11 - Shefali Sanghvi - Dattner Architects
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James: [00:00:00] 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.

James: I'm your host, James Turner, and today I'm joined by Shefali Sanghvi, associate principal and director of sustainability at Dattner Architects Shefali, welcome to the show.

Shefali: Thank you so much for having me.

James: It is 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 your passive house journey?

Shefali: Sure. So as you mentioned, I'm the director of Sustainability at Dattner Architects. We're a New York City based firm and our three studios are. We have a housing studio that does a lot of affordable housing and by and large, a lot of passive house, affordable housing. And I think that's kind of the crux of what we'll talk about today. We have a studio that does [00:01:00] transportation and infrastructure, and we have a studio that does education cultural, like, healthcare work. And I think one of the really unique things about being a director of sustainability in an architecture firm that has multiple studios like this is that I really get the opportunity to leverage what I learned from the passive house, affordable housing side into other typologies in our office, and basically just level up across the firm,

James: Very cool.

Shefali: I think, me, very exciting and I think a really good way for us to start thinking about. do we, how do we make sure we're sharing all of that information? And then in terms of myself, I was born in India. I grew up in New York City. Affordable housing is something that is really meaningful for me. It's the

James: Mm.

Shefali: an architect, basically,

James: Wow.

Shefali: felt fundamental that everyone deserves a safe, healthy place to live. And that really led, you know, it, it came [00:02:00] from my upbringing. Upbringing. It came from kind of. My religion that I grew up with and

James: Mm hmm.

Shefali: been a driving force in all I do. That's like I said, why I became an architect. My background is mostly in affordable housing, but over the last three years or so, has really broadened into this variety of typologies.

James: That is so cool and what a great way to I dunno that to like live out that, that, you know, initial. Hope and so I guess, yeah, that makes perfect sense, why director of Sustainability would be such a great platform for that. Right.

Shefali: Yeah. And you know, I think that idea that affordability and sustainability have to go hand in hand was something that really was such a no-brainer for me. That when I came up to people who didn't necessarily agree or just saw sustainability as a cost add and not a value add.

James: Hmm.

Shefali: had to learn how to [00:03:00] convince these people to see my point of view and how are we talking, like how am I showing this as something that solves a problem that's important to them? I think that that's kind of what put me in this unique position to be able to be a director of sustainability. For a firm that does more than just affordable housing. And honestly, it's been really exciting to learn a lot about how different agencies and different clients define sustainability, how it supports their missions

James: Mm.

Shefali: how we can support them.

Shefali: Right. And I

James: Yeah.

Shefali: the idea of an architecture firm, having a director of sustainability is relatively new. But I think really is a benefit to everyone because it really demonstrates commitment to sustainability and improving the built environment and demonstrates to the client that we are serious about this.

Shefali: It's not just lip service

James: Yeah.

Shefali: allows us you know, architects are natural consensus builders. We [00:04:00] have this ability to kind of translate technical language into lay people

James: Mm-hmm.

Shefali: you know, we have, talking to communities and you know, people that who live in these communities who have real legitimate concerns about the impact of new construction to the way, to their way of life. It gives us that opportunity to bring everyone together, make sure nobody's forgetting anything, nothing's getting left behind. And that there is this very holistic view of how sustainability is integrated into our projects. And passive house is like a big part of that.

James: Yeah, definitely. Did you come to passive house? Yeah. So when, when did you, when did that come into your lexicon or your.

Shefali: Yeah, so Dattner one and in New York City, a lot of affordable housing. Most affordable housing is supported by New York City's Housing Preservation and Development Organization. They have these public RFP requests for a proposal for city owned [00:05:00] sites where they ask for, You know, like developers to come in and submit something. And so in this is, this is a very long-winded answer and I

James: I, I'm all, I'm here for it. That's what this is for.

Shefali: Okay, great. In like the mid late aughts, there was a big site in south, in the South Bronx and it was the new housing New York something. I can't, this is. I

James: That's.

