Architects Are Being Forced to Rethink Everything

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Mike Collignon: To the impact series on the Green Builder Media Network. I'm your host. My Collignon. On this podcast, I'll have one on one conversations with leaders and innovators from a wide variety of disciplines. We'll talk about how they got into their field, the lessons they've learned, and advice they have for future generations of leaders. Today I'm here with Nathan Good.

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Mike Collignon: He established the office of Nathan Good Architects PC in 2004, but his career began long before that. He's an registered architect and has been a certified interior designer since 1983. Along the way, he became the fifth person to be designated a lead A.P. by the U.S. Green Building Council in the year 2000. In 2015, Nathan earned a significant career achievement.

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Mike Collignon: He was honored as a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects and Green Builder magazine named Nathan their Sustainability Superhero in 2019. Nathan, welcome to the impact series.

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Nathan Good: Thank you Mike.

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Mike Collignon: You've had basically four decades in the architecture field. You've seen a lot of trends come and go. Before we get into that. Take us back to your first year in the industry. What were your early career goals?

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Nathan Good: Oh, boy. That's a that's a deep one. First I have to say, I don't know if you remember this or not, Mike, but at the Sustainability Summit in 2019. You were introduced by Ron Jones as the voice of God.

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Nathan Good: And now I understand why. You've got a great voice and I am talking to God. So.

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Mike Collignon: Well, thank you, Nathan, I appreciate that.

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Nathan Good: Okay. Early aspirations other than body surfing and ball and living the good life. I my first job in architecture was with William Blue Rock Associates in Newport Beach. They were right on the bay in Newport Beach, a block from beach for body surfing and volleyball. But they designed schools and theaters and restaurants, and those were three project types that I was very interested in.

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Nathan Good: So I very fortunate to get a job of my dreams right out of school.

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Mike Collignon: Well, they talk a little bit about that. I mean, what inspired you to get into the field of architecture?

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Nathan Good: Well, I was one of those strange creatures who wanted to be an architect from a very early age. I mean, it was my parents were designing a home for them, for ourselves when I was about in third grade, and they were bringing home all of these magazines about floor plans and designs and, and a couple of things happened.

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Nathan Good: One was that they couldn't agree on a floor plan. And so I started drawing floor plans, trying to mediate or, you know, work out the conflict resolution between my parents and drawing floor plans for them. And then the other thing was, one of the magazines they brought home had a home design by John Lautner, I think it was called the Chemo Sphere Home, but it was kind of a spaceship looking home on a pedestal in Los Angeles.

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Nathan Good: And I just, you know, thought, wow, that's super cool. And plus, I was building forts, like most of the kids my age and treehouses and rafts and things like that. And I had the whole barrage of play toys like Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, and it just my sister and I would draw together, we would make crafts together.

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Nathan Good: And it just when it came time to choose an elective in high school, drafting was a natural and I had great instructors in high school. It took four years of drafting and architectural drawing and design, so going into architecture was just it was pretty much always the path laid down before me.

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Mike Collignon: And did your. Did your sister also end up going into architecture too?

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Nathan Good: No, but she was a natural at drawing and and designing things. And so she taught me a lot about how to draw a kid.

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Mike Collignon: Okay. And I saw that you got your masters at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Beautiful campus.

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Nathan Good: Oh, it was a great place. It was halfway between San Francisco and LA, so we had the Bernard Maybeck buildings to the north, and we had John Lautner buildings to the south, as well as, you know, so many other architects, both contemporary and historic, so that Frank Lloyd Wright designed a little clinic right there in San Luis Obispo that was, you know, I went past fairly often.

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Mike Collignon: Were there any specific either drafting teachers in high school or professors in college that really kind of helped mold you into the professional and the prestigious professional that you have become?

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Nathan Good: Well, there were a couple professors. That one was Don Coburg, who wrote the book The Universal Traveler, and what he his book was about and what his studios were about was problem solving. And he he said several times, if you come away with anything from school, it should be about how to solve problems. And a lot of that was about collaboration and problem solving methods.

