Side Notes: Integrating Sustainability, Quality, and Codes for Design Excellence

Sustainability, quality assurance (QA), building codes, and specifications—at BWBR, these critical design functions are overseen by Rachael Spires, Associate Principal and Performance Design & Quality Manager. In this episode of Side Notes, she explores how the seemingly distinctive roles intersect, all working together to drive design excellence in powerful ways.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
• 0:41 Defining PD+Q and Role Scope
• 1:18 Shift to Integrated, Performance-Driven Design
• 2:28 Sustainability: From Less Harm to Regenerative
• 3:14 Specifications as Performance Engine
• 4:01 Codes as Evolving Baseline
• 4:32 Quality Assurance with a Sustainability Lens
• 6:09 Baselines, Common App, and Muscle Memory
• 7:29 Unified Approach Across Teams
• 7:54 The Cost and Schedule Challenge
• 8:19 Materials Research and Office Master Specs
• 9:25 Why Design: Problem Solving with Purpose
• 10:35 Inspiration: Growing People and Confidence
• 12:21 Building a Learning Culture and Credentials
• 14:02 Closing Gratitude and Sign-off

Transcript

Matt Gerstner: 0:00

Welcome to Side Notes, the bite-sized version of Side of Design. In 15 minutes or less, we'll explore one idea, one insight, or one conversation worth hearing. Let's get to it. Welcome to Side Notes, the bite-sized version of Side of Design. I'm your host, Matt Gersner. Joining me today is Rachel Spiers, Associate Principal and Performance Design and Quality Manager with BWBR. We're going to take a closer look at performance design and quality management today. Rachel, thanks for making time to be here.

Rachael Spires: 0:30

Thanks for having me, Matt.

Matt Gerstner: 0:32

Absolutely love having you in. We always have good conversations when you're around. And this should be no different. Absolutely looking forward to it. All right. So we're just going to get going. What are you most excited about in the area of performance design, quality management today? You know, and maybe you could define for our listeners a little bit about what that is.

Rachael Spires: 0:51

Yeah. So performance design and quality, and technically key manager. So my big mouthful of a title means that I am responsible for or manage the departments of specifications and codes, quality assurance, and sustainability. So so four things there. But I think you just asked, like, what am I excited about?

Matt Gerstner: 1:13

Yeah, right. 100%. What are you excited about in these roles today?

Rachael Spires: 1:18

Okay.

Matt Gerstner: 1:18

Yeah.

Rachael Spires: 1:18

So I am excited. I'm excited about the way that the design world is moving towards integrated performance-driven design.

Matt Gerstner: 1:26

Okay.

Rachael Spires: 1:26

Basically, let's take all of these things and let's mash them up. So we have sustainability and health and resilience and quality. And they're not these separate checkboxes anymore, right? Like I did my specs.

Matt Gerstner: 1:38

Right.

Rachael Spires: 1:38

I met the go that sort of thing. Instead, they're these integrated, interconnected drivers of design excellence.

Matt Gerstner: 1:47

Okay.

Rachael Spires: 1:48

And that's where PD and Q meet. Okay. Um, so at my role, in my role, I get excited because I get to sit at the crossroads of these four things. And these things, specifications, codes, QA, sustainability, are the very tools that can either limit or unlock our potential.

Matt Gerstner: 2:09

I like that word.

Rachael Spires: 2:10

And we're unlocking our potential. Yeah. And I get excited about coming in every day and unlocking that potential and driving excellent design.

Matt Gerstner: 2:19

Right, right. How could you not?

Rachael Spires: 2:20

Right?

Matt Gerstner: 2:21

How could you not?

Rachael Spires: 2:22

It's the best job.

Matt Gerstner: 2:23

So what about each of those areas?

Rachael Spires: 2:26

Individually.

Matt Gerstner: 2:27

Yeah, individually.

Rachael Spires: 2:28

Yeah. So these these four parts that make up the whole, let's start with um sustainability. Okay. So from a sustainability perspective, I'm really excited about this shift from, you know, just trying not to do bad, right? Trying to, you know, to reduce harm to the environment, that sort of thing, to actually doing regenerative outcomes, right? Which is when you're done with the project, is everything actually better? Have we done better? Um, have we given back more than we've taken, whether it's through energy or water, water or material cycles, you know, like how can we actually create regenerative design and make our projects give back?

Matt Gerstner: 3:08

Oh, okay.

Rachael Spires: 3:09

Rather than just use.

Matt Gerstner: 3:10

Yeah, yeah.

Rachael Spires: 3:11

So that's sustainability. Then you get to specifications, right? So when you talk about specifications, there's this growing understanding that specifications um are where many of the firm's commitments to performance and sustainability actually get implemented. It's where the rubber meets the road. Okay. So I love taking specs and pushing them beyond just compliance and instead embedding innovation, low carbon materials, health or product choices, and all of that ties into our commitment to the AIA materials pledge. Right, right, right, making sure that the the products that we are specifying are in alignment with that. Okay. And that also ties in with the regenerative design. Yeah. Sustainable design. And then we have codes. So codes, a lot of people are like, oh, yeah, I gotta do, gotta make the code. Codes really the bare minimum, you know, but they're always changing.

