Saturday, December 27, 2025

Reflection: Three Years on AIA COTE Leadership Group (2023–2025)

When I accepted a three-year appointment to the national American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment Leadership Group (AIA COTE LG) for 2023–2025, I hoped I could contribute in a practical way—bridging design performance, technology, policy, and communication so more firms (and more projects) can move from sustainability “intent” to sustainability outcomes. (AIA Community Hub)

Looking back, this term was a whirlwind of working group calls, writing and review cycles, conference planning, cross-committee coordination, and the kind of collaboration that reminds you why COTE matters: it’s a community of people who keep showing up—because the stakes are real, and because the profession can do more.

This post is my personal recap of the work, the people, and the moments I’ll carry forward.

keep reading to learn more...

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

New Enscape Blog Post - Enscape for SketchUp 2026 is now available, plus Save as External Model is back

Just published on the Chaos blog — “Enscape for SketchUp 2026 is now available, plus Save as External Model is back” — a must-read if you use SketchUp + Enscape. The update to Enscape 4.13 brings full compatibility with SketchUp 2026, plus the long-awaited return of the “Save as External Model” feature. That means you can offload heavy components into linked external .skp files, keeping your main SketchUp file lightweight and responsive, while still getting full-fidelity renders in Enscape.


keep reading to learn more...

Monday, December 8, 2025

My Autodesk Design Performance course at NDSU

Congrats to my NDSU graduate architecture student, Micah Wood, for completing the Autodesk course I created, Design Performance and Sustainability with Autodesk Forma, Revit, and Insight. Congrat Micah!



I gave my students a "choose your own adventure" option for the last three weeks of the semester, and Micah decided to take the design performance route!

By the way, Micah is also the President of the NDSU chapter of AIAS.




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Lighting design professionals: check out my Revit & ElumTools training https://bit.ly/3NJjhCVn