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Nathan Good: Don Grant was another instructor who talked about problem solving methodologies and and just basically how to think, how to help other people solve problems, and how to create solutions to your own problems that you have in front of you. So those those were really profound learning opportunities there.

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Mike Collignon: Now, obviously, growing up in California, going to school in California, and I've spent a decent amount of time in California, the environment is just kind of front and center. It's it's something you think about a lot. It's it's beautiful, but it's also this thing that you inherently feel, hey, I need to make sure that we preserve and protect this for for others and for future generations.

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Mike Collignon: Is that maybe where your interest in sustainability came from?

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Nathan Good: Well, that was part of it. It probably goes. I used to spend my summers working on my family's farm in north central Oklahoma, and it was I was farming with my great uncle, who was a child of the depression, and that had a big impact on me as well. They were very resource efficient. You, you know, you don't pull poor oil on the driveway that your well is underneath.

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Nathan Good: You don't eat your seed. Corn is kind of a classic phrase and the just a strong work ethic as well. So that was a big impact on me. And I also fell in love with grain silos. You know, the cathedrals of the prairie, as Lake Corbusier used to call them. And and I think there's a just kind of an ethos that I picked up working with my great uncle and then that carried into California.

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Nathan Good: I was in California at a great time because there were all these real funky little owner builder DIY projects, you know, that did not have architects involved in. They were funky homes being built all along the coast, especially up in Big Sur. And you probably seen photographs of these and and then have you seen the 1973 publication called shelter?

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Nathan Good: That was a really powerful book because it just goes through, and it's mostly projects that are off the grid, off the grid homes and Buckminster Fuller, and just a real interesting array of projects all over the world. And just seeing those and being inspired by those. And then my last year of college was spent in Denmark, and Denmark had a real powerful influence on me.

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Nathan Good: You know, Denmark is an island, and they were striving to provide all the energy resources they need for their little island without nuclear power, at least when I was there in 76, so that the instructors there, plus the oil embargo that we have. What was it? 1973 1974. That was a major shift in our architectural education. Now, our professors were really rallying behind considerations for energy performance.

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Nathan Good: And I think SIM Vanden was the state architect at that time as well. Or maybe he came a little bit later, but there was a it was just it was an amazing time to be in architectural education as a student.

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Mike Collignon: Is there anything that you have seen in the architectural field kind of fall off the wayside, whether it be a trend or a practice, a technique that that you'd like to maybe see brought back?

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Nathan Good: Well, I've worked on projects that have had passive systems and very active systems. You know, residential and commercial. And as I'm sure Ron Jones is familiar with, passive solar homes were a big thing in the late 60s and early 70s. And now I've been remodeling some of those early passive solar homes. And what a disaster the trauma walls have turned out to be.

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Nathan Good: And what are the challenge that's been with, you know, restructuring the thermal mass in these homes? The beauty of them were that they were passive systems that did not require mechanically operated exotic controls and things like that. So somewhere between those early passive homes and our newer generation of passive house homes, there's got to be a nice balance.

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Nathan Good: And so that that's been one of the things that I've been interested in pursuing. And I can't say that I found that perfect balance yet.

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Mike Collignon: One thing I've always kind of wondered about and I'll bounces off of you, Nathan is at one point it was not uncommon for homes, single family homes to have like two foot overhangs. Right. That you would then to help with the shading on windows, pull in the winter sun. It doesn't block it hot warmer summer sun. It does tend to block it.

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Mike Collignon: Why did we get away from that?

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Nathan Good: Well, it's it's more efficient to create a tight envelope without the overhangs because when you have the roof overhangs and if you're your weather seal, your air barrier is, is harder to accomplish with a roof overhang. You end up coming up here and then somehow you have to work your way back up to the roof. Member. We've used a lot of closed cell spray foam.

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Nathan Good: That certainly helps, and so does exterior insulation. And I think that was part. But the other part is the there's there's been a real shift and an interest in contemporary design, which is everything from flat roofs to single low slope, single sloped roofs without the overhangs. What we're finding is what I have found is that there are ways to get around all of that.

