Hello Reader,

I sat with a consultant this week whose work crosses our industry and a handful of adjacent ones. She said something I have been trying to push back on and cannot. Architecture firms turn down outside expertise on the firm itself in a way other industries don't. Not the projects, not the buildings, the practice.

We are the profession that brings in specialists for everything. A window detail, an envelope study, a code review, a community engagement plan. And then we treat the work of running and rethinking the firm as the one thing we are supposed to figure out alone. It is closer to a habit than a discipline.

This week's episode names a version of that habit at the other end of a project. Todd Thomas isn't an architect. He's the founder and CEO of Woodchuck, a technology platform using AI to identify, sort, and divert wood waste at industrial scale. The numbers he names are hard to look away from: 41 million tons of wood sent to U.S. landfills every year, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all landfill volume, and when that wood breaks down it produces methane, which is roughly 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

His argument is one architects need to hear from outside the profession. If we keep treating waste as an afterthought, we never change the math on sustainability.

The harder ask underneath that is for architects to start designing for deconstruction long before a project breaks ground, and to do it in partnership with the technologists and operators who can actually move the materials when the building comes down.

🎧 Episode 235: From Trash to Power: Diverting Construction Waste at Industrial Scale​

A big thank you to Pirros for supporting Practice Disrupted on this episode.

One more thing before you go. We are in the final stretch for Innovation in the Built Environment at the University of Michigan's Taubman College. If the question of what architects build, and who else needs to be in the room while we're building it, has been sitting with you, hit reply or reach out to me directly. I can pass along a last-minute discount before registration closes on Tuesday evening.

Where in your firm are you still treating the end of a building as someone else's problem?

Keep learning and growing,

Evelyn M Lee, FAIA | NOMA Founder, Practice of Architecture Host, Practice Disrupted & Fractional COO

/// PoA Podcast - Practice Disrupted ///

From Trash to Power: Diverting Construction Waste at Industrial Scale In this episode of Practice Disrupted, Evelyn Lee ventures into the construction and manufacturing side of the built environment to speak with Todd Thomas, founder and CEO of Woodchuck. While the podcast typically focuses on architectural practice, Todd’s work at the intersection of AI and sustainability offers a glimpse into a future where waste is no longer an afterthought, but a valuable commodity. listen here

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