Search BLOG PROJECT BID INFO PAY NOW CONTACT ABOUT SERVICES MARKETS PROJECTS RESOURCES CAREERS RESOURCES BLOG GUIDES WEBINARS WHITEPAPERS VIDEOS PODCASTS PODCAST HOST Mike Lawless Senior Director of Innovation CONTACT MIKE PODCAST HOST Joseph Payne Senior Content Marketing Manager CONTACT JOE Home » Resources » Podcast Podcast The FUTURE. Built SMARTER. IMEG engineers and designers discuss innovative and trend-setting building and infrastructure design with architects, owners, and others in the AEC industry. Topics touch on all market sectors, engineering disciplines, and related services. Listen here or subscribe to “The Future. Built Smarter.” on your podcast app. This episode takes a brief look at how the commercialization of the aerospace industry has opened the doors for more engineering firms to become engaged in such projects. Guest Ed Dean, an IMEG structural engineer who has designed several launch facility projects, discusses how IMEG entered the market, and the benefits commercially oriented firms bring to aerospace clients. “Commercial buildings and structures are not done in an institutional way, but rather on a very rapid schedule; things are very much fast-tracked and you’re delivering certain ‘just-in-time’ design elements. We apply this approach to the design of launch facilities, saving clients both time and money.” Ed also talks about being on site for launches and discusses a mock rocket IMEG designed to allow a client to test their launch facility equipment and processes prior to an actual rocket launch. In the first of a series on sustainability strategies of the future, IMEG Director of Sustainability Adam McMillen discusses embodied carbon. “We have pretty much figured out how to reduce operational carbon,” he says. “Now the AEC industry is ready for the next step — reducing embodied carbon in steel, concrete, and wood.” Getting these materials to a construction site requires extraction or harvesting, processing, and transportation — each of which requires energy, mostly from burning fossil fuels, which in turn releases CO2. These emissions combined make up the carbon footprint, or the embodied carbon, of a material. “People in the industry and elsewhere are really starting to get it,” says McMillen, who counts Bill Gates and Wisconsin Girl Scouts among those who are helping to spread the word. Learn more in this 15-minute podcast. In the second episode of our series on sustainability strategies of the future, IMEG’s Adam McMillen discusses embodied carbon in chillers, boilers, and other MEP equipment. “Naturally, engineers put a lot of equipment into buildings,” he says. “That equipment contains a lot of steel and comes from all over the world, so it obviously has a carbon footprint.” Quantifying that footprint is critical. “It’s starting to become clear that the amount of carbon a company has on its books is going to be a liability in the future, from a climate change perspective, a dollar perspective, and a regulations perspective. We need to get all this quantified so that companies can clearly see these big numbers as a risk to their business and demand lower levels from manufacturers.” Reversing the “throw-away” mentality also is crucial and includes designing buildings for a much longer life. “Let’s not think about constructing a 50-year building — let’s think about a 100-year building,” McMillen says. “And let’s think about 30-year MEP equipment.” In the third episode of our series on sustainability strategies of the future, IMEG’s Adam McMillen discusses cold climate electrification. Essentially, this is a means to providing heat in cold climates without burning carbon-emitting fossil fuels. In areas with cold winters, McMillen explains, we currently use natural gas-burning furnaces or boilers for heat. Electricity, however, is used to power our cooling systems in the warmer months. While electricity is produced predominately by coal-burning plants, there is a trend by utilities toward greater use of renewable energy as a source. “We see our electric grid getting cleaner, year after year,” says McMillen. “So, imagine a future in which our grid is fully clean, and instead of using fossil-fueled boilers we’re using some sort of electrically-based heating equipment. As a result, we would then have perfectly clean heating and cooling for our homes and our businesses.” The fourth episode in our series on sustainability strategies of the future examines thermal energy storage. To illustrate, consider hospitals and industrial facilities that use heat pumps to create the large amount of heating hot water needed for their buildings. This type of heat pump can’t operate when temperatures dip below 15 degrees, however, and a gas-burning boiler is typically used as back-up. Thermal energy storage provides a carbon-free alternative. In this strategy, the heat pump generates additional heating water during the warmer part of the day and stores it in a thermal energy storage tank. That water can then be used to heat the facility during frigid overnight hours or anytime the temperature dips below 15 degrees and the heat pumps shut down. Conversely, chilled water storage in the summer months enables facilities to shut down their chillers in the hot afternoon hours and cool the building with water saved overnight to shave off peak demand charges. IMEG Director of Sustainability Adam McMillen discusses the challenges, solutions, and many opportunities of this new strategy. Battery energy storage is examined in part five of our series on sustainability strategies of the future. “Most of us in the industry have had a lot of questions about batteries,” says IMEG Director of Sustainability Adam McMillen. “When does it make sense? When will they be cost competitive? How do they fit into the big picture? These are all good questions because the last thing you want to do is put some expensive, embodied-carbon heavy, lithium-ion batteries on your campus and then have them not really do much for you.” Co-host Mike Lawless, IMEG Direction of Innovation, joins Adam in delving into these questions. They also discuss the many future opportunities of this strategy, such as pairing batteries with renewables such as wind and solar to provide facilities with both reliable and sustainable backup power when the grid goes down as well as a method to eliminate expensive peak demand charges from utilities. In the final episode in our series on sustainability strategies of the future, IMEG Director of Sustainability Adam McMillen discusses five steps any owner can take to begin the process of decarbonizing their building. “There’s a lot of discussion today about decarbonizing — the push to make sure we all electrify our buildings because the grid will get cleaner in the future. This is a big change, and a lot of owners are wondering how to wade into it without a lot of