Resilient by Design

As a studio, we’re always looking for ways to design with durability, resiliency, and beauty at top of mind. We work to curate material palettes that conceptually support the design parti, react thoughtfully to the site, are sourced sustainably, and futureproof the structure while protecting its inhabitants.

Last month, four members of our studio, Anjali Iyer, Chris Kurrle, Matt Lindsay, and Norman Wong, became Certified Passive House Designers after completing a 3.5 month long course hosted by the Passive House Network in partnership with the Passive House Institute. This course, which was recommended to us and partially subsidized by PG&E, consisted of weekly sessions with a national cohort group that featured guest speakers, industry experts, and provided a holistic curriculum about the theoretical and technical aspects of designing Passive House homes.

Diversity fuels great design. We firmly believe that a diversity of voices in our studio and design processes creates a richness that we’re passionate about protecting and fostering. Our Corporate Social Responsibility committee is eager to issue our 2024 report, outlining our efforts to create an equitable and diverse workplace that acts as a force for good in the world and values, promotes, and supports its people. We’re proud of the work we’ve done thus far, and motivated to recognize, address, and work on our shortcomings. ⁠

Since the launch of our Carbon Budget initiative, we’ve implemented the dashboard on 11 projects. In this blog series, we'll deep dive into specific projects, outlining how we're tracking both the predicted operational and embodied carbon emissions as the project progresses, which in turn, will result in more sensitive and resilient designs that emit less carbon.

In 2004, Feldman Architecture designed our first home in The Preserve, kicking off a long-term relationship with the community, and introducing a precedent and appreciation for contemporary and sustainable design - with numerous homes completed and 5 more currently in design or under construction.

Feldman Architecture is happy to announce that we’re officially a Just certified organization! The Just Label, run by the International Living Future Institute, functions similarly to a nutrition label that scores organizations on socially just and equitable operations and policies. As a voluntary disclosure tool, it’s a transparency platform for organizations to disclose specific information about their operations, from employee demographics and benefits to financial and community investments. It requires reporting on a range of operational indicators that outline accountability metrics for each organization to be recognized at four levels of performance. See Feldman Architecture’s complete Just Dashboard below, which provides information on each of our 24 performance indicators, and our company policies individually addressing each indicator.

Launched in Spring 2023, this initiative takes aim at each residential project’s operational and embodied carbon, setting an aggressive target of 100 metric-tons (tonnes) per home. We're actively measuring the projected carbon emissions of each project throughout the design phases via energy modeling and embodied carbon analysis, using this to data to further optimize our designs. We will continue to measure operational carbon emissions post-occupancy, and carbon offsets will be purchased for those exceeding the budget one year after completion.

We’re excited to add an installment to our Living Building Challenge blog series, tracking our progress with Curveball, which will aim to be our first project to achieve a Living Building Challenge certification, as well as the first residential certification at CORE level or higher in California.