Hello everyone and thank you for joining us for today’s climate action webinar small firm carbon Basics why it’s important and how to measure it AIA California has developed an in-depth educational climate action webinar series to address various climate action topics methods and case studies that also includes zero net carbon design mandatory continuing
Education to qualify for continuing education credit AIA California provides the learning objectives for every webinar and includes them in the PDF presentation that can be made available online today’s program will address low carbon materials and how to measure your Project’s carbon budget a few quick housekeeping reminders today’s session is being
Recorded access to the recording will be made available on the AIA California website www w. california.org along with any additional resources today’s session qualifies for 1.5 AIA hsw learning units and ZN CD MCE for those who stay on and watch live AIA California staff will report these units
For you and we’ll send you a ZN CD certificate of completion please use the Q&A function to ask any questions for today’s presenters you can also like a question to move it to the top of the queue questions that are not answered in the webinar can be made available on our
Website I’d now like to introduce our moderator for today’s webinar Carmen suaro associate AIA is a principal at good project company a Los angeles-based architectural practice Carmen brings over 20 years of expansive experience having worked for award-winning architecture firms local and National Construction firms Boutique interior design offices and providing client representation on
Multi-stakeholder projects Carmen is vice president of of SoCal National Organization of minority Architects or SoCal Noma where she is currently leading the Latin Nexon architecture task force and is the California state representative for the small firm exchange and now I’ll pass it off to Carmen thanks Sarah hello everyone thank you for joining
Us for today’s program small firm carbon Basics and why it’s important and how to measure it while reducing the operational carbon impacts of structures is important Focus has turned to the impacts of material choices and construction itself the embodied carbon of a building from extraction processing and assembling of materials the AIA 2030
Commitments design data exchange DDX added reporting of embodied carbon in 2021 in this session we will outline the basics of embodied carbon discuss materials that have low embodied carbon or stored carbon and introduce a r of tools for measuring your projects kilograms of CO2 emitted per meter
Squared I’d now like to introduce our main speaker for today David Arin David Arin serves on aia’s 2030 commitment working group and is co-chair of the Renewables material task force of the carbon leaderships for Forum embodied carbon Network he is a founding member and current co-director of the California straw Building Association
Casba did I get that right David CBA you can call it kasba casba thank you and has taught and lectured on the subject of sustainable design for over 25 years David and his wife Annie tilt AIA are principles at Aran tilt Architects an award-winning 2030 commitment signatory firm specializing in energy and resource
Efficient design thank you all again and here’s David all right thank you Carmen for that introduction and I need to be able to share my screen H and there it is all right yeah well pleasure to be here thank you everyone for joining us and um
We’re going to talk about uh small firm carbon Basics and why it’s important uh how to measure it um I’m excited to bring this to small firms um currently the 2030 commitment um has 1,00 firms that are signed up and those 1100 firms represent 60 uh 56,000 Architects so
It’s the larger firms that are really embracing the 2030 commitment reducing uh the operating carbon in their buildings and you know now turning attention to embodied carbon as well but the AIA has over 69,000 firms and a good number of those are small and mediumsized and um you know sole
Practitioners so we are hoping that anyone who has joined us here today who is not yet a signatory will please uh look up the 2030 commitment uh sign on and uh do your best take small steps to get to um the current 80% reduction in our uh carbon emissions of our buildings
With a target of carbon neutral by the year 2030 uh worth noting is that while small firms represent only 11% of the total 2030 signatories the um uh 50% of those achieving the current 80% reduction are small firms um that to me says that we as small firm practitioners
Are more Nimble and have the ability to achieve these carbon reductions um with our project so I just want to throw that out out there is a challenge to everyone okay let’s get going um let’s see I would like to close that window well I just won’t work worry
About it um so we have a um imperative as an industry to uh phase out carbon from our buildings and uh the 203 architecture 2030 led by gold medal award winner um at masria have mapped out paths and uh you can see with these three paths we increase our uh ability
To hit these targets by making faster reductions sooner so uh this is the what’s inspiring the program um California has adopted similar aggressive uh and and actually more aggressive um targets uh with our ability to get to uh these uh reductions a lot faster and we are of course a
Leader in the nation when it comes to these carbon reductions and uh Greening our uh electricity uh production Network Etc so um you know we have some several advantages uh here in our state of which we’ll be discussing uh today and why is this important for Architects well buildings the operating and the
Construction and the processing of the building materials add up to roughly half of the carbon emissions um as my professor Dan Solomon liked to say Architects are not such passive bunnies um we actually have a lot of uh responsibility and uh quite a bit of power when it comes to making these
Decisions um the first side of the carbon uh impacts of buildings is obviously the energy use and for many decades now we’ve had a a very good focus on this we’ve made incredible progress in reducing um the the carbon impacts of our buildings um so we should
Be you know proud of that work but it’s not over um energy use intensity or eui uh is measured in kilab BTUs per square foot per year and these are the obvious things HVAC loads lighting equipment and plug loads anything that’s tied to the ongoing operation of those buildings um
Um the 2030 commitment asks Architects to report uh currently the operating carbon reductions of their buildings in the design data exchange or DDX um these are some of the metrics that will be coming out in this year’s by the Numbers report um we achieved a 50% overall reduction again in 2020 we
Start started targeting 80% so for the reporting firms and the buildings we’ve created which are substantial 3.2 billion square feet is not nothing we’re not yet getting to the targets that we need to get to um so uh you know work to be done but progress being made and it’s
Important that we track that progress um we did notice a slight reduction from 2020 to 2021 uh perhaps pandemic related but also realizing that we are hitting some plateaus and that’s we’re building electrification and other um uh details such as that are are going to come in
Here in California many of you are aware that we have a zero net energy mandate for residential projects um prepping for on-site Renewables if not including those and uh obviously reducing increasing the energy performance so um I was asked to talk a little bit about how our firm uh targets zero net energy
Uh the steps that we take these are probably not unlike what um many of you do with your firms um understanding uh where you are uh as a real estate agents like to say location location location so what is the uh climate and microclimate of that particular place
What is the ecosystem what’s happening around you where do winds and storms where’s the Sun in the sky Etc so Gathering that information and summarizing it is one of the first steps we take with that information we then develop what we call climate response strategies and architecture 2030 has a
Wonderful pallet uh 2030 pet.org where you can find uh what potential um passive solar strategies are appropriate for your building and climate with that information we then quickly study several different Alternatives uh not with a goal of picking one but more to identify what features both in terms of meeting the
