Corey Squire, Sustainability Director, Bora Architecture & Interiors

Talk Description
Drawing on a decade of sustainable design leadership, Corey will discuss the central role of knowledge management in purpose-driven design. Design that meaningfully addresses human health, ecological thriving, and social equity is on the forefront of architectural discourse. At the same time, sustainable design remains a challenge. While much of the discussion around sustainability has focused on convincing people to change behavior and technical calculations to arrive at optimal solutions, both of these focuses miss the mark. A significant barrier to the universal adoption of sustainable design is its sheer breadth of information. Knowledge management offers the potential to make sustainable design accessible, broadly applicable, and dare I say, easy.

Speaker Bio
Corey Squire, AIA is Sustainability Director at Bora Architecture & Interiors in Portland Oregon, and a member of the American Institute of Architects' Strategic Council. He lectures nationally on a range of sustainability-related topics, and was a creator of AIA Framework and Toolkit, resources that are actively redefining excellence in the built environment. Corey is the author of the recently published book, People, Planet, Design: A Practical Guide to Realizing Architecture’s Potential.

Talk Timeline

Introduction
00:00 Bora
01:28 Sustainability Approach
03:50 Creating a Sustainability Vision
04:39 Sustainability is Knowledge Management

Corey’s Back Story
05:10 Early Career
06:10 The Sustainability Toolkit
07:45 AIA National Committee on the Environment
09:50 Framework for Design Excellence + Toolkit
11:16 Consulting Practice: Department of Sustainability
12:00 Elements for a Successful Sustainable Practice
12:30 People Planet Design: A Book About (Sustainable) Design
13:59 Barriers to High Performance Design

Chaco + Sustainability Knowledge Management
16:00 Organizing Chaco: Vision, Outcomes, Strategies, Documentation
16:44 Five Principles of Sustainability Knowledge Management
17:02 #1 Single Source of Truth
17:59 Sustainability Process Tracking Dashboard
19:06 Project Performance Dashboard
19:55 #2 Codify Best Practices
22:05 Example: Flooring Rules of Thumb
22:30 #3 Provide Answers Instead of Resources
22:45 The Bora Perfect Project
23:46 Post Occupancy Email Template
24:28 #4 The Highest Common Denominator
25:22 Value of a High Quality Enclosure
16:08 Pulling Ideas from Projects
26:32 #5 Get Comfortable With Good Approximations
27:11 Sustainability is Not Hard

Roadmap for a Sustainable Practice
27:30 Define Your Goals
27:55 Design the Right Environment
28:03 Provide Access to Simple, Effective Design Strategies
28:18 An Intranet is Not Neutral
28:50 Case Study: Holgate Library
32:10 Conclusion

Christopher Parsons of Knowledge Architecture interviews Corey Squire of Bora at KA Connect 2024.

Q+A Timeline

00:07 Do you get pushback from creative designers on the pre-specifications?
01:26 How do you keep the best practices you’ve captured relevant and up to date?
03:42 How do you address concerns that by documenting best practices, designers won’t understand the fundamental reasoning behind them?
05:42 Do you see WELL Building becoming more common on projects going forward?
07:40 If you work across the globe and markets, how do you develop best practices?
11:03 Is it better to have all of your project be at 80% performance than to have just one at 100%?
12:08 Did writing your book change your perspective on sustainability, design, or knowledge management?
14:18 You’ve done the work collecting the knowledge, how do you get people at Bora to use those best practices in their work?
16:27 What’s next for you in your knowledge management + sustainability journey?