Better Buildings Boot Camp

The Better Buildings Boot Camp is a one week, online summer program held virtually online using Zoom. Sessions and activities will be held from Monday - Friday, June 19th - 23rd, 8:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. 

The Boot Camp will consist of live webinar plenary sessions facilitated by professional and/or academic experts on topics relevant to the week's project: a deep energy retrofit of the Assiniboine Graduate Student residence at York University, with the goal of achieving net positive human and environmental outcomes. The sessions will contain a variety of individual and panel style discussions and will be interactive through the use of surveys, polls, chat, and contain links to additional information. 

Students will be divided into cross-institutional and multi-disciplinary groups, and participate daily in on-line collaborative group discussions and activities, allowing students to engage directly with each other to determine their group's recommendations for the building. On Thursday, June 22nd, students will observe the actual professional workshop with the building project team, and students will present their own recommendations and ideas to the project team on Friday, June 23rd.  

Students will receive an invitation to attend directly on Zoom. 

Sign up now!  Spaces are limited.

For the complete calendar and exact program details - please click on the Calendar Tab (includes Zoom links to all sessions).

Monday is about setting GOALS.  Today you will…

• learn about the goals of the boot camp
• meet the team from York University and learn about the project building
• meet your TEAM!
• learn about goal setting in the built environment from a variety of perspectives
• a spotlight session on Opaque Assemblies (walls, roofs, etc) including a live Q&A with a professional subject matter expert in the field.

Tuesday is about TOOLS OF THE TRADE.  Today, you will:

• learn about tools and frameworks used to make decisions about buildings (i.e. energy & parametric modelling, Integrated Project Design & Delivery, embodied carbon and approaches to circularity)
• have time to meet with your TEAM to discuss your presentation on Friday (Day 5)
• share what tools, vocabulary, frameworks you use in your field of study
• a spotlight session on Fenestration (aka windows!) including a live Q&A with a professional subject matter expert in the field.

Wednesday is about HUMANS IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT.  Today, you will:

• hear SBC's approach to decolonization, inclusion, equity and diversity, anti-racism, anti-violence and accessibility in the built environment
• meet a panel discussing accessibility in the built environment
• learn about indoor environmental quality
• learn about decolonizing the built environment
• have time to meet with your TEAM
• a spotlight session on Mechanical Systems (heating, cooling, ventilation, etc) including a live Q&A with a professional subject matter expert in the field.

Thursday you are invited to virtually observe the actual professional design workshop where professional experts and the York U team will discuss how to undertake a deep energy retrofit with net positive environmental and human outcomes.

Friday is about IDENTIFYING AND OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO GREAT BUILDINGS

• you'll hear from the City of Toronto about two programs to support better buildings
• you’ll hear a panel discussing real life obstacles, opportunities and outcomes of the very well regarded deep energy retrofit of the Ken Soble building
• each TEAM will present their recommendations to the York U team for making the Assiniboine Dorm net positive in some way.
• Shift & Share: volunteer students will share what their area of interest/study/work/research is and how it might be relevant to making better buildings.
• Closing remarks and thanks.

Sign up now!  Spaces are limited.

320 Assiniboine is a 19-story building housing approximately 230 people composed of a mix of single graduate students and graduate students with their partners and/or children. It was built in 1972 and has a laundry room and lockers for units without storage.

Experience how we can take a building like this and turn it into one that is net positive in both environmental and human terms.  It starts by getting to know the building.  Here are the original drawings of the building: Assiniboine Drawings.

BBBC ­­TEAM PRESENTATIONS

The goal of the BBBC is for students to experience the collaborative aspect of making recommendations to an actual building project team using the integrated design and delivery process. There are three parts to the boot camp:

1. Monday - Wednesday consists of preparatory learning: the sessions are tailored to familiarize you with the major topic areas relevant to the project building. The topics include an overview of the project building, setting goals for sustainable buildings, useful tools and vocabulary used in the built environment, overviews of the major areas of building design, construction and operations/maintenance, including fenestration (windows), opaque assemblies (walls/roofs, etc.), mechanical systems (heating/cooling/ventilation), indoor environments from a human perspective (accessibility, comfort, health & wellbeing, belonging), etc..
2. Thursday consists of observing a professional workshop: the project team and our subject matter experts discuss and make recommendations about how to make the building better.
3. Friday consists of sessions on identifying and overcoming obstacles to great buildings, including a presentation on two City of Toronto programs to support better buildings, a panel discussion of the Ken Soble project in Hamilton, student Team presentations of YOUR recommendations to the project building team, and an opportunity for volunteer students to present your own areas of interest or expertise to the Boot Camp community (more on this in a separate document!) 