Program but also the relationship with the site and of course you know meeting these climate response uh goals as well bringing that together into a final schematic design we then uh pursue 3D modeling um these days 3D models are often tied to our computerated design programs and we can plug in various
Tools to study their thermal performance um our firm uses one called Safa which is plug into both SketchUp and Revit um and with this modeling uh our own personal hack which works well for the scale of buildings we’re typically doing is to turn off the HVAC systems and just
See what the building does uh in a passive solar um Heating and Cooling what’s what’s the temperature basically what’s the Comfort level and then tweak the design uh to improve that to the degree that we can one of the things that DDX uh the design data Exchange
Asks is you know have you modeled your building um here in California every building is modeled thanks to our Title 24 energy documentation um at our firm we uh have a outside um entity uh consultant that prepares not only our Title 24 documentation but also sort of reviews
Our design and makes recommendations on its performance um envelope systems and details Etc but coming out of our Title 24 report is a number that is not quite kilip to per square foot per year per year or our eui but it’s close it’s a Time dependent value that can then be
Adjusted um to fit into the um metric that the design data exchange asks for um our firm’s method of tracking our projects for reporting into the DDX is to create an internal spreadsheet and it’s a nice tool we’ve found to track all sorts of information about our range
Of projects but then have it in a single place where um our DDX um expert can upload it into into the aia’s uh database we have each of our project managers doing the um reporting of this um information obviously we work with them uh to try to get the numbers as accurate as
Possible and uh this is what the login looks like for the the DDX um so that’s just a place where that information ends up so again when uh looking at the operating energy and targeting Net Zero um very straightforward strategies that um are recommended uh for achieving the highest performance building as possible
And uh these days of course uh targeting all electric removing fossil fuels from your project um is is an imperative focusing next on embodied carbon and this is that uh third of the um 50% uh that buildings are responsible for uh are the U materials and construction
Impacts and um this is measured in embodied carbon intensity uh which we’re using the international units of kilograms of carbon dioxide emitted per meter squared um so a little bit of translation if you want to get that into um uh you American uh units but uh that’s become the standard metric and
This is the um development of the site impacts the extraction processing and transportation of materials and uh any energy use that’s being used during construction um fuel as well as electricity so all of those together represent the embodied carbon footprints um this is important because as we increase or increase the efficiency and
Decrease the uh operational carbon impacts of our buildings the construction materials represent a greater and greater portion of this impact and that impact is upfront before that building is being occupied all of those impacts have been um expended and uh the time dependent value of carbon is
That we reduce the car carbon were emitting immediately um so uh as as the again as operations become less uh that immediate impact of embodied carbon is critical uh the 2030 commitment in the year 2020 started um uh voluntary reporting of embodied carbon and we’ve had a good number of firms that uh
Reported in their first year and a greater number in the next year uh the 2030 working group has targeted the year 2025 for when embodied carbon reporting will be integrated uh as a mandatory input to the database and we expect um more accurate picture of what are the impacts of the creation of
Shelter um the range of embodied carbon reporting is um quite uh broad at the moment uh I think there’s some misunderstanding we’re inviting people to report the impacts of only certain building components and not the entire uh life cycle impact so there’s a there’s some honing in that needs to be
Done but on average buildings uh have a 400 kilograms of CO2 per meter squared uh smaller buildings and especially woodf frame residential buildings um bring that number down into the two to 300 uh kilogram range 75 has been identified as a good Target for what a
What a good building might look like um so those are just some numbers getting into carbon storing territory with our buildings is really difficult um but it is one way that we can begin to uh be a climate solution um and turn our buildings into carbon storing
Entities uh this is just some more information from the DDX uh by the numbers report the range of uh building types that we’re reporting embodied carbon uh at our own firm we’ve set some targets we’re trying to do the calculating of embodied carbon for 50% of our projects you’ll see last year we
Fell a little bit short of that goal and having uh ideally at least one project per year that gets into carbon storing territory and again we’re finding that is a very difficult thing to achieve um but of all the firms reporting only a very small percentage reported the uh
Embodied carbon over their portfolio project so we we do have a long way to go but we like the improvements made in operations expect it to go very quickly all right let’s uh turn our attention now to what some of the uh current measuring tools uh that are out
There and our Bay Area chapter of the carbon leader ship Forum has uh created a nice little um database of what the range of these are uh so we invite you to take a look at their website and but I’ll be going through a number of these
Today and I will then focus on a couple that I think are um ideally suited to smaller firms and ones that we’re also familiar with here at arkans HS all right um one of the uh first and longest uh run running tools is the Athena
Calculator um and it is uh free it is not specific to any uh CAD program and it um covers all LCA stages life uh cycle analysis uh stages of all building types so it’s a pretty broad tool that gives one some pretty broad brush information and uh that Athena
Calculator um is available online uh still um this entity uh building carbon neutral built a very simple calculator um you enter the most rudimentary information about your building and it spits out a very rudimentary number uh but it is a way of getting some gauge of where you’re at relative to other
Buildings the center for maximum potential building systems contributed uh their database uh to create this particular calculator it was was the one that most of the 2030 firms reporting inod carbon happen to use probably because it’s the easiest um tally is perhaps the most widely known um carbon calculator this
Was developed by Kieran timber Timberlake it is a uh paid tool um but it was it’s based on epds or environmental product declarations and there’s been a rapid growth in uh in those um reports that then uh can get very specific to building materials in your particular region and what their
Carbon impacts are uh this covers all stages of life cycle assessment and features some um good tools for analysis at the end of the project EC3 grew out of the carbon leadership forum and it is a uh tool that is now being made free uh building transparency is the entity that’s uh
That’s managing it um it’s based on tally Bim 360 and uh epds and it is um you know mostly tuned towards larger commercial projects um both in the construction construction of the project and in the manufacturing of materials uh being epd based uh some of the outputs
From uh EC3 are are really powerful and compelling uh so that’s a a great tool for a lot of the large firms EC3 is also available now as a plugin through Cove tool so for any of the firms who are using that particular uh building analysis tool know that uh
Ided carbon is available through it as well um ehdd developed a tool they call Epic um which is in its beta phase and being made available it’s um early phase integrated carbon uh so at the beginning of a project when the big decision decisions are being made and the uh the