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Nathan Good: I still like roof overhangs, and I like very generous roof overhangs from both an ascetic point of view. And just to keep in our climate here in Oregon, where we have a lot of rain, to keep that water as far away from the foundation of a home as possible. So I remain an advocate of generous roof overhangs. They also help protect the exterior side of the home and the windows.

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Nathan Good: And we're not using. We're not. Most of our homes do not have any attic space. They also don't have crawl spaces, so it's easier to manage your air barrier if you do not have attics.

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Mike Collignon: You mentioned before about, you know, doing some remodel work. What would you say currently your work or project split is? Is it, is it, you know, half and half when it comes to remodel new construction or is it more skewed one way or the other? On that spectrum, what what's Nathan currently looking at as far as the project load?

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Mike Collignon: How does that fall?

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Nathan Good: It's about two thirds new homes and about one third remodels.

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Nathan Good: I should also add to that my son Forrest is taking over Nathan Good Architects and he is rebranding it as Studio Good Architects. So he all of the reigns and he's doing a great job. So I am migrating more to a consultant.

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Mike Collignon: Well that's fantastic though. It's that's great. I, I'm going to have Tim O'Brien on on a future episode of the impact series, and he's also transitioning his business to one of his sons. And so that's one of the things I plan to talk to him about. I did not know that was happening with yours, but that's that's a that's really cool.

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Mike Collignon: Congratulations on that. Because that also means that you're going to have time to maybe enjoy retirement or at least semi-retirement. Is that is that maybe in the cards for you?

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Nathan Good: Yeah. It doesn't. I don't like the sound of that word. I've got a lot of design still left in me. I feel like I'm not done. I love architecture. Maybe consider some part time teaching and and still maybe do some design projects for my son.

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Mike Collignon: Well, and you have such knowledge. That's. That's why I wanted you on the impact series was to kind of be able to expose not just Nathan to this audience, but also just the knowledge that you're that you have that you can share with others because it's just you're quite a treasure. And I want to get into that a little bit more because you do design some amazing homes, incredibly energy efficient.

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Mike Collignon: When you started out, the energy codes weren't really a huge thing.

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Mike Collignon: They have become more and more of a thing. Talk to me a little bit about your feelings in regards to energy codes and their their existence, their direction that they're going. I mean, I think everybody should know that it's listening to this, that you operate well above those. So it's it's kind of probably in some regards it may be an afterthought for you, but but you're in this industry.

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Mike Collignon: So if you could just kind of share some of your insights on, on energy codes.

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Nathan Good: Well, I will ruffle some feathers and say I'm not a real fan of any codes at all. People should do what they think is the right thing to do, and unfortunately, we need the codes for our cross societal benefits. Just like motorcycle helmets. I used to love to ride my motorcycle without a helmet, feel the the wind blowing through my hair and the breeze on my face.

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Nathan Good: And I stopped doing that because I recognized that if I had an accident and there was damage to my head, that there was a cost to pay for the cost of medical care for others. So it's a societal benefit for me to wear a helmet. It's a societal benefit to have energy codes. Unfortunately, we rarely reference energy codes because almost all of our homes perform substantially better than the energy code, so we sometimes use it as just a baseline.

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Nathan Good: Sometimes we have to demonstrate our our alliance or compatibility with an energy code. We have done energy modeling on almost all of our projects to try to find how we can improve, even well beyond the energy codes. So I think the other the main benefit of energy codes, other than the societal demonstrating the cross societal benefit, is providing a reference point for the architects, the engineers and the builders to achieve.

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Nathan Good: It's just like a green building. Rating systems. They provide a baseline of performance for people to both meet and aspire to exceed.

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Mike Collignon: So let's stay on the topic for just a second of of the incredible homes that you build and are design. You know, they're also habitat homes that are out there that can achieve either net zero or very close to net zero.