This document outlines:

1. A description of this year’s building
2. An outline of what is expected of your Team
3. A primer on how to collaborate in a team
4. The self/peer assessment form

DESCRIPTION OF THIS YEAR’S PROJECT BUILDING

The client for the boot camp is York University and the project building is the Assiniboine Residence Building. The goal of the project is a deep energy retrofit of the building achieving net positive in both human and environmental terms. More information about the current building configuration is available here and here.

WHAT’S EXPECTED FROM BBBC STUDENTS AND TEAMS

We expect your active attendance at all sessions and your full participation in the preparation of the Team presentation.  While there is Team time during the camp, most Teams will require additional time to meet outside of camp in order to prepare their recommendations to the York team on Friday.

On the first day of the boot camp you will be placed in cross-curricular, multidisciplinary teams of students.  Each Team will have a unique combination of students from different institutions, fields of study, and levels of study.  Together, your Team’s unique perspective has the power to provide new insight to the client to help them determine the next steps for the project.  Specifically, the goal of this year is for your Team to make specific recommendations to the York U team on ways that the deep energy retrofit of Assiniboine can meet net positive human or environmental goal(s).  Pick your Team's priority(s) for the building retrofit and recommend ways of achieving a net positive outcome(s) from your perspective.

On Friday, June 23, your team will have a 10 minute window in which to present your recommendation(s) directly to York U.  Your time should allow for at least 3-5 minutes of Q&A by the client.  

Your presentation should clearly identify:

1) a very brief introduction of your Team,

2) a clear presentation of your Team’s top priority(s) and recommendation(s) for interventions into the building that will achieve net positive human and/or environmental outcomes.  What does YOUR team think is a key priority outcome for this project and how do you propose they approach it?

3) the rationale/support for choosing your recommendation(s).

The presentation will be live, via Zoom. Your presentation can take any format you wish. You will be able to share your screen to present slides, videos, animations, photos, etc.  You must stay within the 10 minute time frame permitted, including Q&A.  Your team must also submit your recommendations in written form (memo, powerpoint, etc.) to the client.  A minimum of two pages should include: 

• an introduction of your Team members, 
• a summary of your Team’s recommendations,
• any additional recommendation(s) for the client (that you may not have discussed in your Friday presentation), and  
• any relevant supporting documentation, links or attachments.

Separately, you will be asked by the BBBC Team to rate your own and your Team member’s participation to provide accountability for working together as a Team.  This will not be shared with the client, just used to confirm your eligibility for receiving the BBBC Certificate of Completion.  The self/peer assessment form is found at the end of this document.

A PRIMER ON COLLABORATING IN TEAMS

A key to integrated design is the idea that everyone has something valuable to contribute.  You have been invited to join the BBBC because you have unique and valuable insight.  However, your Team only has a week to collaborate and come up with recommendation(s) for the building, so it is important that your Team meetings are effective.  To engage with and capture all your team has to offer together, it’s important to know how to collaborate in a team environment.  Our thanks to Professor John Robinson of the University of Toronto who generously provided us with the below resources and recommendations. 

1. Ensuring Positive and Productive Team Meetings

Team meetings are an important determinant of team project success. As such, you will need to find ways to ensure that your team meetings facilitate a positive and productive work environment.

1a. Positive Team Environment

Positive feelings facilitate productivity, which means that it is important that your team maintains a positive work environment. While there are many different strategies for motivating teams, most emphasize communicating openly so that the team shares a single organizational vision, ensuring that team members feel appreciated, supporting new ideas, challenging the team, and encouraging creativity. See, for example: this Huffington Post article, this article from Mind Tools, this Forbes article, and this Tech Republic article. 

1b. Meeting Productivity

While there is some scheduled Team time during the Boot Camp, you may find that you require additional Team meeting time outside of Boot Camp to determine and prepare your Team recommendation on Friday.  Your Team can determine whatever other platform you wish to use to communicate (Zoom/Skype/Teams, etc. meetings, etc.). For those meetings to be effective, the first step is to assign roles to your Team members.  Typical roles include Time Keeper, Agenda Maker, Facilitator, Researcher, Presenter, Notes Taker, etc.  Devising an agenda in advance of meetings, even just in simple outline form, is a key aspect of smooth meetings. The purpose of an agenda  is to ensure that you have defined an objective for your meeting. Additionally, it helps if you identify action items that team members will prepare for the meeting, goals for the outputs of each meeting and a confined time frame within which a meeting will take place. Disorganized or long meetings that drag can reduce team motivation and contribute to burnout, neither of which is conducive to delivering the best possible work. Many other sources – such as Entrepreneur, Mind Tools, 99U, and Forbes – provide additional tips for improving the productivity of meetings. 

1c. Managing and Learning from Conflict

Conflict will arise in your group at some point during the camp. During the initial stages of group formation, acknowledge that conflict will occur and discuss concrete, agreed upon steps that the group will engage in to work towards resolution. Decide how you will arrive at consensus, how difficult conversations will be managed and how to address communication breakdowns before they happen. You can find additional resources for managing conflict at the following link: https://learningcommons.ubc.ca/student-toolkits/working-in-groups/resolving-conflict/ 

2. Managing Information

Information sharing is crucial to delivering successful recommendations to the building project  team. The following are some strategies for sharing information during your presentation on Friday. 