Greatest impact can be achieved with those decisions um that’s a uh a tool that’s available for that and uh next um one that we were very pleased to discover as a vector Works office uh is an embodied Cal carbon calculator plug-in that they’ve created um it’s based on the uh
Inventory of carbon and energy database or IC database developed at the University of bath in the UK um it does cover All Phases and uh one of the things that we’re most excited about is its ability to do a uh Bim takeoff so for this very small project that I’m
Going to share uh one of ours um we were able to autoload directly from the um Bim database into the tool and uh this particular example is just a very small cabin up in Alaska um because of the frost depth there we’re using a helical piure Foundation instead of um concrete
And then largely a wood and cellulose based structure so with the um plugin uh we were able to show that the uh helical peers had far less embodied carbon than deep concrete peers would have had um here it is measured uh along with some of the other uh materials and the output
From the um Vector Works calculator other thing that it does um that many of the other tools don’t is allow you to um calculate the transportation impacts as well uh another tool that’s I think well suited to small firms is the beam calculator this is the building emissions accounting for materials
Estimator developed by a Canadian group the builders for climate action and our friend and colleague Chris magwood LED that effort um it is a tool that similarly covers All Phases of it um it’s looking to integrate epds but it’s currently a spreadsheet databased um Tool uh they’re looking uh to integrate
Biogenic carbon storage in buildings and so it’s one of the few tools Vector Works being another that currently has built into it some of the materials that feature um carbon storing largely by being plant-based and as we get into some of the strategies we’ll we’ll go
Into greater detail about that uh so one example of a project of ours where we use the beam estimator tool is a residential Project in Colorado integrating um straw cell systems raw Bales stacked to the interior of a 2×4 wood frame wall That’s infilled cavity infilled with cellulos so straw and cell
Uh combining to make an r43 uh thermal wall system um this is the output from uh the beam estimator and what’s Nifty here is that it gives you a a a graph that shows when you’re getting into that carbon storing M uh uh area for particular um components uh of
Your building and you can see we were able to achieve carbon storing uh in some of the structural elements and largely the exterior wall and other framing systems uh so just a look at this project under construction largely wood frame uh some of the Timber used in
The project was milled on sight uh and again the the straw bale stack to the interior of that wood framing um and that’s uh that project nearing completion um okay it’s a good time to turn our attention now to some of the strategies for reducing embod carbon
Impacts in your buildings and uh ideally again getting integrating some of the storing entities that can help offset those that can’t be um a good resour course for diving into what are the impacts and what are the potentials for reducing them can be found in another tool developed by
Architecture 2030 along with the carbon leadership Forum uh the materials the carbon smart materials pallet uh and there’s the URL for that materials pet.org and within it it uh goes into detail on what are some of the higher emitting materials and what uh your options are for reducing these and um
Thanks to uh Marin County leading the way there are a lot of uh jurisdictions that are writing in a lowc carbon concrete mandate to their building uh codes and we expect that uh this will make its way into some of the bigger codes I think the state of California
And Washington have a byow carbon um mandate for state buildings so this is coming on strong what’s really great news is a lot of the concrete suppliers are on board with reducing the impacts both through additives like carbon cure and um substituting concrete for or fly ash and other pelons for Portland cement
Um another tool that we found in our projects is if we can specify a longer cure time uh 56 or 96 days rather than the typical 28 days before that concrete is put into Service uh you you can further reduce the amount of Portland cement uh some of the other concretes
That aren’t necessarily traditional Portland cement concrete that should be considered include rammed Earth um which is you know can be stabilized here in California and utilized um P was a sprayed variation of this developed by the late David Eon um spraying the mix of um soil sand and a small part of
Portland cement and a one-sided formwork to reduce the uh the cost of that material a further development from rammed Earthworks are Earth masonry units um Crown Hill materials in Vallejo is currently supplying these calling them their eota block uh this is a project of ours um utilizing what was
Then known as Watershed block uh we’re now utilizing these as well in low carbon footings and um you’ll see here that this is on a um compacted uh gravel crust gravel um footing and that has uh breaking news just been adopted um into the international building code uh as a
Means of reducing the cement the concrete uh required in footings so look for that in the next code cycle um we’ve taken to using a uh reinforced clay micro reinforced clay floor slab in Li of concrete slabs where we don’t need those slabs to do anything
Other than sit on the ground and so this is a form of adobe um that’s being used for for floors um rather than a Portland cement concrete slab in this case being placed over a uh solar sand bed where heat is being stored and released beneath that clay
Slab um steel is another one of the um heavier impact um materials but um once again this industry is seeing that it needs to provide a lower embodied carbon version of itself most American Steel is both made from recycled content and uses electric Arc U melting technology rather
Than fossil fuel based uh so look for products that um feature that low embodied carbon footprint again environmental product declaration or epd uh can help steer you towards those options for one of our projects we did a quick study just to see what the comparison would be between steel
Trusses uh versus a hybrid wood and steel version of those and um we found a substantial reduction um largely by not having as much steel and uh the clients chose it probably as much for the Aesthetics as for the lower carbon impact but by presenting that
Information uh it did help them to make that decision towards that solution the carbon smart materials palette also features a lot of the lower carbon or carbon storing materials uh these are a few of those that are featured on that website and um by and large these tend to be plant-based
Materials um photosynthesis is the uh function by which plants are able to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere release that oxygen and store the carbon in the stock of the plants uh worth noting is that a good portion of that carbon also goes back into the soil
And the soil is one soil is one of the uh Earth’s five natural carbon sinks um so through regenerative agriculture um we can actually um double the amount of carbon that we’re able to store uh there are a lot of carbon storing materials out there we’re going to talk about a
Few of these um what’s great about these materials that is that they tend to be healthier and safer uh and have a lot of natural um fire resistance and other properties that uh we look for in a lot of the manufactured building materials there is enough grain straw grown
Worldwide to offset all of the transportation emissions uh which means that there’s enough to offset those uh carbon emitting materials uh em so we do have through the combined use of um carbon storing and low carbon emitting materials to get our buildings to become the Earth’s sixth carbon sink um just to
Talk about a few of these uh bamboo has a lot of potential this is an example of a beautiful work of a Colombian architect uh employing Timber bamboo in a truss system uh a unique way of tying the nodes to um uh members with a bolting and uh grouting method um a
Northern California company bamore has uh taken Timber bamboo and is laminating it into a panelized system um it has an interior and an exterior structural load bearing and lateral Shear uh system with no studs uh so in many ways a perfect wall in that it eliminates the thermal bridging that studs would otherwise
