piper: decoding healthy & regenerative design

Taking Circularity 180 Degrees

Making reuse and circularity repeatable, scalable and efficient is not without its challenges. Especially in an economic model and an industry like the built environment,

Raising bale: Building a straw think tank

Thirty years ago, out on the Carrizo Plain just east of San Luis Obispo in central California, 30 or so natural-building enthusiasts met at a deserted motel to explore th

Rebuilding regeneratively after a wildfire with Anni Tilt and David Arkin

After a wildfire destroyed their half-century-old family home in Sonoma County, architects David Arkin and Anni Tilt (Arkin Tilt Architects) set out on the journey of reb

How story can preserve and erode architecture with Michael Paul

Let's travel back to the late 1800s to Tombstone, Arizona––a boomtown where gunslinging, gambling, saloon brawls and shootouts like the Gunfight at the OK Corral were the

Connecting bio-based materials: Inside the BBMC

On a November morning in 2023, more than 60 individuals across the bio-based construction value chain descended upon the MASS Design Group office in Boston to address one

Rewilding Through the Art of Storytelling with Joel Caldwell

Writer, photographer, filmmaker, grassroots organizer…Joel Caldwell dons many titles, but at the heart of it, he is a storyteller––and a powerful one at that.  An avid

Circularity in Interior Design: The New Designer Mindset

In talking about the embodied carbon and waste burden of the built environment, much of the focus has traditionally been on the structure and enclosure––or the core and s

Forging Transparency Pathways to Responsible Wood With Evan Schmidt and Oliver Ogden, Sustainable Northwest

For a material as seemingly straightforward and simple as wood, it has a very complex, layered and often opaque supply chain. While certifications like FSC, SFI and PEFC

The evolution of material transparency with Lona Rerick

Like many of today's architects and designers, Lona Rerick wasn't taught material health in school. She had some exposure to sustainable design in college at the Universi

Nobody said it was easy: Overcoming resistance to change

For the composer, conductor, songwriter Steve Hackman, life has been a journey through parallel realities––or maybe, parallel dualities. At a young age, he developed an a

Rising from the urban ashes with Paul Hickman

According to the US Forest Service, 36 million trees are removed from urban areas every year. These trees offer a tremendous opportunity to reduce some of the demand on f

Five innovators from Greenbuild '25

What do a battery-operated induction range, hemp insulation, a straw-based structural insulated panel (SIP), a whole-life carbon visualization tool, and product transpare

Understanding materials through the lens of data with Melanie De Cola

In 2009, the American Institute of Architects launched the AIA 2030 Commitment, a strategy and framework that takes direct aim at reaching net-zero emissions in the built

LEED v5: The path to building product transparency with Wes Sullens

Responsible material selection and procurement is keystone to lowering the environmental impact of the built environment and improving occupant health over the entire lif

From Story to Seed to Shelter: A Library Emerges from the Badlands

The badlands of North Dakota, much like a library, are rich with story. The layers of mineral deposits visible in the buttes and hoodoos that make up the region are like

Reimagining buildings as circular systems with Marcus Hopper

Can buildings be circular systems? Unlocking overlooked opportunity If we were to think of buildings as living beings, how might that change the way we approach their d

Turning to history to decarbonize the future with Carl Elefante

Are we too quick to turn to technology and novelty to solve today's most pressing challenges? Perhaps history and nature hold the answers to modern-day dilemmas––particul

Carbon smart: Is all wood good? with Jason Grant

We need forests. They're the lungs of the earth. They're also home to more plants and animals than any other terrestrial biome. They protect watersheds and mitigate flood

Taking calculated risk to drive circularity with Andrew Ellsworth

Andrew Ellsworth seems to have an incessant appetite for risk. But dig a little deeper and you see that that appetite is fueled by a profound desire to drive the positive

Building from the urban mine with Felix Heisel

It's difficult to capture all that the multi-hyphenate Felix Heisel has achieved and created in the world of circular architecture in the past 15 years. Since graduating