Buildings 2.0 Library
Conversations on the future of the built environment
81 episodes of the Buildings 2.0 podcast, each bound as a short book: the ideas, the numbers and the lines worth keeping.
Season 2, Episode 1 /Mar 3, 2025
Sustainability is about people, and it should not cost more
Corey Squire, Bora Architects
Mar 3, 2025 /Design & Practice
Sustainability is about people, and it should not cost more
Corey Squire is an associate principal and the sustainability director at Bora Architects in Portland, Oregon, one of the firms that treats building performance as a design discipline rather than a certification. He argues that most of what makes a building sustainable is decided by orientation and window size, costs nothing, and gets ignored because 'sustainable' still sounds like an add-on.
Corey Squire, Associate Principal, Sustainability Director, Bora Architects
In this conversation
Corey's reframing of the word 'sustainable' as a description of buildings designed around people rather than a premium feature set.
The window-to-wall ratio argument: why 30 percent glazing outperforms glass boxes on energy, comfort and resilience.
His reading of the renovation trend and why it points to more than half of firm revenue coming from existing buildings.
Why simulation only verifies a good building; best practice, research and judgment are what create it.
Sustainability is really about how to make a building work better for people.
Corey Squire
Chapters
Why sustainability shouldn't cost more
Why a building designed around people is a sustainable building, at no premium.
Design around people
What it means to start from the occupant instead of the form.
Orientation, glazing and trade-offs
The site decisions that matter more than any technology added later.
The renovation economy
Why existing buildings are becoming the center of architectural practice.
By the numbers
Share of U.S. architecture billings from work on existing buildings
Corey cites the AIA figure and expects renovation to pass half of firm revenue for good. It already crossed 50 percent in 2022.
Source: AIA Firm Survey 2022 and 2024, via Bloomberg ↗Fewer tools, more conversation
Corey's case for fewer software tools and more research, conversation and design.
When somebody hears the word sustainable, the first thing that they think is it's going to cost more.
Corey Squire
Takeaways
Sustainability means a building that works better for people: air quality, daylight, views and longevity. The costly image of solar panels and bigger mechanical systems is a misunderstanding of where the results come from.
Roughly 30 percent glazing and a sensible orientation deliver a smaller mechanical system, less heat gain, less glare and a building that stays livable when the power goes out.
Renovation already produces about 30 percent of architecture fees, according to AIA data Corey cites, and the share rises every year; the profession's future is in buildings that already exist.
We don't expect the simulations to create a good building. We expect our best practices, our design skills to create a good building.
Corey Squire