Feature um they are now taking these to I think five stories with a type three construction rating uh so that’s one to look for for small and mediumsized buildings just an example here uh of a built project using the BAM core system hemp creete uh utilizes the
Starchy center of the stock of the hemp plant um after the fiber has been decorticated ated that herd is hammermill into smaller pieces mixed with a lime binder and uh placed into formwork not unlike the way rammed Earth is put into place and then uh creates an insulating substrate for a plaster
Finish uh you can see here an example of a project in the UK of some scale that uh employs the the Hem creete system uh quite a bit of uh progress being made made by the hempitecture group here in the us to bring this online light straw Clay is uh in our
International residential code and um it is in the California residential code though not fully adopted yet by the state uh but it’s there for guidance and we just have our first light straw clay project under construction right now in Meno Park um but similar to hemp creete
It’s an infill uh in this case using loose straw with a very liquidy clay slip that covers coats the straw and then placed into formwork not unlike the way rammed Earth is placed uh to create an insulated wall as well as a substrate for plaster finish Paula Baker leaport
Um architect now located in Oregon has done some beautiful work uh with the light straw clay system in their econest firm um Adobe is in the building code and it has been since the 1940s cob is also known as monolithic Adobe and that is making its way into
The building code now as well not as high in insulation value as some of the other materials we’ve discussed but using used in the right location in the proper quantity it can build similar uh R values with uh quite a bit of carbon storage and very low carbon in the
Binder uh that brings us to um what our favorite um plant-based material is and that would be straw in the form of straw bale construction um this is a fully adopted uh building method in the California residential code uh straw bale is not a new technology it is
Uniquely American so like uh democracy and Jazz we have exported um straw bale construction around the world uh but it had its humble beginnings in the sand hills region of Nebraska where the soil as the name suggests was too Sandy uh to use the traditional Pioneer Building method
Of sad and creating a Saudi home but bailing equipment had just been invented and some clever individual noted that these big fuzzy bricks could be stacked up and made into building forms um the loadbearing method that’s Illustrated here is still known as the Nebraska style of building today another example
Um where Bill Bales were infilled not only in the walls but between the floors and in the roof of this project in Alabama many many benefits uh to straw building I won’t go into all of these today we will of course um highlight the ability of straw to store carbon and
Touch on a few of the others that we think are are um beneficial once again it is in the international residential code and fully adopted here in California and we expect to make inroads into the full building code uh next but it’s a referenced guide um from the International Code Council
And can be used for commercial buildings with a alternative methods and materials uh chapter um I invite you to visit the casba website California straw Building Association where you can get a free download of that code with commentary and uh if you wish order a copy of the detail book that casba has
Published uh one of my favorite benefits uh as an architect who’s trying to achieve uh passive solar buildings is the thermal mass effect of the straw bale wall system in combination with exterior and interior plaster and through some monitoring of a building by UC Berkeley we discovered that there’s a
12-hour time lag from the transfer of heat from the exterior uh or interior surface to the center of the straw Bell wall that’s that wavy green line which you see is in opposition to the outdoor temperatures swinging from you know nearly 50 degrees to close to 100 for
Some of these days um but an indoor temperature that ranges well within the comfort zone 69 to 75 degrees and that was without any air conditioning in that particular example uh straw bale construction is quite fire resistant um it’s been tested to a two-hour rating most exterior wall
Systems for type five building don’t even achieve one hour uh so it has been recognized as a um High performing uh wall system and it’s been put to the test by some wildfires this example up in mesino County from 2017 where the owner and a neighbor took refuge in the
Home uh watched the steel container power building uh burn after they were trapped there but they survived uh the night in the straw bale home uh our firm has been engaged in a number of fire rebuild projects where the owners are choosing straw bale both for its high performance performance uh comfort as
Well as fire resistance uh this one near Santa Rosa a victim of the tubs fire and uh just a quick view of our socially distanced coid safe bail raising um back when uh the pandemic was first started another example of a straw bale surviving a wildfire this one closer to
Somoma fire burned right up to the foundation of the building but it survived and then the primary benefit uh relative to our discussion here today is the ability of straw as a rapidly renewable material to store carbon um again uh for every pound of straw
1.62 pounds of CO2 are drawn out of the atmosphere so a 2,000 square foot home stores roughly 10 tons compare that with wood which has a building cycle of over 40 years or growing cycle of over 40 years and uh has less on a per pound basis storage
Plus those trees uh as they are maturing uh tend to store more and more carbon per year so we are not going to would build our way out of climate change um without employing some of these other biogenic resources the combination of wood and straw has been taken to pre-fabricated building system
Uh here a Canadian group the Endeavor Center doing a straw wall assembly in a flying Factory Modell is a UK group that employs a similar system timber frame straw infill uh panelized delivered to the site and craned into place and done some sizable buildings uh e cocone is a Slovakian
Company that uh has developed a system for compressing straw into a wood frame and then cutting the surface so that you have a very uniform um CN seed uh building module we’re actually embarking on our first ecoone project and I’m aware of at least two of these that have been constructed
Now in North America with a hope that they will bring this technology uh here uh specifically to California in the next few years so we’re trying to find more examples of those to inspire the market wood is a plant-based building material and often the better um Choice
Uh for structural elements um and when using it we always specify FSC or salvaged resources for our projects um the uh difficult thing with wood in forestry is it’s uh it all looks the same whether it comes from a clearcut or from a sustainably managed Forest so really understanding what are the
Sources and the forestry practices being employed um when you specify Lumber that again comes back to the power that uh we have as Architects controlling that specification uh to get the right materials into our projects um salvaged wood is a a resource that’s finally being recognized for the value that it
Has not only in not um cutting down fresh Timber but often is of a higher quality U than the trees that are being harvested today so keep an eye out for those uh this is just a quick example where we were able to use a wood truss
To span a portion of a building over an a Royo in a instance where steel or concrete might have otherwise typically been used uh so a hybrid of Steel tension rods and Timber framing uh to create a spanning element there um Timber is being taken to to new heights
Uh this was one of the taller buildings ever built with wood a ninstory tower there’s now a 21 Story Tower being built in Milwaukee uh so Tall Timber is um coming on the scene that’s often combined with cross laminated Timber which is using larger um members not unlike plywood laminating them in
Alternating directions uh and this is a good use for a lot of lumber that is of lower grade but uh can help to work together with higher grade Lumber to create a a structural panel both for floor and for Wall Systems um and coming online soon will be the lamination of uh