Matt Gerstner: 4:08

Right, right.

Rachael Spires: 4:09

Codes are constantly changing, they're trying to get better. And when we look at um at codes in our office, I really like helping the teams navigate through these code changes and understand, okay, this is what changed, this is how we're gonna do better on this next project. These things actually make our buildings better.

Matt Gerstner: 4:27

Okay, right.

Rachael Spires: 4:27

So everything that we're talking about makes our buildings better.

Matt Gerstner: 4:31

Yeah.

Rachael Spires: 4:32

And then we have quality assurance, and quality assurance is kind of connecting all of these threads together. So making sure that the design intent and the firm sustainability goals, everything holds true from documentation all the way through construction.

Matt Gerstner: 4:46

Right.

Rachael Spires: 4:47

And what's really exciting is this year we actually added a sustainability component to our QA process. So all of our projects are getting reviewed in the DD QA and the CD QA with a sustainable lens.

Matt Gerstner: 5:01

Okay. Okay.

Rachael Spires: 5:02

So what we're looking at is, you know, did they finish the common app? Did the team complete the common app, which is based on the framework for design excellence? Again, excellent design.

Matt Gerstner: 5:11

Right.

Rachael Spires: 5:12

Do we have documentation of the energy use intensity of the building or the lighting power density? And these are kind of some data points. This is where we're starting, but really it's laying the groundwork for expanding our sustainable review of our projects. And in the future, I could see us reviewing things for materiality, daylighting, carbon, embodied carbon, and operational carbon. That sort of thing. So we've got this really great groundwork.

Matt Gerstner: 5:38

That's incredible. I mean, it and I have to imagine when you're looking at uh going after certain accreditations, uh, lead, for example, that having that framework all built in from the get-go as our baseline to make better, it has to improve outcomes in the end.

Rachael Spires: 5:55

Right. And not only did we start as of January 1st, 2025, so we we added that sustainability component to our QA process, but we also um now have every project in the office go through a performance baseline meeting. Oh, incredible. That incur that occurs at the very beginning of a project, and it basically level sets the team. Like, okay, we have the framework for design excellence. We're gonna document everything in the common app. How is everyone gonna look at this design as we go through this process to make it better? Right. And just being able to build on that is really exciting and just kind of you you can't use the muscles, like you gotta you gotta work your muscle.

Matt Gerstner: 6:36

Yeah.

Rachael Spires: 6:37

I'm saying this horribly wrong. But what I'm trying to say is like we're building the sustainability muscle.

Matt Gerstner: 6:42

Yeah.

Rachael Spires: 6:43

And the more we work it, the better that everyone in the office is gonna get at using that muscle and make it stronger and stronger. And our projects are just gonna get better and better. And I'm really excited about that.

Matt Gerstner: 6:57

I love I love that. Yeah, honestly, I love that because I mean muscle memory.

Rachael Spires: 7:00

Yeah. Oh, muscle memory. There you go.

Matt Gerstner: 7:02

It just all starts to kick in if you've done this and you're we're no longer just following bare minimums, and it's not just say uh codes are doing it, or it's not just say QA is looking at this, it's the entire team is looking at it.

Rachael Spires: 7:18

The whole team.

Matt Gerstner: 7:19

Yeah, it just we're gonna have better projects and better outcomes for our clients. I can see that being fantastic in the end.

Rachael Spires: 7:25

Building that bridge through all of these things, and that's why I don't look at codes separately from specs, separately from QA, separately from sustainability. Like all of these things are working together, and then it gets really exciting when we start working with the design leads or we start working with the PAs, that sort of thing, and like making sure we're all doing this.

Matt Gerstner: 7:46

Love it, absolutely love it. Yeah, all right. So I I know you've got a lot of passion, you're excited about this. On the flip side of that, there have to be some challenges. So, what are the biggest challenges that maybe your clients or projects are facing in regards to performance design, quality, and how can we help?

Rachael Spires: 8:08

Yeah, so I think the answer to this is pretty consistent no matter no matter what angle you take this at. And that is really cost and schedule, budget and schedule. Those are those are always tough. Um, but by embedding this process in our, you know, the sustainability process where we're using this lens to look at our design and codes and specs and all that sort of stuff. By having this process embedded, we're able to create a building, a design that is better without hopefully, hopefully, right, right. Without hopefully adding cost and taking extra time. That's our goal. That's what we're trying to do.

Matt Gerstner: 8:48

Absolutely. I mean, we're always trying to be good stewards of our clients' dollars 100%.

Rachael Spires: 8:52

Yeah. So what standards can we put in place? Um, we had talked about the AI and materials pledge in our specifications. So we're doing the research right now. We have a great group of folks that are doing sustainable materials um properties research. Okay. And we are taking that information to inform what products are in our Office Master specification.

Matt Gerstner: 9:12

Oh, okay.