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Mike Collignon: The vast majority of the Bell curve hasn't really gotten to that point.

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Mike Collignon: Why is that? What are we missing? How are we not able to accomplish with the, you know, the majority of the homes, what you're able to accomplish with your designs, what some habitat projects. I mean, we've got I feel like this project is on both ends of the spectrum, custom small habitat projects that can accomplish this, but the majority of the bell curve.

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Mike Collignon: Why aren't we there yet? What do we what are we missing?

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Nathan Good: I think I my belief is that the the majority of this bell curve are production builders, and production builders are driven by profit. And there's nothing wrong with profit. Profit is a healthy motivator for people and their large scale projects. And it's it's getting in, getting out, getting it sold. That's part of what makes so many homes affordable and less complicated as well.

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Nathan Good: To build, you start to add green building technologies, many of which are not really proven. It's lot. There are a lot of experiments that go into creating a green building, and that there's risk involved in their success. Will they sell? Are they going to appeal to enough people to be strong in their market? So it's recognizing, you know, that there's a lot of diversity out there that home builders need to respond to.

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Nathan Good: And when I say diversity, that's diversity in their markets that they're going to sell to. Most of our projects have been custom homes for individual clients, and that's a very different market than production building.

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Mike Collignon: Do you? I guess, are you surprised that home buyers, homeowners haven't pushed for more?

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Mike Collignon: More energy efficient homes? You know, if you know, because sometimes you could say, well, it could come from the other side, right? The free market could say, hey, man, you know, I want something better. But are you surprised that that maybe homebuyers or homeowners haven't pushed production builders in that direction more?

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Nathan Good: Well, I think most of that, Mike, is because they don't know what they're missing. I mean, who would want a home that's not as healthy as a healthy home? I mean, you know, and I think that a lot of this has to do with our responsibility as architects, as green building media to to educate the public and get the information out there as much as possible.

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Nathan Good: And for years I would give presentations, I go to county fairs, I'd do a booth, I would, I would speak at conferences. Unfortunately, most of the time I was speaking to the choir or preaching to the choir, but we have to get the message out to the general public and they have to be educated. They have to understand the difference between a healthy home and an unhealthy home.

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Nathan Good: They have to know about dust mites and what dust. The the the fecal carcasses of dust mites due to asthma and respiratory issues. They have to understand how they can save energy in their home. The benefits of solar electric panels in the cost effectiveness. And how do those messages reach the broad public? It's it's hard to get all of those messaging out there.

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Mike Collignon: Okay, okay. So you said you're transitioning your business to your son and rebranding is studio good.

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Mike Collignon: Where do you see studio Good going? Is it is it kind of staying on the same trajectory? Does he maybe want to take it into a new direction? Talk to us a little bit about the future of studio good.

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Nathan Good: Well, my son Forrest has a different background than I do. I think a lot of what we have been doing for the last 20 years as Nathan Good architects, he will continue to do in terms of the values and the advocacy and healthy, energy efficient, resource efficient homes. He forest is an exceptional designer, and I think we're going to see him integrate more than I have the esthetic component into projects and to the.

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Nathan Good: And I think that clients will be drawn to him as an architect and his team, that he's building on their esthetic component as much as their green building piece.

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Mike Collignon: Okay. Okay. You've seen a lot in your career as you look back on it. What what is the one, two or maybe three things that you want the next generation to know?

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Nathan Good: Well, one of the things that is one of the factors that has motivated me, Mike, is trying to reduce the impact of climate change. And sorry to say, I think that that battle has been lost. I think climate change is occurring at a rapid rate, and I don't believe it's reversible at this point. So now I think it's important that they design homes for climate disasters.

00:25:02:29 - 00:25:31:05
Nathan Good: We're calling it resiliency. But I think it's going to we're already in this phase now of having to deal with extreme storms, fires, drought conditions, loss of resources. I think we're going to see climate refugees starting to occur as well.

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Nathan Good: I mean, we're already seeing that around the world as people are losing their water and their ability to grow crops. And I think it's just going to become more extreme. So I would encourage the next generation of architects to.

