Better Buildings For Humans

This week on Better Buildings for Humans, Joe Menchefski sits down with Tommaso Bitossi, partner at Transsolar and a passionate advocate for climate-responsive design. From Florence to New York City, Tommaso shares his unconventional path from civil engineering to climate engineering, blending a love of math, physics, and frugality with a deep respect for culture and place. Together, they dive into why renovation is cooler than you think, how building envelopes shape human comfort, and why “operable windows” might be the most underrated innovation in architecture. You’ll hear about cutting-edge technologies making electrification easier, the power of post-occupancy studies, and why resilience is the new luxury. Plus, Tommaso shares insights from the Transsolar World Academy and their ambitious carbon-neutral journey. If you care about buildings that do more with less, this episode is for you.More About Tommaso BitossiTommaso focuses on two aspects of climate responsive design: architecture and climate engineering based on his professional value of ‘sufficiency before efficiency‘. His unique perspective on the integrated design process together with his understanding of both the architectural and the engineering approaches facilitate the communication of complex strategies to the design team. Tommaso deeply believes that a decision-making process based on a solid engineered and out-of-the-box thinking leads to resource conscious solutions and high quality built environments. It is important to him to keep environmental impacts such as CO2 emissions as low as possible in all projects. He is committed to education with the goal of helping the next generation rethink how to combat climate change and conserve the planet's limited resources.CONTACT:https://www.linkedin.com/in/architettobitossi/ https://transsolar.com/team/tommaso-bitossiwww.transsolar.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/9063475/admin/dashboard/https://www.instagram.com/transsolar_klimaengineering/?hl=en Where To Find Us:https://bbfhpod.advancedglazings.com/www.advancedglazings.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/better-buildings-for-humans-podcastwww.linkedin.com/in/advanced-glazings-ltd-848b4625https://twitter.com/bbfhpodhttps://twitter.com/Solera_Daylighthttps://www.instagram.com/bbfhpod/https://www.instagram.com/advancedglazingsltdhttps://www.facebook.com/AdvancedGlazingsltd

In this episode of Better Buildings for Humans, host Joe Menchefski sits down with Bryan Eagle, founder of Glanris, to explore a groundbreaking innovation: carbon-neutral concrete made from rice hulls. Bryan shares how his team transforms agricultural waste into a pozzolanic biochar that can replace Portland cement—dramatically reducing the carbon footprint of concrete. They discuss challenges in scaling this technology, how regulations are driving adoption, and where sustainable building materials might gain the most traction globally. Bryan also highlights the circular potential of decentralized kilns that generate not just materials, but power and carbon credits. An inspiring look at how tech, agriculture, and architecture intersect to build a greener future.More About Bryan Eagle: Bryan is a serial entrepreneurial team member with multiple successful exits. He co-founded Glanris in 2019 to help address climate change through the development of industrial scale biochar production. Bryan lead the development of Glanris' biochar application development, including the patents on rice hull biochar in water filtration and work done in biochar in cement, inoculated soil amendments, and tire productions. With BET, he helped design their rice hull kiln. Prior to Glanris, Bryan ran his own consulting/investment company, Memphis Ventures. His primary focus was helping telecom/IoT companies, aviation related companies and supporting companies in the non-profit incubator/foundation he created in 1999, Emerge Memphis. His experience with IoT systems began when he founded Skywire in 1993 to develop remote monitoring systems. Skywire designed, developed and patented Coca-Cola’s first intelligent vending platform that is still in use today on millions of machines worldwide. Skywire also designed systems for PepsiCo, FedEx and Total Gas among others. He sold Skywire to Marconi Online Systems in 1998. After Skywire his next start-up was Media4 which he helped sell to EchoStar in 1999. Prior to Skywire, Eagle was a member of the executive management team of Cylix Communications Corporation, a specialized provider of satellite and fiber managed data networks. Eagle was part of the team that led the management buyout of Cylix from GE. After a successful turnaround of the business, Cylix was sold to France Telecom in 1993. Prior to Cylix, Bryan was part of the launch of the Discovery Channel and one of the original shareholders. Eagle holds a BA from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Columbia University. He also serves on several corporate, educational and community Boards of Directors.CONTACT:https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanmeagleiii/ https://www.glanris.com/ Where To Find Us:https://bbfhpod.advancedglazings.com/www.advancedglazings.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/better-buildings-for-humans-podcastwww.linkedin.com/in/advanced-glazings-ltd-848b4625https://twitter.com/bbfhpodhttps://twitter.com/Solera_Daylighthttps://www.instagram.com/bbfhpod/https://www.instagram.com/advancedglazingsltdhttps://www.facebook.com/AdvancedGlazingsltd

This episode is as much a business lesson in entrepreneurialism as it is a conversation about healthy buildings. Chuck Morrison is the Founder and CEO of INVZBL. A serial entrepreneur, Chuck’s latest venture provides disinfecting/sanitizing equipment and services for laptops and tablets – but in the wake of COVID 19, he has created systems to purify indoor air. INVZBL focuses primarily on schools with the objective of providing clean air for kids so as to minimize the transmittance of disease and to provide a comfortable learning environment. Their simple, intuitive monitoring systems will make air quality a priority for everyone.

In this special two-guest episode, the CEO of Advanced Glazings, James Satterwhite talks about how the miracle material, aerogel, has allowed translucent glazings to achieve insulation levels that are comparable to opaque walls. This is vitally important because architects can continue to create large glass facades that bring in lots of natural light, provide those critical views to building occupants, and still meet building energy codes. Then, Joe interviews Janelle Penny, the Editor-in-Chief of Buildings Magazine. Janelle shares the steps that building owners are taking to entice their workers to get back to the office post COVID-19. There is also an important discussion about how owners view modern building codes and how these codes could lead architects to design buildings differently.

This conversation challenges many common myths. Do you know the best way to predict glare? Do you understand non-image forming light? Do you understand how to design to account for circadian rhythms? What about the best way to counter the urban heat island effect? Alstan Jakubiec, an Assistant Professor in both the Faculty of Design and the School of Environment at the University of Toronto, answers these questions and more. Alstan studies visual and thermal human comfort, environmental performance simulation, and the interaction between the two. Join us for this insightful conversation.

In this episode, Joe speaks with Dr. David Geisler-Moroder from University of Innsbruck about advancements in research in the field of daylighting and energy modeling and what software tools are available to architects and researchers.