also be like part of the lower, like it could be all be helping out people who otherwise don't have those opportunities. Yeah.

Lindsey: Yeah, that's exactly how I envision it. I mean, there's a lot to work out and I've had to tailor some aspects of this [00:21:00] program to what might work in my community, but I hope that it could become a framework that could then sort of plug into any community for what works for them and just like maintain certain aspects of the curriculum that are valuable across the board.

James: Wow, this is, this sounds like a genius idea. I

Lindsey: Thanks.

James: I will be paying close attention.

Lindsey: I need a lot of help. It's not, it's not an easy thing.

James: It. Well, yeah. No, I don't think it sounds like an easy thing, but, but there's, there's at least the proof of concept in that ev you know, quote unquote, everybody knows what Habitat for Humanity is, and that was once just an idea.

Lindsey: Right?

James: Right?

Lindsey: true.

James: So,

Lindsey: Yeah.

James: And I, I think that's interesting too that that, that it can't tied in with one particular way. I think that's a good point. So taking [00:22:00] elements, I'm, I mean, maybe taking elements of the natural building into it as well. Maybe I, I don't know. 'cause

Lindsey: Exactly. You shouldn't build the same Keep. Go ahead. What were you gonna say?

James: no, it just, it, it seems to be aligned with the. Use materials, use local people, like, it just, I dunno, it feels, it feels all kind of thought aligned to me.

Lindsey: Yeah. We need to be building in a way that's appropriate for our community and the resources that are sustainable.

James: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lindsey: Yeah.

James: Mm-hmm. And then as far as spreading the word on high performance building, those people who live in those houses would have a better experience.

Lindsey: Could potentially become advocates or teachers themselves.

James: Yeah. Yeah. And the people obviously building them would I was, I can't remember who, but I've heard it also said a couple of times, like, you can't [00:23:00] unlearn it. Like once you see. Oh, this goes like this for this

Lindsey: I.

James: in the building, the next time you build a thing, you, you, you can't consciously be like, well, we won't bother this time.

Lindsey: Right?

James: kind of, it's, there, you know, that it's

Lindsey: Yeah, very much. Yeah.

James: Interesting. So you see yourself taking on the odd project as an architect?

Lindsey: Yeah, I don't, I mean, I have no idea what's gonna happen for me in my career. What I, I think what I envision happening is being part of a pilot project, maybe being boots on the ground for that pilot project, setting the thing up for success, hopefully, and then letting others run with it. Hopefully still being able to help help, you know, be engaged and like see it [00:24:00] evolve and help kind of guide it and shepherd it as it as it evolves.

James: Mm mm And do you see passive house being part of your future in that

Lindsey: Just like you said, once you learn it.

James: Right, right.

Lindsey: Yeah, definitely. Yep.

James: So one thing I always try to tease out is if you have any anecdotal experiences or experiences where you've watched the penny drop, when, when you've seen someone say, oh, and when you, as you explain it, or as you maybe talk about one benefit and then. Like I, looking for those kinds of things ways in which people have been transformed.

Lindsey: Well,

Lindsey: I might not have anything earth shattering to share, but I. [00:25:00] I think the strongest arguments are always the economical ones. And especially talking around like mechanical systems and mechanical units and sizing of them. I think within my community practitioners, pro architects especially, and maybe builders and definitely clients or homeowners, we just sort of take for granted or accept that our mechanical systems are designed in the best way.

James: Hmm.

Lindsey: And what we, what I've learned through my passive house experience is that actually they're really oversized. They're really oversized and they're really inefficient, and that is, that's for, you know, potentially valid reasons. It's not, it's not a bad [00:26:00] idea to design a system that maybe the mechanical installers or contractors are terribly unfamiliar with, or may have to come back to work on it, but.

Lindsey: When you're designing the system greatly oversized simply for the reason of not having callbacks, that seems like a really big cost and a big use of resources for a, like a small risk.

James: Hmm.

