Each 90-minute track session receives 1.5 continuing education units from the following professional organizations: AIA, BPI, GBCI, InterNACHI, NAHB, and NARI. To receive your credits, you must sign in at the beginning of each session
Track Co-chairs: Jess Lerner, Green on the Inside; Jamie Wolf, Wolfworks, Inc.
Building the Generative Economy
Session 1: Wednesday, March 6, 11:00am-12:30pm
Session Chair: John Abrams, South Mountain Company
Session Speakers: John Abrams, South Mountain Company; Marjorie Kelly, Tellus Institute
Description: Climate change and economic inequalities are requiring an economy that is based less on more and more on enough. Our ability to collaborate in new ways and employ democratic structures that encourage widespread ownership, community accountability, and common stewardship of resources will become essential. Our challenge is to begin to understand how the transition will occur, how we’ll position ourselves to be resilient and responsive, and what all this means for our lives and livelihoods. Ms. Kelly will be available to sign copies of her latest book, Owning our Future, following this session.
Resilient Urban Waterways
Session 2: Wednesday, March 6, 2:00pm-3:30pm
Session Chair: Henry MacLean, Timeless Architecture
Session Speakers:Vivien Li, The Boston Harbor Association; Anamarija Frankic, Green Harbors Project; Henry MacLean, Timeless Architecture
Description: Established on its estuary in 1630, Boston has become one of the most vital urban centers in the United States, and yet suffers from unresolved challenges with its waterways and harbor, exacerbated by global climate change and sea level rise. Protecting the integrity and restoring the ecology of Boston’s watersheds and waterfronts is an essential ingredient in assuring the resiliency of the City and the opportunity for a thriving Boston Harbor into the future.
Resilient Capacity
Session 3: Wednesday, March 6, 4:00pm-5:30pm
Session Chair: Jesse Selman, Coldham & Hartman Architects
Session Speakers: Jesse Selman, Coldham & Hartman Architects; Kate Stephenson, Yestermorrow; Jacob Deva Racusin, New Frameworks Natural Building; Megan McNally, Rusted Grain
Description: This session explores examples of how community engagement can build our skill base, redevelop regional-based trades, and empower under-served and disenfranchised populations to have a role in the development of climate change resilient homes and neighborhoods. We will introduce strategies that focus not just on building materials, methods, and energy sources, but our personal practitioner challenges and successes working collaboratively with people, owners, and community to create resilient communities in an era of climatic uncertainty.
Systems Literacy: What You Didn’t Know You Knew!
Session 4: Thursday March 7, 8:30am-10:00am
Session Chair: Jamie Wolf, Wolfworks
Session Speakers: Jamie Wolf, Wolfworks; David Foley, Holland & Foley Architects; Anamarija Frankic, Green Harbors Project
Description: Systems thinking employs visual, verbal, and mathematical tools to look beneath the surface of events to the systemic structures beneath. Using these tools allows us to find where real leverage can be applied to best effect. We’ll apply these useful tools to familiar challenges in design, engineering, and construction, learning how to make effective use of this knowledge in our daily practice.
Sensing Resiliency
Session 5: Thursday, March 7, 10:30am-12:00pm
Session Chair: Amelia Amon, Alt. Technica
Session Speakers: Amelia Amon, Alt. Technica; Justin Good, the Sanctuary at Shepardsfield; Elizabeth DiSalvo, Trillium Architects
Description: Just as strong, healthy bodies look and feel better, thriving, diverse ecosystems are more beautiful, sonorous, temperate, and adaptable. How can we employ our sensory abilities in design for resiliency? How can multi-sensational, quality-of-life strategies improve our bloated buildings, unstable infrastructure, and disconnected communities? Can a lean, fit, elegant aesthetic make resiliency more appealing than emergency preparedness? We’re inviting your input on how resiliency appears, sounds, smells, tastes, and feels.
Acting Like It’s Tomorrow Today: The Future as our Client
Session 6: Thursday, March 7, 2:00pm-3:30pm
Session Chair: Jess Lerner, Green on the Inside
Session Speakers: Jess Lerner, Green on the Inside; Peter Larson, Ashley McGraw Architects; David Foley, Holland & Foley Architects
Description: History is filled with futures that never were, based on the momentum of the present. The future is notoriously fickle to predict, so let’s experiment. Bring your creativity to paint some desirable, dynamic, and resilient futures together. What do they look like, and how do they work? We’ll then trace them back to our present selves and ask, “What can we do today to create that tomorrow?”
Closing Forum: What will be the hot topics at BE25?
Session 7: Thursday March 7, 4:00pm-5:30pm
Session Chair: Paul Eldrenkamp
Session Speakers: TBA
Description: The final session of the day will wrap up everything we learned at BE13 by forcing us to think out loud about where all our new-gained knowledge is taking us. The format: Six NESEA thought leaders will work within the pecha kucha framework to offer their predictions regarding what we’ll be grappling with in the sessions and workshops at Building Energy in March, 2025. This will followed by a period of quick-paced audience discussion. The 90 minutes will then wrap with a compelling preview of NESEA, 12 years hence. This closing session will offer an engaged response to the too-rarely asked question: “Just where are we going with all of this?“
