Respect The Trade, Build The Craft

The Building Science Podcast

What do you really know about construction trades and their role in projects? Are their voices heard in the design process? Join us as Miguel interviews Kimberly Lewellyn live from the annual ASHRAE Conference and AHR Expo in Chicago for a wide ranging discussion on re-framing our perceptions of construction trades.

For decades, the housing industry in the United States has become increasingly first cost oriented while energy codes simultaneously become more demanding. The implications of this dynamic have played out across design organizations and construction firms, but nowhere has it been felt more poignantly than by sub-contracted trade crews. Often these laborers are considered low-skill, interchangeable, and are thus exploited. And due to this unnecessarily assigned status, they are rarely involved in early design conversations to contribute their wealth of knowledge of construction realities.

This dynamic can change with willing participants, but it takes more than just thought-experiments. We have to put into action new ways of thinking about contractural relationships, economic value, and design processes and collaboration. That's what this episode is all about. We'll explore a few simple ways to change the conversation and hopefully our minds about how trades are involved in our project teams.

Kimberly Llewellyn was a Building Science consultant for the Positive Energy team for many years and is now both a Performance Construction Manager at Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating and a PHIUS Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC). Between her formal post-grad education in environmental engineering at Columbia University, Kimberly has an intimate understanding of how the HVAC industry relates to well designed and delivered homes and continues to advocate for better practices and collaboration in her work with Mitsubishi.

Big thanks to The Humid Climate Conference for their generous and continued support of this show.