Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend the AIA/ACSA Intersections Research Conference in Amherst, Massachusetts. In today's post, I will recap the event and recommend you attend the next one!
From a hands-on workshop making hempcrete (photo below) to a beautiful mass timber school of architecture building and fantastic presentations, the conference was a huge success.
Being from the North originally, I loved the fall colors that we do not get in South Texas... although I don't miss the white stuff (I'm glad there was none of that)! The UMASS-Amherst campus is so beautiful... the 20k students create such a vibrant atmosphere.
Per my usual "conference recaps", the photos are all in chronological order to highlight the conference experience from my perspective!
The theme of the conference was Material Economies. The "Intersections" part denotes the coming together of both academia and professionals within the architectural industry.
Day 1
Day one was a workshop day, plus an evening keynote and reception.
The Hempcrete workshop was really great. We spent the first hour in a classroom learning about all-things-hempcrete. Then we went outside and made a couple of batches and filled a small cavity wall. The workshop was taught by Tom Rossmassler, BPA/BPI, MA CSL from Hempstone.
Workshop description:
“Dive into the world of plant-based building materials with Hempstone’s introduction to Hempcrete, a bio-composite material created from the woody core of the hemp plant combined with a lime-based binder that can be used for construction and insulation. Trusted around the world as a robust, high-performance sustainable building system, Hempcrete entered the US market a decade ago and is poised to take the natural building industry by storm because it is net carbon storing, non-toxic and flame, water and pest resistant.”
For more on hempcrete, I recommend you check out this podcast by Building Science Podcast that discusses an award-winning hempcrete project near me, here in Texas... Hempcrete Homes: A Growing Industry.
The hands-on part!!!
It was as easy as 4-1-1.
4 parts hempcrete
1 part lime
1 part water
here is a photo of me lightly tamping the hempcrete into the wall cavity...
Later, we had a great keynote from Mae-ling Lokko, from Yale University. Her talk was titled The Architect in the Just Material Revolution. It was very inspiring!
Day 2
The second day was filled with amazing sessions from academics and professionals and a combination to both at times.
A beautiful roof top garden on the mass timber school of architecture building.
Below, are a few photos from my presentation. Click here is see a previous post about our session!
I presented with Patricia Kio, Fitchburg State University and Andrzej Zarzycki, New Jersey Institute of Technology on Whole Building LCA. I covered what we are doing around this topic at Lake|Flato.
Then, I moderated a Decarbonization panel with presentations from:
Design Methodologies for Decarbonization
- David Costanza, Cornell University
Early Incorporation of Embodied Carbon Information for Total Building Decarbonization
- Andrea Love, Payette
- Juhua Yang, LERA Consulting Structural Engineers
Carbon reduction and Housing Affordability: A Case Study of a Typical House in Northern New Jersey
- Kaveh Samiei & Maurie Cohen, New Jersey Institute of Technology
Optimizing for Embodied and Operational Carbon Impacts: A Case-Study of a University-Based Design-Build Project
- Robert Williams, Diana Picciotto, Amiraslan Darvish, Carl Fiocchi, & Kent Hicks, University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Naomi Darling, Mount Holyoke College / UMass Amherst
Several other thought-provoking sessions on material ethics and justice...
The day ended with another great keynote from Chandra D. Robinson, LEVER Architecture! I was familiar with her work and research already, but hearing about it never gets old... post-tensioned mass timber is a real thing! :)
After the keynote, there was a great dinner!
Day 3
The fall colors...
A presentation from Peter Raab from Texas Tech on Earthen Ecologies, showing off some cool 3D printed plant structures.
A highlight presentation was by a group of industrial and product engineers from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Two students and their professor presented on biofilters... floating structures with mycelium and plants.
Dr. Zolotovsky is now Assistant Professor of Design at Northeastern University, and Avantika Velho has graduated and works at the non-profit bio think tank Terraform ONE. Cool stuff.
I highly recommend you attend this conference next year... the theme will be housing! And I heard it will be in a cool city:)
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