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Nathan Good: Take that into consideration as they design for what I would call climate disasters, whether it's hurricanes or fires or windstorms or ice storms or the loss of power for weeks at a time.

00:26:07:09 - 00:26:11:15
Nathan Good: Aren't I a happy soul to talk to?

00:26:11:17 - 00:26:35:27
Mike Collignon: Well, I mean, honestly, I wasn't really I had no idea what you were going to answer, and it didn't really matter to me what you answered. I was really curious to hear your take on it, because, you know, we hear that buzzword resiliency quite a bit. And I guess I just, I kind of wonder we talked earlier about the, the bulk of the Bell Curve production homes.

00:26:36:00 - 00:26:54:24
Mike Collignon: They're not net zero. Are people really interested in energy efficiency? Maybe they don't know about it. They're not asking for it. I wonder if resiliency is going to be something similar. And I'm going to share an anecdote with you real quick. I got the chance after Katrina to go down to Gulfport, Mississippi, and it's right there on the coast.

00:26:54:24 - 00:27:18:03
Mike Collignon: And this particular one street neighborhood was just absolutely flattened pile of debris at the end of the road, actual dead bodies in the pile. But there was one home that did survive and didn't get affected. It was reinforced concrete, and the owner was a structural engineer and everybody was fascinated. Oh my gosh, I can't believe he did that.

00:27:18:03 - 00:27:46:06
Mike Collignon: And the other thing that you'll get a kick out of this, Nathan. The home wasn't even finished. The home was probably 70% completed. He wasn't actually living in it yet. But when the storm was coming, he went from where he was living to this under construction home because he knew it was stand this storm. So he then goes around the area to these different meetings that are being held talking about, oh gosh, we have a huge recovery effort on hand.

00:27:46:08 - 00:28:13:00
Mike Collignon: And the gentleman's name was Scott. Scott goes around, says, hey, I got an example of something that that was stood this I mean, it took the brunt of the storms right here and it you can go visit it and look at it, see it. Here's pictures I'm sharing with you in this meeting. And the response that he largely got in those meetings was, yeah, but do we have to build that strong.

00:28:13:03 - 00:28:36:19
Mike Collignon: And that was that was very disheartening to him that he was like, you know, I don't I don't know what else to do. Like I showed you how this could work. And you're like, yeah, but that's that's really going, you know, quite a ways down the road to being resilient. And I don't mean it in air quotes, but you know, to be resilient, do I have to go that far.

00:28:36:25 - 00:28:53:25
Mike Collignon: And so I just wonder are we going to face something similar. And I know it's an impossible question to answer. Nathan. It's all conjecture, but I fear that maybe we we run into the same issue.

00:28:53:28 - 00:28:58:04
Nathan Good: Well, yeah, we.

00:28:58:06 - 00:29:36:19
Nathan Good: It's a fair question. And our codes, our structural codes are a balance between safety and cost. And that we could we have more extreme codes for our critical facilities like hospitals and police stations and fire stations. And they cost more accordingly. And they perform better under an earthquake, a severe storm, a hurricane. And to do that with a home obviously will increase the cost.

00:29:36:22 - 00:30:12:20
Nathan Good: So we probably won't see codes go there unless it's in an area that's susceptible to that, like rebuilding after Katrina and or those individuals who want something better than code. When I built my own home, I wanted the floors to. And it will actually not just the floors for because I didn't want as much motion when you walk on the on the race floors, but I, I wanted a home that would perform better under heavy winds or we're in an earthquake zone or an earthquake.

00:30:12:20 - 00:30:56:01
Nathan Good: So I was willing to pay a little bit more money for a more stable, structurally stable home, as well as some green the green features to. And not everyone's willing to do that. And you know this word right now. The Ford ability is making it even more challenging to build homes that will withstand natural disasters. Now there, as you're describing that, Mike, I'm thinking about some of the homes that survived in the middle of the fire zone in Southern California.