Shefali: probably send you all of this via email later. But anyway, the hbds, one of their, their goals on that was to really rethink how sustainability gets integrated with architecture. The

James: Hmm.

Shefali: at, with at the time, submitted for the site and Dattner eventually won the site. So there was like that connection then.

James: Right.

Shefali: then in 2000. 15 ish.

Shefali: There

James: Mm-hmm.

Shefali: site in the Bronx, same sort of thing. HPD is really asking us to rethink how we're integrating sustainability into [00:06:00] architecture. The firm that I was working with at the time submitted for the RFP and Dattner again won. then when I was ready to move on from my last firm. Someone was like, you might have you know, like, you, you may wanna think about looking at Dattner.

Shefali: So I came here, I came in for my interview and all of the sites that I had previously submitted for were on the walls. And I was like, yes, I do wanna work here. And so Dattner is really, and our studio principal in our housing studio, John Wolfing, really is how I learned about passive house and

James: Cool.

Shefali: idea that this is. A building performance standard and not a checklist driven certification

James: mm-hmm.

Shefali: most intriguing to me because now we were really thinking about trade-offs and how the building operates as a whole, instead of saying that. Bike parking was equal as, as equal as collection of recycling, all important things.

Shefali: But when we're thinking about what makes sense for a [00:07:00] building, it didn't allow you the opportunity to have something that was kind of custom built. So Introduc introduction to passive houses, really through Dattner, through the 425 Grand Concourse Project Just having a firm that really supported that idea, that affordable housing interest intrinsically needed to be sustainable and passive house was a really good way of looking at, that was my introduction. I worked on a, the first passive house project I worked on full-time.

James: Hmm.

Shefali: I started in 2019 and. It just made so much sense

James: Hmm.

Shefali: and like these things that people complain about, about like what is different about a code mandated building and passive house building, and a lot of it is around the detailing about providing filtered fresh air. of those things are value to the project.

James: Yeah.

Shefali: It's to the client's benefit that someone is paying attention to these things, that there is this third party verifier who's [00:08:00] making sure that all of these things are happening and it just. I don't know. It just made sense and it really made sense for affordable housing. That was

James: Totally.

Shefali: Yeah. That was also the time where New York City was shifting to all electric and local law 97 had just gotten passed. So this idea of like paying attention to your carbon emissions it just more and more things coming into play from a policy point of view that really made passive house kind of like the clear front runner

James: Mm.

Shefali: and then. COVID happened and there was this big, ID, you know, this big concern on impact, the like indoor air quality and

James: Yeah.

Shefali: health, rightfully so. And once again, we were like passive house, duh. And then the wildfires happened in New York City where we got the smoke from the Canadian wildfires. And once again, passive house became like the clear winner. then just every local law 154 was passed. And then we were like, why aren't we [00:09:00] doing this on all of our housing projects? What are we

James: Hmm.

Shefali: And so anyway, it was just this great. You know, convergence of

James: I.

Shefali: the climate, literally and figuratively policy, and just having a firm that really supports that and understands the value of it.

James: Yeah, that's so important. And I think you make, yeah, you made a really good point about a, the kind of firm that would have a director of sustainability. That's such a big, that is, that is marketing. Just that, just like, just having, you know, the, taking all the time that it takes and, and resources to make that.

James: To commit to that, I think is, it's putting it out into the world. Like, Hey, this is a thing that matters even to people who are, you know, in the upper echelons of things. Right. 'cause there's a lot of that. Yeah, that's something that and, and you touched on too, that for affordable housing, I mean, deserves is the wrong word, but I, I just get really happy when I think about people who [00:10:00] are having a hard time.

James: Being housed, and then they, they're able to get a house and it's good and it's, it's not like the worst, like, you know, like, it, it, you need that, that fresh air, that non mold,

Shefali: Yeah.

James: comfort to, you know, do the best you can with the limited resources you have and who better.

Shefali: I, I agree. I mean, I think that like for a long time the idea was that we were these sort of benevolent saviors coming into a neighborhood and providing

James: Hmm.

