Building Community in High-Performance Construction with Ben Bogie

The whole...

Thing for me around building science and high performance building is, is it, it seems really daunting for people when they first kind of, you know, open that door and go, Oh my God, let me close that real quick.

But.

Fundamentally, the thing that I try and get people to understand is you need to pick off things that you are interested in in your work on a day-to-day basis.

And that could be something like nails, types of nails.

It might seem so boring and mundane, but that's fundamentally what building science is.

It's the study of the built environment around us.

So if you can find areas of interest in your day-to-day professional work Follow those.

If you get excited to know about what an ERV is and like, what's this Brink thing sitting over here? Then chase that rabbit hole because we're in a time now where, you know, when I started to really dive into this on my own, there wasn't as much information out there as there is now.

And there's a dearth of online resources to go and learn about things like that.

And then you have the incredible work that you all are doing here where instead of just seeing something on the Internet or reading an article about it, you can come and you can put hands on with it and you can touch and feel because many of us that are in the building industry are experiential learners.

We are tactile learners because so much of our work is with our hands that you have to come and touch and see and feel and understand in order for you to understand it.

So I think people don't need to get overwhelmed by this whole big picture idea of building science.

You just need to pick off something that you're interested in and try and do a little better on each job.

And you continue iterating like that and just picking one little area.

Before you know it, you look back and you're like, oh my god, we're doing something totally different than what we did three years ago or five years ago or ten years ago.

you constantly evolve.

So for me, I get excited and passionate around it because I love learning and I love being engaged in what I do on a day-to-day basis.

So building science scratches that itch for me, right? Not only do I get to go out and do my day job, which puts food on the table for my family and puts housing out there into our community, but I also get to continue to learn and be interested and have things that are fulfilling professionally on a day-to-day level.

I think that's one of the interesting challenges is that so many, as you said, there's so much information out there and websites and Instagram postings, the volume of information that people who are thinking they should be stepping into this new evolution of where construction and building is going.

can be really overwhelming.

And so I think there's a gap.

And I think the studio, at least around here in Newton, Massachusetts, is trying to play a role in bridging this.

I think there's a gap between that information and what you just described about the love of the hands-on, whether it's looking at plans together or doing mock-ups and really practicing the trade or seeing an actual building site, whether it's completed or in process, that's very local.

That's very personal.