perkins eastman insights: Material evidence

April 28, 2021

A building can be more than the sum of its parts, but those parts play a crucial role in protecting our health and the environment.

The following is an excerpt from the full article:

The Pittsburgh Studio

Two years after Chicago’s debut, the new Pittsburgh studio is scheduled to open its doors on May 3. Throughout the process of building out the 25th-floor space at William Penn Place in the center of downtown, designer Jane Hallinan was inspired by Chicago’s example. Her enthusiasm only grew as a result of the Parsons certificate program, especially when it comes to interior design. “Once I took that course, I was obsessed with material health,” she says. “It’s the one area where interior design as an industry can really take ownership and drive meaningful change.”

Hallinan purposefully kept her product choices for the studio to a minimum, so she could do a deep dive into each one. “By minimizing the variety, we were able to make sure the materials we did specify were really packed to the brim with sustainable and material-health attributes,” she says. Hallinan relied on several sources for help, such the International Living Future Institute’s Declare program that provides “nutrition labels” for products from participating manufacturers and certifications that they’re free of Red List ingredients—the “’worst in class’ materials, chemicals, and elements known to pose serious risks to human health and the greater ecosystem that are prevalent in the building products industry,” according to the program. She also turned to Mindful Materials, an online database of building materials that are vetted for their health and environmental attributes. She discovered new products and manufacturers in the process. The makers of acoustic felt wallcovering that had been her go-to in previous projects, for example, did not have sufficient information attesting to its health and environmental safety, so she found a new vendor, Autex, that had all the right declarations and documentation that their products are Red List-free. Those discoveries in turn have led Hallinan and her team to clear out the materials library and restock the new studio with only those products that are similarly vetted. “I feel that we should prioritize placing products on our shelves that meet material- and environmental-health criteria to help our teams specify more responsibly,” she says. “We’re so excited for this new office—it’s been an amazing opportunity to embrace these [environmental] initiatives.”

//Read the full article HERE