Shefali: were lack of housing opportunity and. Consciously, subconsciously, there was this feeling that like, just be thankful that you're getting something and that's not really what we wanna do.

Shefali: That's

James: Right,

Shefali: answer. Right? And so there was this, and then also there was this, again, this idea that all of these things cost money. We barely have enough. to build the building as is. So how can we do something [00:11:00] extra?

James: Hmm.

Shefali: really do think that it's, it's unfair. It's unfair for everyone, right?

Shefali: It's

James: Yeah,

Shefali: us to limit ourselves and our ability to kind of continue to innovate when we're designing buildings. And it's unfair for the people who. Live there. It's unfair for the people who own the buildings because we're giving you this leaky building where people are constantly gonna complain about things and just increasing how much it's gonna take to heat the building.

Shefali: Like just, it benefits everyone. It really does. And I know that it's probably a cliche that I feel this way as a director of sustainability and someone who talks about this often, but it's a no brainer. I don't know. It's, and I, I think it's. It's naive to think that just because something is affordable, it also has to be low cost and cheap.

James: Hmm.

Shefali: a difference between the two.

James: Between cheap and affordable. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good call out. And I do [00:12:00] also like the, the sort of. The thing that intrigued me about passive house was just this idea that it's the hu it's the human experience really. Like, yes, there's, there's numbers, but those numbers are all attached to this lived experience.

James: And the, the comfort, the quiet, the health, the fresh air, like you, you can't fake it.

Shefali: Yeah,

James: Like if you, if you meet those numbers, this will be the result, period.

Shefali: and, and it's, it's something that can be demonstrated. I think it is been harder to. Quantify an ROI into indoor health investments. It's

James: Yeah.

Shefali: easier to quantify, like, to say like, okay, you're, you're shifting to an all electric building. If you put the PV on your building, this is what, this is kind of like what it'll offset in terms of your electricity usage.

Shefali: So there's an ROI of like 10 years, [00:13:00] whatever, right?

James: Right. Right.

Shefali: for passive house projects, like this is the additional equipment that'll need to be installed. And here's your ROI for that.

James: Got it.

Shefali: to indoor health is a little harder to quantify. I at least I haven't figured it out. I'm sure there are much smarter people out out there that are, that have figured it out and can't wait to like send me an email and tell me how to do it.

Shefali: 'cause I really But you know, this idea that we should just care about that is something that seems so basic to me and so obvious to me and many others in this space. But that has been somewhat. More difficult to explain. Not necessarily 'cause people don't care, it's been harder to convince people that that investing in that cost is worth it.

James: Mm-hmm.

Shefali: And that's why I think like a big part of this is meeting people where they are and explaining how it benefits them to their [00:14:00] value system

James: Right,

Shefali: and not your value system.

James: Right.

Shefali: Because

James: So

Shefali: to, you know, it's, you can't do this if people aren't convinced that it's important.

James: a absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. This, a lot of listening, right.

Shefali: Yeah. And you know, this idea that like, okay, I'm working on one project with you, but you might be building seven projects a year. So if you, if I've convinced you that this is a good idea, then the impact is larger because then maybe you are more willing to do that on your next project, regardless of who your architect is or who your sustainability consultant is.

James: Hmm. It spreads. Yeah. A as you were talking, I thought of this analogy that came to me after having kids. 'cause you care so much about what they eat and, you know, like, I mean, I don't dunno, I get suppose it's not universally the way one thinks, but the way we were, you know, the way it felt like. You know, people thought, or society thought it was like you're optimizing just like everything you possibly can and like at the best quality and treat it just the [00:15:00] right way and, and doing all this.

James: And it's like, then you start looking at your own diet and you're like, well if you know that this is better quality, like wouldn't you also want that for you and for everyone? Yeah.

Shefali: Yeah. I, I, I I completely agree. I, I have a young child and definitely I feel the same way

James: Yeah.

Shefali: that there is this shift, but I think like, you know, ultimately it's also this idea of like, how much, how much empathy do you have

James: Mm.