Rachael Spires: 9:13

And if we can improve that and pick, you know, product A and product B, and product B has many more sustainable properties than product A does. Well, let's go ahead and just put product B in. The cost is negligible. Yeah. Let's go ahead and put product B in. And now we just elevated that project. And that was just one step.

Matt Gerstner: 9:30

Right. And it could be that could be one item in the whole building. Right. Yeah. That makes a great leap forward.

Rachael Spires: 9:36

Yep. So then how can we carry that through everything else?

Matt Gerstner: 9:39

So and you just said you got a team doing the research helping out with that. That's fantastic.

Rachael Spires: 9:44

We have a really great team that's doing the research, and it's been really fun to see them dive into this and learn more about the materials that we use on almost every single project, right? That you just kind of take for granted. Yeah. So they're learning more about the materials. They're realizing, oh, company A is pretty awesome, sustainable-wise, but company B that I'm used to using, not so much. So, you know, it's been really fun to see that and see them just dive into the specification research and process. Ugh, because specs are the best. So I just love it. I just love it. It's so much fun. Love to hear it.

Matt Gerstner: 10:16

Love to hear it. Yeah. So you were just saying it. You you love to hear that. You're excited about what's going on. So, what is it about design that you love?

Rachael Spires: 10:28

Yeah. So, design, I love the problem solving aspect of design. Right? Design, everything that we're wearing, everything around us is because a problem existed and someone designed a solution. Right. And that's what we're doing. So we are problem solvers and we are creative and we are purposeful, and we have the power to shape the environments where people live, where they work, how they feel in a space. And for me, the most rewarding part, the most rewarding part is being able to connect these big picture sustainability goals and resilience with the technical details. Right. You know, like joint sealants, backarats, you know, it it it plays a it plays an important part. I totally understand.

Matt Gerstner: 11:15

I mean, once upon a time, I wasn't sitting behind a podcast microphone. I was modeling buildings down to every last little joint and detail as well. I and I totally understand what you're saying with that.

Rachael Spires: 11:25

Yeah. So that's that's what I really like. Problem solving.

Matt Gerstner: 11:29

Love it.

Rachael Spires: 11:29

And working with the people to solve those problems.

Matt Gerstner: 11:31

Absolutely. Because yeah, I mean, we have some incredibly talented and creative people here.

Rachael Spires: 11:36

Amazing people.

Matt Gerstner: 11:37

Love it. Love it. All right. So you told me what you love about design. So what inspires you then? What where do you find your inspiration when you're working?

Rachael Spires: 11:48

Okay. So what inspires me, and I'll try and get through this without crying, um, is basically seeing our staff learn and grow in their roles. Yeah. Like that just, oh, it's it's so amazing. So I love watching someone gain confidence as they master a new concept or apply sustainability or codes or specifications in a new way. Yeah. So helping create these opportunities. I had I had someone uh reach out to me on, I think it was Friday last week, and they're like, I have a quick code question for you. Okay. I'm like, okay, great. Let's let's do it. Yeah. And he's like, I've already done the research, but I just want to run it by you. Yeah. Like, okay, let's do it. And he's like, this is what the client wants. I don't think they can do it because XYZ. And I went, you are right. You did it. Love it. You did the research, they figured it out. The answer, you figured it out. I'm like, gold star, yes. Which which is so great, right? Is to see the next generation take that initiative, learn something new. Now they understand a concept that they can take with them for the rest of their life.

Matt Gerstner: 12:56

Absolutely. How could that not inspire someone? Right? Yeah.

Rachael Spires: 13:01

I'm like, oh, you know, everyone, the goal, I think, for all of us is to eventually make ourselves um oh, you're gonna need to edit this because I do not have the right word. It's not impotent where you're not needed anymore. Invalid? No. Obsolete.

Matt Gerstner: 13:20

Obsolete, yeah.

Rachael Spires: 13:21

My goal is to make myself obsolete.

Matt Gerstner: 13:24

Right, right, right. So no, I totally I totally understand that. I mean the theory is that you can't advance to the next level until you've trained or assisted someone to take your place so you can move on. Yes. Yeah.

Rachael Spires: 13:38

Yeah. So that's when I really get excited is seeing people. Did you know we had I think five people become lead accredited this year in the office? Yes.

Matt Gerstner: 13:48

Like that's not amazing.

Rachael Spires: 13:49

I think we've got two more that are taking tests still this year.

Matt Gerstner: 13:52

Love it.

Rachael Spires: 13:52

So it's just really exciting to also see that.

Matt Gerstner: 13:56

Yeah. It's and that's the thing. It's constant learning, right? Yeah. Yeah. Constant learning. Constant learning. Rachel, thank you so much for your time today. I know you've given our listeners a lot to think about. You've provided so much insight for everyone, and just can't thank you for making the time today.

Rachael Spires: 14:12

Thanks for having me, Matt. It's been a pleasure.

Matt Gerstner: 14:14

Thank you. Yeah. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. We'll see you again soon.