Living Future '11 - Panel Discussion: Building Material Reuse: Understanding the Challenges, Celebrating the Successes, and Providing the Tools

With increasingly limited resources and a growing awareness around sustainable stewardship, material reuse represents one of the ultimate forms of resource conservation. It not only provides a vision of how to live more sustainably, it can also be economically pragmatic and nurture a community. Such principles overlap greatly with the goals of certification standards like the Living Building Challenge. Despite this potential, reuse remains significantly underutilized. Key to maturing the opportunity is building a greater awareness.  Panelists will address reuse challenges and opportunities, innovative tools and resources available, and strategies to utilize reuse as a vehicle for creativity and sustainability.

Presenter Bios

Kevin R Hydes
Kevin R Hydes, CEO of Integral Group, is a professional engineer and honorary architect in BC. He has been addressing green building issues for 2 decades since first meeting Bob Berkebile on the CK Choi project at UBC. That project opened his mind and curiosity to reuse of building materials, weaving through noteworthy projects such as the Materials Testing Lab and Telus Headquarters in Vancouver and many projects across North America including his own adaptive reuse office in Oakland, California, a low energy LEED Platinum targeted office. Kevin is also founding chair of the Cascadia Chapter and a Cascadia Fellow.

Laura Lesniewski
Laura Lesniewski, AIA is a principal at BNIM. An architect with 20 years of experience, she has spoken nationally on emerging technologies and philosophies in sustainable design, BIM and lean thinking and, most recently, at Brazil’s first Greenbuild in Sao Paulo.  Laura led the design team efforts on the Omega Center for Sustainable Living, which achieved both Living Building and LEED Platinum certification.  She co-authored “Roadmap for Integration” for the AIA’s 2006 Report on Integrated Practice and recently completed FLOW: In Pursuit of a Living Building with Bob Berkebile and Steve McDowell.  Laura is a graduate of MIT and UCBerkeley.


Nathan Benjamin
Nathan Benjamin - LEED AP, Principal + Founder of PlanetReuse & PlanetRestore – a reclaimed construction material broker and consultant predicated on a simple but revolutionary idea: make it easy for people to use reclaimed materials and they’ll do more of it to keep materials out of landfills. He has an Architectural Engineering degree, is on the Building Materials Reuse Association Board and worked on two of the first three “Living” projects. He worked on two of the Reuse Primer’s projects and has presented at the National Demolition Association, Greening the Heartland, GreenTown, past two Greenbuilds, Living Future, and the USGBC Federal Summit.

Liz Ogbu
Liz Ogbu is Associate Design Director at Public Architecture, a nonprofit that mobilizes designers to create positive social change.  Liz directs the public-interest design initiatives, which creatively address critical environmental and social justice issues.  She led development of the Design for Reuse Primer, a USGBC funded e- publication intended to demystify and inspire mainstream material reuse. Liz has written and lectured extensively on sustainable design.  She was a member of the 2010 AIA COTE Top Ten and USGBC Natural Talent Design juries and honored as a "Green Giant" by Steelcase for her work in promoting environmentally and socially sustainable design.

For more info to attend sessions, check out the conference website.