Shefali: are you willing to understand that like. You don't necessarily, I, I, I realize this, this right now in this current climate is a bigger discussion than the discussion we're having right

James: There is

Shefali: that,

James: that.

Shefali: Just because you couldn't envision how it benefits you to be able to envision that it'll benefit someone is, should

James: Hmm mm-hmm.

Shefali: know, I guess sometimes it's not, or sometimes people can't financially afford to do that.

James: Yeah. Yeah. [00:16:00] So I guess you've probably had lots of different conversations teasing out these different angles and values. Have you, have you had any. Do you have any sort of wisdom to share on sort of approaches that have worked or aha moments that you've had?

Shefali: I definitely think the shift to requiring all electric buildings has helped tremendously

James: Oh, interesting.

Shefali: because then we can sort of say like, okay, you have, you have no choice. I can't, I, we cannot talk about gas fired boilers. Like that's not gonna happen. It's no longer an

James: Right.

Shefali: for us. So if you're going to have this all electric building, then. When you think of like the pyramid, like the food pyramid even,

James: Mm-hmm.

Shefali: what has the most impact? The most impact is reducing loads from the onset by providing a very strong thermally performing building so that you can right size your equipment right away

James: Mm-hmm.

Shefali: [00:17:00] from not only reduced, hopefully reduced initial costs, but it reduced long-term cost.

James: Right.

Shefali: that argument is one that I've been able to use. many clients across many typologies, whether they're doing passive house or not.

James: Hmm.

Shefali: And then of course I'm able to, and then we're fortunate enough to be able to say like, Dattner has a lot of experience doing this. We have a strong passive house portfolio where we've done this and we, we can, like, we kind of understand where you need to, what you need to pay attention to, and we have the ability to make sure that we're talking to the CM or the contractor or whomever, so that they also understand why it's important to pay attention to some of these things.

James: Right.

Shefali: and so the, this idea that the client doesn't have to pay for the learning curve of the architect, who

James: Hmm.

Shefali: more often than not is the conductor of all of these things, is also a benefit to them.

James: Yep.

Shefali: it's like you don't have to pay extra for this. This is already part of how

James: I.

Shefali: and the services we [00:18:00] provide. I'm trying, I'm going so far as to try to see if we can convince. that if you want us to take that out, that's gonna cost money because that's not our typical detail anymore.

James: Right. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Where it,

Shefali: to say that like we automatically will give you a passive house building, but we'll get you very close.

James: Right. 'cause you've seen this, you, you've seen that and you're like, well, we can't not build like that. We can't. We can't not do these good things.

Shefali: We, we have a robust knowledge sharing within the office where we share a lot of details. And to be able to say like, yes, this is our typical detail. This is why the passive house detail is different. This is why it's important. And then have people be like, yes, I see why that's important.

James: Hmm.

Shefali: that over to my project even though it's not passive house, and then make sure that I flag it for the contractor and I'm paying attention to that when I'm doing my site visits. Is also, I think, a big part of this.

James: Right. The word itself, do you, do you get pushback on [00:19:00] like, the term passive house? Like, is that, is that, does that like, throw people or how, how do you kind of like bridge that gap if people don't even really know? I.

Shefali: Yeah. That's really funny because I think the, one of the biggest things we have to deal with is that people are like, this isn't a housing project. And it's like, yes,

Shefali: I know. I'm fully aware that this is not a housing project. This is just, this is a like. science

James: hmm.

Shefali: necessarily tied to a typology. And then, you know, I think there, there is this unfortunate thing that we're still actively trying to get over where people hear passive house and in their mind they see these like squat little buildings

James: Hmm.

Shefali: that have these small little punched openings and there can't be any glazing and it's all mass over glass and you can't have these architecturally beautiful buildings.

Shefali: And I'm like. told you that,

James: Right.

Shefali: give me that person's name so I can talk to them. And so I think like [00:20:00] it's that, it's that this unfortunate reputation I guess, that, that

James: Hmm.