Bamboo as a alternate to mass Timber what they call Mass Timber bamboo uh this is once again a bam cor product that’s coming on on perhaps the best opportunity that we have is in the area of ins insulation products U and finishes and insulation products I’ll
Just run through some of the examples uh there is information on the carbon smart materials palet of uh what the range of options are and you can see that for some of the higher emitting um options uh extruded polystyrene in particular uh we can use these biobased options and
Find similar uh storage um uh potential in the opposite direction I will note that the insur insulation industry a lot of these foam based products they are looking at reducing the um global warming potential emissions of their blowing agents so know that that industry is on notice to improve uh
Their impacts as well but some of the carbon storing alternatives to consider one you’re possibly already using is uh cellulose uh either spray or dense packed cavity fill sheep’s wool there’s a group havlock wool out of Sparks Nevada that makes that available cotton and denim have been around for a number of years
Now chopped straw actually meets all of the um flames spread and smoke developed uh requirements for uh insulation products as an infill rice hulls do as well um and then wool is available as a loose fill product uh as potential coming online are melium or mushroom based insulation products we have a
Colleague in Vermont who uses those as insulation in uh high performance door panels but we’re going to see more and more building installation products coming online and that and then uh I’ve heard experimenting being done with um uh smaller uh biobased materials that trap air which is what insulation does in
This case a root b as a potential product uh for the uh building wrap world uh cork is a good option uh there’s a compressed draw board uh that’s uh currently available in Europe and Australia we hope to see that one come online here in the US um Dura is
One name stramit uh there are a few others um that are uh brand names for that and then wood fiberboard uh is being manufactured now in Canada as well as a group in the Northeast and then cladding of these various natural materials um biobased materials is something to look for in a
Wide variety of uh options that we won’t go into too much detail on there are a few other emerging uh products and systems that are worthy of mention uh stack block is a highly compressed version of straw that Stacks up as you can see in the picture much like Legos
Uh as a building system structural structurally reinforced through those cavities um wood chip ICF durasol is a version of the Faz wall system with a mineral wool insulation layer um a good substitute for uh foam based uh insulating concrete form systems and then one that we’re particular really
Excited about um Cal plant 1’s um Eureka MDF board which is being manufactured from Rice straw and we had the opportunity to use this uh product as the interior finish instead of gipson board in one of our recent projects a farmw worker housing um project uh in
Marin County and uh this uh project also featured Straw Bale in this case A system that plac es the Bales on end between studs as an insulation system um so very much paralleling standard woodf frame construction but just using straw bale instead of other insulation uh systems uh this is the beam calculator
Output for that particular project um I think one of the niftiest things they do here is break it down by these building elements and then you can really see you know what are the higher impact materials uh interesting to find that the aluminum clad windows were the greatest emitter in this particular
Project um durability sometimes has to be taken well has always be taken into account um so the the cladding on the windows in the roof um and then trying to balance those impacts with the uh carbon storing elements as you see listed down below uh so once again touching on the
Um Earth’s uh natural um CL carbon sinks um atmosphere of course which is where it’s being concentrated the ocean which is uh unfortunately heating up as it uptakes more of that carbon um living plants uh soils and then of of course fossil fuels deepen the Earth but we
Posit that um if there’s anything we’re going to keep doing on the planet as human beings it’s building shelter uh for our activities and as we do this if we can do so with carbon storing materials buildings can indeed become the Earth’s sixth carbon snc um so in this last section I just
Like to share uh several examples some of these are our own projects some of these are uh projects from other Architects uh some of them from around the world just showing that we can store carbon in buildings and uh create highly efficient um low or zero net carbon energy
Buildings and do so quite elegantly uh so this is a 34,000 square foot uh mixed use Warehouse office and production space in Eugene Oregon um here we just did a calculation on the walls and walls that would have emitted uh 72,000 uh kilograms of CH CO2
Using steel studs and a wrap of foam insulation fiberglass and jetboard we actually uh achieved carbon storage uh in the 11,000 kilogram range by swapping that out so this is a view of that completed building it does have a metal cladding on the exterior that was included in that
Calculation um just a few of the other features here utilizing some salvaged flooring uh from gymnasium salvaged windows on the interior for sharing of daylight uh through that clear story corridor offcuts from CLT uh used as stair treads um here’s a Peak at those Bales on end between studs um both the
Uh diagramming we did and then the ultimate installation of those uh half of the clay that was used in the clay plaster on the interior finish was um excavated on site as part of the site prep for that project and then uh beautiful work by the clay plaster crew
Led by Erica an Bush including a little Mahonia um painting which is the name of the building uh so that’s one example of trying to take some of this straw bale to scale that we’ve been engaged in um just a few other examples of higher performing buildings not necessarily
Integrating straw bale uh this is a high performance home in paloalto uh for this particular project we um integrated a uh stand of oak trees and tried to shape the building to uh achieve massive um maximum passive solar performance controlling the sun when we didn’t want it in the building using
Various shading devices but then getting it in when it was desirable and then balancing that with um both solar thermal and photovoltaics running a heat pump so just a quick view of this building again probably not getting into carbon storing territory but uh you know showing that you can do high performance
And uh swapping cellulose and in this case mineral wool wrap um achieve lower carbon than some of the other Alternatives that you might consider another example um this is a small classroom building down in Carmel um integrating uh some heavy Timber and wood framing um but really focusing on
What is a you know good environment for learning bringing in uh a lot of daylight um controlled solar gain and natural ventilation to create uh comfort with the minimum amount of energy use so there’s that Koopa device uh for natural ventilation and balance of daylight at
The center of the building um just a view of the the space there um wood slat acoustic ceiling uh but the real goal for this building was for it to be able to open up and connect to the outdoors it’s in an outdoor Garden project uh so
Really bringing the outdoors in one more example of ours this is a esselin lodge down in Big Sur renovation and expansion of their uh exist existing structure from the 1940s um looking to minimize the amount of condition Space by creating outdoor rather than indoor lobbies uh for some
Of the meeting rooms uh protected but otherwise you know Outdoors uh exposed the trusses in their um historic dining room where they had actually had skylights installed but never um connected them to the dining space so by finish that work and uh that space is adjacent to restrooms where once again
By integrating skylights just bringing daylight into the otherwise center of the building not nothing that any of you probably aren’t already employing um the Mosaic here integrated some of the scraps that were found during the excavation of the construction a fun little detail and then creating outdoor spaces that are flexible meeting their