00:30:56:04 - 00:31:24:22
Nathan Good: The unfortunate situation for them is that they lost their power. They lost their sewer, they lost their water and their severe smoke damage. So even though their home is standing, in some ways they're worse off than their neighbors who lost their home because the insurance will cover the cost to rebuild what may may pay to recover, the cost of losing the home.

00:31:24:22 - 00:31:48:17
Nathan Good: And this home that's standing, which is they can't occupy, is not covered. So there's a role here with insurance companies, with lenders. And part of that's with codes and, and what people can tolerate in terms of the cost to be more secure.

00:31:48:19 - 00:32:25:17
Mike Collignon: And that'll be an interesting reconciliation, I think in a way. Right. Like we're talking about, you know, as you stated, you know, we're already changing the climate. Now we've got to kind of pivot to mitigation and protection against climate disasters. We're also seeing insurance companies stop issuing policies in certain areas. And it's like, oh, wow. Like that's another factor or force on the market of okay, I can't I can't build there, I can't build there, or I can, but it's very expensive to do.

00:32:25:19 - 00:32:47:18
Mike Collignon: That could also have an effect not just on the topic, but just I wonder if that will somehow create a negative backlash on the on the term resiliency or the, you know, the effort to to be more resilient people will be like, well, yeah, I could be, but it's going to be so expensive. I'm not doing that. I just I'm worried about that.

00:32:47:18 - 00:32:49:14
Mike Collignon: I guess.

00:32:49:16 - 00:32:53:11
Nathan Good: That's a fair worry.

00:32:53:13 - 00:32:59:06
Mike Collignon: When you deal with your clients new construction.

00:32:59:09 - 00:33:07:02
Mike Collignon: What are their, I'll say, top three priorities.

00:33:07:05 - 00:33:38:06
Nathan Good: They often shift this were educating one another. And when it comes time to start doing the design, the one factor that is most that none of my clients want to compromise on is. I shouldn't say none of them. Some of them have is on indoor air quality, a healthy home that is of paramount importance, especially if they have children.

00:33:38:09 - 00:34:13:20
Nathan Good: The exception to that, I had a client they were building in the middle of a of a hayfield. We grow a lot of alfalfa here in the Willamette Valley, and my client, husband and wife, the wife had asthma and I advocated for really robust heat recovery ventilator for whole home ventilation, so that during the hay season, her fever would not kick in and the client was not willing to pay for that.

00:34:13:21 - 00:34:48:10
Nathan Good: And I consider that a personal loss in my own education for the client. But this was a client who was just like, no, we're not going to do that. And, you know, we all have almost every architect has had clients where there's a diversion of values. So anyway, back to the, the the part of that then is it's just important to really understand what matters to the client.

00:34:48:12 - 00:35:19:27
Nathan Good: Solar panels. Solar electric panels have really revolutionized so much of what we do now, too, because a client can successfully argue that by doubling the size of their solar electric system, that they don't have to invest in triple pane windows. Even though we advocate for an energy efficient envelope that they will. And, you know, LED lights have done the same thing.

00:35:20:00 - 00:35:50:07
Nathan Good: Our lighting loads are drastically lower now. And with solar electric panels are able to power their electric car and they're able to use their leaf blowers electric charged with their, you know, as much as they want without any guilt of use. So I love that heard over the last ten years.

00:35:50:09 - 00:36:08:29
Mike Collignon: Yeah, there's there's been a lot especially, you know, like you're saying plug loads lighting. And then the whole advent of EVs and the ability to leverage. And you may have had clients already do this. The leverage the EV is an essence of battery for the house.

00:36:09:02 - 00:36:47:11
Nathan Good: I don't know of anybody yet who's actually done that, but that's been part of the, the the tool that's available to them. Yeah. You know that that triggers up a whole nother line of thought, Mike, about the future and that is AI and its impact upon computer farms and what that's going to do to our electrical grid and how important distributed energy is going to become important to, you know, that's a real threat to all of us that I don't think we're really taking into account is the energy that these that AI is going to require.