Shefali: passive house seems to have in some of the circles that I still, that I, I talk to about this, where I'm just like, no. It's, it's all about trade offs, so if you want a lot of glazing, sure. But it means that we have to put them, we also have to put money elsewhere to balance that out.

James: About, yeah. Yeah. Right. And, and or, and really good glazing,

Shefali: Yes.

James: really high performing glazing, which costs more, but then you still get the big view that you wanted and

Shefali: can still design

James: yeah.

Shefali: a beautiful building. I'm not asking for architects to kind of go against their deep seated need be a star. That's not my goal. I don't want that. I want you to excel and design beautiful buildings. I want them to also be passive house so that we can continue to show the world that beautiful buildings are passive house buildings.

James: Hmm. Hmm. Nice. That's a, that's a strong mission statement right there.

James: Yeah, I've, I, we've dealt, I've [00:21:00] talked about the, the terminology a lot. And that's actually why I used the German spelling for the

Shefali: Right.

James: podcast. 'cause it's slightly different and it, it doesn't immediately say the word house in it.

Shefali: Yeah.

James: but that, I think like coming, having a firm that has a, a, a good sort of growing body of work to, to prove, no, no, look, this is.

James: A passive, this is a passive house project as well, is really helpful. Have you noticed a shift since you started to now even since you got involved, like an awareness?

Shefali: Definitely I think that. Looking specifically at, at affordable housing in New York City and New York State policy has done a big

James: Hmm.

Shefali: in that you know, both New York State and New York City housing. Agencies both have passive house as a reach goal that allows you to kind of like jump over some other prescriptive requirements and or be competitive when they're looking [00:22:00] at funding, like which projects get funding first.

James: Right.

Shefali: that's really helped. It's really helped that. You know, local, like I said, local law 1 54. And at the state level, there's this push, there's a timeline for all electric buildings so that we can take the gas out of the equation. And as a result, more and more contractors are getting familiarity with this. So

James: Hmm.

Shefali: when we have a meeting with a potential client or a client rather, who is looking at potentially doing passive house, and it's us and the GC and both of us are saying, yes, we've done this before, we can do this for you. Here are some things that are a little different, but it's not something we've. We haven't already done. That really helps.

James: Yeah.

Shefali: just, you know, a bunch of people dressed in black, sitting in an office telling you that you should do this. It's the guys that are on the field that actually have to do the work and tell you how much it's gonna cost you to do the work.

James: Hmm.

Shefali: that this is, this is possible.

Shefali: It's not, it's not necessarily easy or it's not [00:23:00] necessarily the same thing as a code minimum building. But it's not unreasonable, and it's not kind of this burden to anyone who's involved in the process.

James: Nice. I like that image a lot. And I, that, that speaks to the, the accessibility factor, making it not seem like an elite type of. Thing, but just something that is available.

Shefali: Yeah.

James: Yeah. That's great. This has been great. I think that's, feels like a, a good place to, to wrap it up. But before we go, where's the best place people could go to find out more about you and or Dattner online.

Shefali: Obviously our website dattner ww www.dattner.com. I am, I have LinkedIn page. I don't think there's a lot of Shefali Sanghvis out there. That are,

James: You're lucky. Yeah.

Shefali: are, yeah. That are clearly listed as Director of sustainability at Dattner Architects. And if you, you know, if you send me a message on LinkedIn I will shoot you my email address and ask you to [00:24:00] send me an email because I am, I'm not as LinkedIn Festival as, as some other people are, but that's really it.

Shefali: I love talking about this. I think that we're only going to be successful as an industry if we continue to talk about it and continue to share information and continue

James: Hmm.

Shefali: share data points. And so I, yeah, reach out. Let me know. I also passive house accelerators. project of the month. So that's another way that you can find

Shefali: me.

Shefali: We're, we're taking a brief hiatus over the summer, but I'm around. I love, like I said, I love talking about this stuff. Sometimes I feel like I talk about this too much, but come find me in. Let's chat.

James: Awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining me today.

Shefali: Thank you

James: I.

Shefali: This was great.

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