Uh dining numbers in inclement weather but really encouraging folks to connect with the landscape 93 kilowatts of photable TXS installed here to uh nearly completely offset the energy use uh at the lodge facility and uh another phase of work uh for some of their staff
Housing um at a site about a mile to the north uh and clearly visible here integrating photable taic to achieve zero net energy for those dwelling unit uh just a few more examples from some other Architects that illustrate their work uh with uh Straw Bale in particular and other carbon storing
Elements uh this is a US Forest Service Station by wrns down in King City um beautiful uh detailing that you can achieve with these thick walls and actually some you know shading just by the depth of the thickness of the wall itself this is a barrel storage room at
Ridge Winery um again done with straw bale for insulation and in this case a lime plaster finish on it a small example from the UK but having big impact is a uh um tiny home like dwelling unit these are not only being built on trailers but also uh built and
Then craned on the top of exist tops of existing buildings uh to address affordable housing and through the use of chopped straw and Timber and other straw products uh achieving carbon storage for these little housing units example from Germany with unmilled Lumber and straw bale combined in a very
Elegant structure uh another example from the UK um mod cell system uh for a larger building there another UK example um using some traditional materials and uh illustrating that these can be done uh in very modern uh for very modern looking buildings so thatch uh rought in
A new way there an example from France panelized straw bale at a fairly significant scale um jumping back to the UK another prefab building um uh achieving some height with uh strong panels so just showing the the flexibility that these materials can achieve and finally what I find is one
Of the best examples thus far a seven story housing project in France uh utilizing timber frame and cross laminated timber for walls and floors and then um putting the straw bales into fiberboard boxes and craning those into place uh exterior of the CLT for insulation and a substrate for a
Cladding a ceramic cladding system and looking at the impacts the wood and the straw in the building far offset uh the smaller amounts of concrete and steel that were utilized finally an example that we participated in as the California straw Building Association AR can tilt along with Arup verdant Structural Engineers a
Study funded by stop waste to explore what does it take to get to carbon storing and can it be achieved specifically in the East Bay um so we did show that we could get into carbon storing territory utilizing a number of strategies um reducing the amount of concrete using low cement concrete a
Heavy Timber buckling resistant bracing system up to the podium deck um some uh Earth block CLT um wood and then a straw-based um wall panel system a pre-fabricated system there and then just looking to make better choices of carbon storing entities wherever possible uh and again it was nice to be
Able to show that it can be done for a medium scale midsize scale infill building of which we are building many of so we hope to uh be able to bring this technology to reality sometime soon so to uh paraphrase Michael pollen’s food rules if you take anything away
From the presentation today may it be this build shelter not too big mostly plants there it is boiled down into seven words uh again please if you haven’t already become a signatory to the aia’s 2030 commitment and and start reporting your projects uh be part of the um
Tracking of our progress at Architects towards uh solving climate change here are just a few of the resources uh that were mentioned today I’ll put this back up on the screen in a moment and um you’re all welcome to capture screenshots of that um and anything else I’m sorry I should have
Said it at the outset uh in addition to uh Sarah Vasquez Frank Bostrom and Bill Burke from AIA California and our moderator today Carmen suero I do want to thank a few people who contributed their work um the uh builders for climate action architecture 2030 and my partner here at arkan tilt an
Tilt there is information if you’d like to follow up with me for any reason and I thank you very much for being here with us today and I think I’m handing it back to you Carmen that’s correct so we will start the Afterparty now the
Q&A so I I before we get going I had one question just regarding your approach to the the DDX um which is something that for small firms can be a little daunting were you actually tracking all of the requirements prior to being a signatory uh that’s a great question and
I would say not all of all of them um we certainly you know through our Title 24 energy documentation you know always focused on okay what you know percentage better than standard have we achieved here um but I think with our beginning to uh report in the DDX we both made sure that
Our Title 24 um analysis was accurate and we then learned how to turn that time dependent value into uh eui for reporting into the DDX okay so we have a follow-up question just to clarify so the 2030 uh challenge I guess AA um do you want to talk a
Little bit about the background to that and and what it’s meant to your practice sure um well kind of pursuant to your original question we became aware of efforts of architecture 2030 you know Ed mazria Vince Martinez Aaron McDade and others on their team probably
In the early 2000s and so we um made that commitment it was very exciting to see the AIA in I want to say 2012 2013 adopting those goals in the form of the aia’s 2030 Challenge and then um again a lot of the larger firms realiz realizing
That uh they could have a big impact um by targeting improved uh performance reducing the carbon impacts of building operations and now the embodied carbon as well um I joined the 2030 working group two years ago um it h publishes annually uh the buy the numbers report
Uh just tracking our progress and again I think the the the the most important thing Beyond encouraging firms to do better is to also be able to measure how we’re doing and we’re not going to get better if we don’t measure it uh that’s a common metric in all of business um so
It’s one that the AIA has adopted and has made part of the um framework for design Excellence as well and uh earlier this summer I participated in a Summit that was all both climate action and Equity social justice um it was really neat to see the AI bringing together those two
Priorities uh because they they go hand inand and you know a lot of populations are going to be uh adversely impacted by climate change how do we design for resilience as well as uh try to reduce the impacts of our buildings as soon as possible great okay so we’ll go to our
First question from the Q&A which is how are these new measures for zero net energy to be implemented in the upcoming 2022 Cal Green Building Code or more building code revision Cycles uh I’m not sure I know the answer to that question I’m hoping that uh
Maybe you do Carman or or Bill Burke who’s on the call with on the line with us um otherwise I I I don’t know specifically how these are going to play out in calg green um but again you know California is a leader and I would expect that we will start to embrace
These goals so perhaps that’s a little homework to us to see what additional information we can learn about that topic moving forward all right so maybe this one will be an easier one um can you talk a little bit more about the low carbon footing that you spoke of earlier yes
Uh sure so um often um geotechnical reports specify how deep our perimeter footings need to be when perimeter footings are allowed and peers aren’t required um though there is a alternate solution there um but for one project we were required to have a two foot deep um
PE uh perimeter footing and we were able to substitute what would have normally been Concrete in the lower foot with um compacted gravel and again this is now making its way into the building code so it was a simple instead of pouring concrete to the full depth we’re going
To first fill it halfway with um gravel compact it and then pour on top of it uh similarly in sites with bad soils we have one project under construction right now which is subject to liquefaction and 40ft deep concrete peers would be the nor normal solution there but we’re using a rammed aggregate