risk,” says McMillen. “So, we’re summarizing five things owners can do today that don’t cost a lot of money and that will help ensure their buildings will be ready for electrification—whether it’s a new building, or even an existing building that’s undergoing a major renovation.” <span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start">﻿</span> With legalized medical and recreational marijuana continuing to expand across the U.S., many new grow facilities will be licensed and constructed in the coming years. This episode examines important infrastructure considerations that are critical for “keeping the plants happy” and achieving successful harvests — not only for cannabis but also for other crops grown within controlled environment agriculture (CEA) facilities. “Our experience designing these facilities allows us to provide valuable information and lessons learned for owners who will be venturing into this market for the first time,” says IMEG’s Luke Streit, a project manager for several cannabis grow facilities. Luke discusses a variety of topics during this episode, including water and energy use, HVAC systems, power requirements, and other unique challenges encountered by CEA owners. Based on a recent IMEG webinar, this podcast provides valuable information for owners and architects alike. The 2021 National ACEC Engineering Excellence Grand Conceptor Award – which honors the year’s most outstanding engineering achievement in the U.S. – was presented to IMEG Corp. for its design of the Denver Water Operations Complex Redevelopment. This episode examines the project’s extensive water and energy efficiency goals and challenges from the perspective of Ken Urbanek, who led the IMEG team on the $205M redevelopment featuring a 186,000-sf LEED Platinum, net-zero energy and “One Water” administration building. “This project is a testament to what we in the AEC industry can do,” says Urbanek. “It demonstrates that given the right drive from ownership, we can achieve carbon-free emissions, net zero energy, and even significant reductions in water use. Engineers, contractors, and architects – we can all deliver on this.” All signs point to an exponentially increasing number of electric vehicles on U.S. roads in the coming years. What this monumental automotive revolution will look like and the changes it will bring — from roadside restaurant charging stations to EV-provided emergency back-up power for homes — are discussed in this podcast featuring Keith Vandenbussche, Automotive R&D Market Leader for IMEG. “Some automotive manufacturers are projecting 100 percent EV production within 10 years,” says Vandenbussche, adding that some forecasts call for 1 million new EVs on the road this year alone. “In addition to solving the R&D and manufacturing challenges this will bring, on the consumer side we have to make sure the infrastructure to support EVs is in place so that the consumer is supported and confident in buying these vehicles.” Helping employees feel safe and secure as they return to the workplace is discussed in part one of a two-part IMEG podcast based on the recent executive guide, “Back to the Office: Key Steps for Safeguarding Health, Well-being and Continuity.” Part 1 features guest Charles LeBlanc, an IMEG security expert and a co-author of the guide. Charles, who is also an electrical engineer, looks at security not only from the technical side but also from the behavioral side and how each perspective affects the other. “People are feeling a lot of discomfort right now in regard to returning to work,” he says. “Office managers, meanwhile, are trying to figure out how to bring people safely back, and how to do it in a comforting way that reduces anxiety.” The role of crisis management in helping employees feel safe and secure is examined in part two of an IMEG podcast based on the executive guide, “Back to the Office: Key Steps for Safeguarding Health, Well-being and Continuity.” This episode features Ryan Searles, a security, threat assessment, and emergency preparedness expert — and who, in a former life, earned two Purple Hearts while in special operations and chased pirates in the Indian Ocean. Ryan draws on his vast security experience in the private sector to explain how organizations can help employees be prepared for and recover from crisis situations — from COVID-19 to catastrophic weather to active shooters. He also explains the importance of taming our “lizard brains” when responding to an unfolding emergency. Acuity adaptability – a healthcare model in which patients remain in one room regardless of level of care – is being considered by many healthcare organizations looking for safer, more efficient care delivery in the era of COVID-19 and beyond. But is this model feasible – and if so, under what conditions? “One of the things that you look for when you are exploring this option is how to balance the patient experience, patient safety, and the staff experience,” says Erin Clark, R.N., a clinical operations specialist and guest on the 35-minute podcast. Also featured on this episode are IMEG National Healthcare Director Mike Zorich and HIT Specialist Corey Gaarde, co-authors of the free executive guide, “Acuity Adaptability: Innovative Planning and Design for Responsive Healthcare Delivery.“ <span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start">﻿</span> In an arc of development that stretches back nearly 200 years, virtual reality is now finally making great inroads in design and construction. In this episode of The Future. Built Smarter., IMEG Director of Virtual Design Sarah Garthaus and mechanical engineer Mike Lawless discuss how VR has emerged from the shadows of video games to become a powerful and ever-evolving tool for the AEC industry. They examine the variety of current applications — from immersing stakeholders into a design to fully understand a space to immersing engineers to identify clashes — and predict what the future may hold for designers and owners alike. <span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start">﻿</span> We’ve long heard the words “Smart Building,” but these days “Intelligent Building” has become the buzz phrase for the opportunities presented by the IoT and the ever-growing amount of building system data it provides. In this pilot episode of the new podcast, “The Future. Built Smarter,” IMEG engineers Jeff Carpenter and Mike Lawless explain the important distinctions between the two phrases. They also discuss how Intelligent Building design expands the focus beyond building systems to consider such things as the occupant experience – all while providing more concrete, actionable, and measurable paths for building owners to take in their quest to benefit from the IoT. IMEG Newsletter Sign-up Code of Conduct Join Our Team Contact Us PROUD TO BE 100% EMPLOYEE OWNED Copyright © 2021 IMEG Corp.