Lindsey: And so learning and knowing and feeling confident that we can design a more simple and a, more appropriate mechanical system with a little bit of energy modeling and evaluation of what actually exists in the realm of the market of potential mechanical systems.

Lindsey: That's just like a better use of resources all the way around. And I [00:27:00] think people, once they learn that like, oh, really? That's how mechanical systems are getting designed is they're just like. Designed so we don't have contractors coming back. I think that's a big one that people are like, oh, wow. Yeah.

Lindsey: And then a contractor recently said to me and I, this was a little bit of a penny drop for me, like you should never estimate a building where you completely separate the mechanical system and the operational costs from the envelope. Because they go hand in hand. The cost of one directly impacts the cost of the other.

Lindsey: So it's doing a disservice to our clients and consumers to separate them.

James: Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsey: Yeah.

James: of a cascade of, well, how do you know what you do need? Well, energy modeling. Well, [00:28:00] how do you do energy modeling? And then you're into energy modeling, and then you're into, well, how can we tweak this to make it a little better? And then

Lindsey: Right,

James: a passive house

Lindsey: right. Yeah.

James: type of thing.

Lindsey: I think the calibration aspect of Passive House too is a really strong story, just that like when you buy a car, you don't, I mean, funny cars like, sure there are bizarre cars out there with like really souped up engines that don't make sense, but it's the whole package.

Lindsey: And when you're thinking about a computer, like any other thing that is a machine, the calibration is critical and a house is a machine, like our bodies are machines, like a house definitely is a machine and it should be calibrated. You should not overinvest in one component versus another. That's just [00:29:00] not smart.

Lindsey: So I don't, I, I think that the passive house metric and the way that it's evaluated around that calibration principle is. Common sense. That's just the right way to do it.

James: I love that that's something that's not been said

Lindsey: Oh, really? Oh, okay.

James: specific. Yeah. Yeah. And it makes so much sense.

Lindsey: figured people always talked about that at yeah.

James: Calibration specifically like

Lindsey: Right. I.

James: of, of. Right sizing, mechanicals. And the only way to do that by being digging into the energy modeling.

Lindsey: Yeah, like why would you build an R 50 wall and then have like way too many R three windows? It's,

James: Right.

Lindsey: it just makes more sense to kind of

James: I.

Lindsey: think of the whole [00:30:00] system together, for sure.

James: Nice. And so passive house forces you to think of the whole system. Is that

Lindsey: Exactly. Yes.

James: that, yeah,

Lindsey: Mm-hmm.

James: gonna use something. If you're gonna think of the whole system, you're gonna use something here. Something exists.

Lindsey: Yep.

James: Awesome. Well, this has been great.

Lindsey: good.

James: before we go where can people find out more about you online?

Lindsey: My website is regenbuilding.com and I'm also on Instagram @regen_building_solutions. I don't actually know. Yeah, that's where I'm at. And I I'm also part of, part of the passive house accelerators, Reimagine Buildings Network. They just initiated a Healthy Materials cohort and I'm excited about that and will be part of [00:31:00] that.

Lindsey: So if you're. On there. I'll probably bump into you that way. And I'm, I just finished my first series of six month series of courses for architects and builders, and I may be starting another series. You could reach out to me on LinkedIn or email me if you're interested in that.

James: That's great. Okay. I'll link to all those and I'll make sure I get the Instagram handle right.

Lindsey: Okay, thanks.

James: it's so common. People are like, and I think our Instagram is, and it's just like, 'cause you have to

Lindsey: Yeah.

James: all these weird Yeah. It's great.

Lindsey: Yep. Characters. Yeah.

James: Awesome.

Lindsey: Thank you so much, James. I so appreciate that you're taking on this initiative. I think it's very needed.

James: Thank you for saying

Lindsey: Yeah.

James: That means a lot.

Lindsey: Yeah.

James: Well, thanks a lot

Lindsey: Thanks.

James: You've been listening to Marketing Passive House. I'm James Turner and I hope you'll join me again next time.

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