Pier system instead so as those peers are drilled they’re filled instead of with um you know low strength concrete they’re being filled with um aggregate that’s being compacted uh so just a couple examples of how how that’s coming online and again the goal is to use less Portland cement worldwide Portland
Cement manufacturing accounts for 8% % of our Global emissions um so it’s a big opportunity uh to reduce these carbon impacts great so for the next one I’m actually gonna ask Bill to join us because this one might have more than one response um love to hear what you
Both have to say so um someone has a pg& energy star home with cellulous insulation that has become essentially an ant farm and they want to know how you would be handling the ver with a hemp clay fill so what are your takes on on
That well I know that um in uh straw bale construction we specifically build with straw and not hay um so there’s no food content there’s nothing of interest um I don’t know um I have not heard of an ant infestation uh in straw bale construction but I’ve you know
Experienced it in my own East Bay Home in you know the walls um you know just regular studf frame walls so uh stopping them at the base at the foundation is is the key there I imagine whatever measures one would take for termites um could have a similar uh impact on
Limiting the access of ants um but in terms of these natural building uh systems you know like any building having it well sealed uh keeps at least the larger Vermin out of it and I would concur I would concur David I mean it’s I I don’t know obviously I can’t comment
On this that specific building but it it does seem like it’s a detailing issue um you know to sort of basically keep insects from getting into the wall I’m not aware of cellulose um being a particularly good food for ants so I’m just wondering I mean I’ve not really heard of cell ant
Infestations in cellulose insulated walls so it my first question would be is there something else going on um are the ants basically just coming through the wall to get to some other food um but I don’t know I don’t know I’m not aware of cellulose having any inherently
Having an ant problem and so again I think it comes back to sort of detailing of the foundation that’s my un you know that’s my best guess without knowing the details good good both good answers to have thoughts on um so next question um how do estimator tools and LCA programs
Provide an owner with an econom cost analysis of carbon and Energy Solutions oh excellent uh question I don’t know that any one of those tools has built in um something that does the um cost impacts of these choices I do know from experience that currently many of the biobased um insulation products
Are more expensive than the traditional largely petroleum based um products so you are often you know having to make a choice and uh I can give one example in our Colorado project we were able to you know show the carbon impacts of various insulation choices and the owner specifically said
Okay I’ll pay a little bit more and we will use the cork in the roof in insulation package instead of you know spray foam or um you know a board based foam we we did end up using mineral wool instead of what we you know some other
Um insulation we’d hope to use because we were down close to grade and didn’t and needed you know greater durability so using what’s appropriate um yeah there are other you know tools for calculating these tradeoffs uh The Next Step that I’d like to take with our East Bay carbon storing building example
Would be to um run it by a cost estimator and see what those economic impacts are because it is an important um metric especially when we’re targeting you know more affordable housing um you know when we look at the um cost of creating a insulated wood frame wall for
A typical residence to the current uh energy codes the straw Bale wall system is starting to compare favorably to be less expensive when you achieve that same r value so that’s one example where I can say it’s actually tilted largely due to the uh Rising price of building
Materials um you know straw bales have not gone up in price for example so in your Alaska project you mentioned that the foundation uh you you know you considered the the carbon uh sort of background of the material When selecting your foundation so that was an internal conversation or was the client
Involved in in that one as well yeah that one um was probably as much uh due to Logistics as it was due to um you know the uh the carbon impacts it was just going to be easier to get those peers and the little machine that
Spins them into the ground on site than it was concrete um so honest answer carbon was a side benefit of making a choice that you know had other things driving it um we uh have used helical peers here in California there’s also a system pin footing Diamond footings um
So other non uh concrete and lower carbon um options are available okay so I’m going to combine a couple questions here that have similar subject matters um and it has to do with the gc’s that you’re working with the contractors um what phase do you start engaging contractors when you’re
Installing these alternate insulation systems and and how do you find contractors that are familiar with the products yeah that’s a super question I’m glad someone asked that um the first thing I’ll note is that the major majority of our straw bale buildings have been built by Builders who hadn’t
Done it before um as we like to say in casba it ain’t rocket science um and in many ways it’s just an exterior wall system you still have foundations and roofs and you know doors and windows and lighting and plumbing uh Etc so um you
Know that that part of it we that said we uh encourage our clients to engage with a potential builder in atic design not only to do you know early pricing but also to just bring them on board and get a reality check with all of these
Things uh that are being put on the table um you know they often have uh great ideas of how they might want to you know change a detail to make it more buildable um you know we participate in the construction in the form of the bail raising and I always learn something you
Know that we can do better the next time uh so uh but it we try to you know encourage a collaboration that ends up in a negotiated bid um sometimes you know through um either mandate from the funding uh it has to go out for bid and
Be a low bid project and we’ve done those actually done one you know with straw bale and integrated that into the specifications and had a builder who had never done it before did it so but yeah there’s some education involved for sure and uh and you know I
Would say that the the only thing uh that I try to avoid is when a builder you know just says a hard no they said no I’m not going to do that I said great you’re not going to build our project great um what about your cost
What have you seen to be the biggest cost implications with the alternate insulation system I find that it tends to be um some of the subcontractors who aren’t familiar with it and then they’re you know putting a premium on their services um just to do something new that they
Haven’t done before um having to put a higher price tag on it again with the um with the straw Bell specifically um we often engage the owners or the the community that’s building a structure in this um day of placing the Bales in the walls uh that’s either done as a
Volunteer day or as a workshop where people pay money to come and learn and do uh so the the cost impacts of that are are minimized if not eliminated you know we do note that the walls are 18 inches to two feet thick so you’re giving up you know you’re
Building a larger building footprint for the same amount of usable square footage on the interior that has a cost impact um however you know the higher insulation value the play of light off of the deep Window and Door openings Etc uh I think you know brings value that offsets
That great so we talked a little bit about Vermin inside of our walls um have you had any experience with mold using products such as straw or hemp in your construction um I’m happy to say we have not um there have been instances where buildings were exposed to liquid water
In one way or another and deterioration did begin to happen um however I would quickly note that uh nearly any other building system which is exposed to liquid water does um is adversely impacted um at greater than 19 % moisture content sustained wood will begin to dry a lot