00:36:47:11 - 00:37:19:00
Nathan Good: And how do we respond to that? Distributed systems, you know, PV on our homes, neighborhood power systems, power systems, I don't know. But let me add back. Ask a question to you. What I mean, you hear a lot about trends. How do you think we're going to respond to the emerging energy demand from AI?

00:37:19:02 - 00:37:39:07
Mike Collignon: Well, I think so. For me, AI poses a couple of challenges. One, it's a 5050 split of energy and then the water demand. To me, I think the water portion.

00:37:39:10 - 00:38:05:05
Mike Collignon: Will provide the larger obstacle in the long run. I say this sometimes in presentations I give, I can put up more solar panels, I can generate more, you know, power. I can maybe put a windmill or something. I can't build a new river. I can't build a new lake. Like it's the water is what the water is. It's so the water demands from the data centers is immense.

00:38:05:05 - 00:38:31:15
Mike Collignon: And we tend to be putting some of these data centers, not all, but some of the data centers are going in places. We don't have a lot of water to begin with. And so that to me is the it's going to be the thing that may put the brakes on data centers faster than the energy, because, as you alluded to, we could go to a decentralized type of system on the energy side.

00:38:31:15 - 00:38:36:21
Mike Collignon: I mean, technically we could do on the water side too, but.

00:38:36:24 - 00:38:58:01
Mike Collignon: The home I'm sitting in right now, we have solar panels on our roof. And over the course of 365 days, we generate a little bit more power than we actually use. So, you know, my footprint on the grid is fairly light. Yes, we use the grid as a battery, so we draw from it at night, but we throw more at it during the daytime.

00:38:58:04 - 00:39:36:00
Mike Collignon: You could design and get homes to that, to that type of performance and then say, okay, the traditional power generation goes to data centers. You could you could reconfigure and do something like that. Water consumption is still, to me, going to be the the challenge of how do you cool these data centers with the, you know, immense water demand that they have and still do the things that you're normally doing with water throughout the day irrigating agriculture or you're, you know, consuming it or you're using it in commercial space or industrial space.

00:39:36:03 - 00:39:42:00
Mike Collignon: That to me, I think is the harder part to to figure out.

00:39:42:02 - 00:39:47:08
Nathan Good: Well, let's cross our fingers for innovation.

00:39:47:11 - 00:39:54:13
Mike Collignon: Well, you know, you did bring up AI and I guess that does bring a question to me.

00:39:54:15 - 00:40:02:29
Mike Collignon: Do you see AI being a threat in any way to the architectural profession?

00:40:03:02 - 00:40:41:01
Nathan Good: Well, let's see if I break it that down. It's AI is great for gathering information. AI is really good at synthesizing information. And those are two things that that's architects we that's really core to what we do is gathering information and synthesizing information. And then there's certainly a benefit for AI to do those things as a profession. I it will be a threat in terms of employment, job loss.

00:40:41:01 - 00:41:05:17
Nathan Good: And I have a hard time seeing how it result in job gaining. But I think AI will replace a lot of what architects do, especially at the junior level. There will still be a role for editing, manipulating the information.

00:41:05:19 - 00:41:38:18
Nathan Good: Quality control, just as it currently is for senior management as well. It can be a powerful tool and it can also be a threat. And I don't know which it's going to be. It's going to depend upon how we learn to use it and embrace it. It's already affecting the the, you know, a certain layer of what we do in terms of specifications and code compliance.

00:41:38:21 - 00:42:12:05
Nathan Good: My son is is working with some unique systems right now where the plans he can run it through a an AI check and it'll tell him of any code issues that may surface. It can do enhancements, it can do energy modeling, it can do recommendations. I mean, it's an incredible tool. I don't know if it's going to result in better architecture.

00:42:12:08 - 00:42:19:12
Mike Collignon: Well, when you said enhancements, I have to ask, what do you mean by enhancements?

