Tate Walker is the Director of Sustainability at OPN Architects and leads projects and initiatives across the firm’s four offices. His experience is rooted in the architectural design process but also includes program and project management as well as the development of technical guidelines for high performing buildings. He has served on the AIA’s Committee on the Environment and USGBC’s Energy & Atmosphere Technical Advisory Group. Tate firmly believes that the connection between architecture and energy provides leadership opportunities for architects as creative problem solvers. This is especially true for those willing to stretch their practice beyond its traditional boundaries.

Show Highlights 

• The blue ocean of green building
• The COTE Toolkit operational guide to achieve the COTE top 10
• 1. A framework for design excellence beyond sustainability for the entire Institute. 
  2. Fundamental measures about design and equitable communities, energy, water, wellbeing
• Projects that weave concepts to tailor unique circumstances through a lens of what health hazards people are currently facing
• AIA, commitment 2030 challenge and other mechanisms, and tools to achieve green building goals
• Tate shares the essential questions he asks when walking a client through options 
• How to embrace strong divergent thinking to cast a wide net to determine what's out there, how things fit together, and that is what is missing. 

“We're tripping over ourselves, no one person can span the breadth of all these subject areas for sustainability.  We need to pick a subject and go deep on that. Figure out what you're passionate about. If it's energy, if it's materials, if it's resilience, these are all super important and the crossover is huge. I've been deep into energy for my entire career and we still are not building net zero buildings.”

-Tate Walker

Tate Walker Transcript

Tate Walker’s Show Resource and Information

• Committee on the Environment - AIA KnowledgeNet
• poet-s-home-in-Carmel-2531616.php"> A poet's home in Carmel 
• Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever 
• Tools for Grassroots Activists
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