And uh at greater than 19% moisture content sustained in a straw bale um compost happens so um you know it can take on moisture and then release that moisture but if it’s sustained there can be damage that’s uh you know that has to be dealt with we did have one example um
A contractor drilled through a protector plate and put the tip of a screw into a sprinkler pipe which started a slow drip above a straw bale wall and the owner noted a musty smell after several months um discovered you know the leak uh above the bail wall took off the interior
Plaster the upper bail uh was damaged the one below it was beginning to be damaged fixed the leak pulled those out put new ones in replastered it’s been fine ever since that was 20 years ago um Carmen do you wan to go ahead no I was gonna say Bill what else you got
For us uh well I was gonna just gonna say can you speak a little bit to just some of the detailing I mean my take is your straw Bell buildings tend to have deep overhangs to limit just you know bulk water from a rainstorm
Uh and that um do you want to can you talk a little bit about um you know vapor retarders in a straw Bell wall um and and then I also noticed there were a couple of questions about lateral loading in straw Bell walls so those are
A couple different things do you can you address any of those we just I I can address all of those okay great absolutely yeah no um we we have three simple rules in bail building um which are good shoes good hat and a coat that breathes um good shoes is a foundation
That has the Bales separated up above you know the the ground plane and separated so there’s no moisture transfer you know from the foundation up into the Bales um a Good Hat tends to be an overhang though there are other ways of creating a um you know drainage plane
Uh in in the wall um but generally a uh overhang that keeps all but the most wind driven rain off the wall is advised and then a coat that breathes is a vapor permeable finish so that if moisture Vapor does get in it’s allowed to breathe out again uh so the code
Specifically says um that Vapor um barriers are not to be used and that a minimum perm rating is to be achieved I forget what it is offand but that a um lime cement plaster that has uh no less than one six lime in the mix um is required to maintain that permeability
And lime plaster is a better finish we also use P which is the sprayed version of ramed Earth as a finish on Bale walles but that breathability helps the last thing to say about it is just keep them dry um you know and uh we we have a
Moisture meter we check our Bales you know when they go before they go in the wall we check them when they’re in the wall check them when they’re plastered and then when necessary you know follow up and uh check them it’s a fascinating and we’re getting really into the details here so
I’m gonna actually pull two more questions that have to do with the straw Bell construction just kind of to wrap up that conversation the first one is how do you deal with Electric and Plumbing in inside of a straw wall and then the second one is uh what thickness
Of plaster are you applying on straw bale wall great um yeah I want to Circle back to the other half of the question Bill brought up which is that of structural loading and um uh there have been uh lateral and outof plate load tests that
Have been done and all of that um those engineering requirements are specified in appendix s now as appendix as of the residential code so I’d uh direct you to to that for those elements for electrical um what what is um allowed is the use of non-metallic cable otherwise
Known as RX and that can simply be tucked in the gaps between the Bales or run along uh posts or other you know structural elements um typically we use a i wood I joist as a vertical framing member so we’ll often attach electrical boxes to those framing members and then
Route the um non-metallic cable along those so they’re well protected but if you do have the need for an electrical box in the middle of a wall panel a uh 12inch pointed stake what we call a vampire stake a 2 by two with a point on
It can be pounded into the wall mount a metal box on it bring the a to it so that’s a solution there um plaster Skins are a typical three coat plaster um so you know 78 is the minimum but uh a straw bale is not flat it tends to have
You know some some waving in so I think you know anywhere between an inch to an inch and a half is probably the average thickness of the plaster that ends up when it’s a three coat hand applied system when a when a p is sprayed on it’s probably two inches average if not
More and that’s a on shot application um outside of the effort that it takes to do the masking because it’s being sprayed on with gunite equipment um we find that uh that can be a pretty economical finish and then with the prefab systems some of those are built
With the Bales um with the with the wall panel horizontal so you can actually pour that fin onot and then tilt it up uh so there’s some economy to be achieved with the prefab systems so I believe we are about to uh be at time we have four minutes left so
I’m going to uh change direction a little bit and and ask a little bit more of of a larger picture uh question this will be our last one and then we’ll wrap up so what is next for us as we tackle um these issues and the momentum is
Strong in the industry as it pertains to what is being created for future Generations what’s your dream well um I I think I’ve already said it a few times that uh buildings become the Earth’s sixth carbon sync um that we begin to understand that we not only begin that we find
Understand that everything we do um potentially either emits or stores carbon and that’s from you know planting trees to driving a car to building a building um so you know as we not only pay attention to these but U measure our progress um will’ll only get better uh
So you know um I would like to see uh streets that are are either um you know painted white so they don’t absorb as much heat or covered with photovoltaic panels so they become part of an electricity grid you know just to throw some crazy stuff on the
Table things I think about as I bicycle back and forth to work great well that’s a a a great uh place to end the conversation for today there are a lot of great questions still left in the chat so Sarah as we wrap up is there any way of addressing these um
In some sort of document and sending it back um to all of the participants today um if David is able sometimes we can a answer questions offline and then post them on the website um and it varies on when we get responses back and when they’re available on the website
But um I can even uh put the link to the climate action webinars web page in the chat for everyone so that way they can kind of peek on the different webinars that we have on there and follow up and see if the questions are answered um but we can
Try and do that offline great I I would be happy to do that I actually am excited to see what questions have been asked and look forward to answering them um I will note that uh we had a call earlier today with the insurance industry uh towards making all forms of
Biobased natural buildings more insurable uh just kind of let that industry know that this is coming and they need to be aware of it um and then you know one last thought on on your last question Carmen you know my other hope is that not only do uh straw bale
And Jazz live on in America but also democracy uh I think we are honestly at a pivotal moment and uh you know the future of our country and its ability to address climate change is on the line so I encourage everyone to get involved in uh helping make political
Change great thank you uh everyone for attending Sarah do or I guess Bill who wants to close us out for the day do that thank you guys for attending um again for those who were who’ve made it this far um AIA California staff report the credits that you received
Today to AIA um and AIA California staff will be sending out the ZN CD certificates of completion um please allow a couple weeks before you see credits posted on your transcript or certificates in your inbox um these are updated and sent out manually so time varies on when you’ll receive them if
You have any questions feel please feel free to reach out to me um and thank you guys again for being here and thank you Carmen and David thank you very much everyone have a great day good afternoon all byebye