00:42:19:15 - 00:42:41:29
Nathan Good: Well, things like taking some of the guesswork out of what we do. I like that phrase that's used in the medical profession called evidence based design, and it can rapidly assemble the evidence for particular solutions.

00:42:42:02 - 00:42:45:13
Nathan Good: Will it?

00:42:45:16 - 00:43:21:22
Nathan Good: One, I wrote my master's thesis on problem solving methodologies and architecture, and it ended with a speculation on how the computer can be used to generate esthetically interesting and pleasing architecture. And I think the AI can do that, but it's probably more tuned towards a client user tool. For example, let's just do an example of what I mean by that.

00:43:21:25 - 00:43:54:14
Nathan Good: As a client, I can say I would like to have a building that is energy efficient, healthy, resource efficient, but I also want it to be modern. I want it to look like something that comes from my climate, and I want it to be cost. Within the current range of $350 a square foot. I'm not worried about the floor plan, but I do need three bedrooms, two and a half baths or two car garage, you know?

00:43:54:16 - 00:44:15:27
Nathan Good: AI, go at it, show me what you can do and it can draw and and, you know, regional examples. It can respond to climate change. It could, you know, floor plans. It'll want some information about the site as a flat or terrain. Are there any views I need to take into consideration? What's the neighborhood or is it rural or urban?

00:44:15:28 - 00:45:11:12
Nathan Good: All of that can be fed in as variables, and that can be a client, you know, a client friendly program. And in that regard, it can easily bypass the architect. Now, when you get into that bell curve, we're talking about the builder and production homes. They they can do that. But they're going to be after, you know, they can be responding to what the AI is gathering as to what the current needs user needs are, rather than lagging behind 3 or 4 years of what the ideal buyer will want, they could get more like 4 to 6 months trend information in there into advising them on what to build.

00:45:11:14 - 00:45:19:14
Mike Collignon: Well, I hope that it's not just client friendly, but also climate friendly, right?

00:45:19:16 - 00:45:52:02
Nathan Good: Well, in that regard, it could be more climate responsive because right now, you know, how we use climate data based on 30 year averages. We need to narrow that down to 3 to 5 years now so that we can more closely track. We've had an amazing year here in Oregon in terms of our climate. We've had more sunshine in 2025 than we have in any year since I moved here 30 years ago, we've had left rain.

00:45:52:02 - 00:46:01:16
Nathan Good: It's been drier. It's been an amazing climate. I feel like I'm living in Santa Barbara. Yeah.

00:46:01:19 - 00:46:02:11
Mike Collignon: Nice.

00:46:02:19 - 00:46:16:03
Nathan Good: How does that figure into the. It's just going to be a trend. Is is this new three year climate data information or do we still look at that 30 year average.

00:46:16:05 - 00:46:34:22
Mike Collignon: Yeah I mean one year I mean it could be, you know, a fluke or an anomaly. But if it continues over the course of 3 to 5 years, then you kind of start to go, I think, I think we're in for a different, different setup here.

00:46:34:25 - 00:46:41:29
Mike Collignon: Well, Nathan, thank you so much for agreeing to be on the podcast. I really do appreciate it, sir.

00:46:42:02 - 00:46:49:15
Nathan Good: Yeah. Thank you. It was an interesting we took some twists and turns so. But it's like improvisational jazz, right?

00:46:49:17 - 00:46:55:03
Mike Collignon: That's right, that's right. And had I known, we would have talked about that too.

00:46:55:05 - 00:46:56:25
Nathan Good: You like music.

00:46:56:28 - 00:47:02:23
Mike Collignon: A little bit a little bit. Yeah. So we'll we'll hold that one off for another episode then.

00:47:02:23 - 00:47:08:17
Nathan Good: Okay. Sounds good Mike. Thank you. Nice to talk to the voice of God.

00:47:08:19 - 00:47:18:07
Mike Collignon: Or something like that. But hey, stay tuned for more episodes of the Impact Series podcast on the Green Builder Media Network. I'm Mike lignin and I'll see you again soon.