2a. In Meetings

Given the breadth of information that you will have to cover, it might  make sense to divide research areas. If this is the strategy adopted by your team, it will be important to share information effectively. Often, this is best done through a combination of written and oral methods of information delivery: preparing short written briefs for the team can convey information and may be helpful for the final deliverable, while oral presentations of these briefings can ensure that the entire team understands the material and has the opportunity to pose questions, possibly uncovering areas for further exploration as well as research linkages. 

In addition to substantive information sharing during meetings, your team will need to keep note of action items and revisions to your plan of work as you advance throughout the week. A designated Note Taker responsible for managing these changes can be helpful.

2b. Over the Week

Students should consider how to manage information as early in the process as possible. While certain online data tools, such as Google Drive, can be useful, structures such as shared documents or folders should be in place to organize information so it can be drawn upon when needed. As well, it is advisable to decide on a process for indicating changes to any collaborative document, so that you can keep track of drafts as they change. Transparent editing processes will help to minimize stress within your teams, ensuring a positive group dynamic as the project advances. 

3. Contacting the Client: the TOLive Team

In order to prepare your design parameter recommendation(s), your team may have specific questions for the client. They are open to answering your questions, provided they are well prepared and cannot be easily answered through simple research/reading of materials previously provided.

3a. Contacting the Client

It is generally advised that Teams identify a single point of contact that will be responsible for contacting the client, arranging meeting logistics, and collecting and disseminating any materials for client meetings. In communications with the client, please ensure that you remain polite and professional at all times.  There is no requirement to contact the client.

3b. Preparing for Meetings

Preparing for meetings with your client is very important: you should have a clear idea of the material that you want to convey to your client as well as the information that you will solicit from them, and everyone should be on the same page about this plan. It is generally advisable to submit a meeting agenda, as well as any supplementary materials that you would like the client to review, at least 24 hours in advance of each client meeting. Where appropriate, you may also wish to prepare a slide deck for the meeting.

Self/Peer Assessment

Fill in the names of your team members in the headings of the table below. Then using the following scale, rate (not rank) each member of your team, including yourself, according to each characteristic (with 5 indicating those who are strong with respect to this characteristic and 1 indicating those who are weak with respect to this characteristic) by filling in the appropriate number in each box in the table.  At the end of the BBBC you will be asked to send the completed form to bootcamp@sbcanada.org.  This information will not be shared; it will only be used to confirm your Team participation in order to earn the BBBC Certificate of Completion.

1. Team Assessment

Using the following scale, please assess the overall strengths/weaknesses of your team by placing an X in the appropriate box for each of the listed characteristics, with 5 indicating that your team is very proficient at this characteristic and 1 indicating that the team is very weak:

Shift and Share (S&S)

The idea behind Shift & Share is the following: whenever we learn, we are making connections to our own prior learning and experiences.  While participating in the BBBC, we know that some of you will be bursting with ideas and thoughts about how what YOU KNOW relates to what you've learned at camp.  You also realize that what you know, combined with what you've learned through BBBC, could be valuable to the building project team and your fellow learners.  We want you to SHARE your knowledge and those connections with the group!  Integrated divergent thinking has huge power to make projects better.  This session is a SHIFT from having experts sharing with students to students becoming the experts to SHARE their knowledge with all of us.

To encourage this kind of "out of the box" and integrated thinking, the kind folks at Enbridge have provided SBC with three (3) x $1,000 White Paper Awards.  Your 5-10 minute presentation will be your "pitch" to the Jury to be eligible to write one of these three White Papers for SBC.   These White Papers, once accepted, will be published on SBC's website and circulated via our social media channels.

To participate: we need 5-8 volunteers to SHARE how your prior knowledge connects to what you learned at BBBC and to the the goals of the project building.  There will be a Jury of subject matter experts and members of the York team who will decide who is eligible for the three White Paper Awards.  Simply email bootcamp@sbcanada.org by Thursday, June 22 3:00 p.m. to volunteer.  There will be further info and Q&A sessions throughout camp if you have questions about S&S, but don't hesitate to reach out directly for further information.

Past White Paper Award winners have included:

- Ysong (Bill) Tang: a paper recommending the creation of a digital twin of a project building, used from planning through operations of the building, that includes not just environmental data, but human measures of comfort and belonging.

- Catherine Lu: the creation of a narrative map of users, developed through the creation and implementation of a self-guided tour using narrative fiction allowing people to imagine themselves in a space.

- Anthony Ortiz: a paper detailing the importance of including structural engineering early in the integrated design process, in particular from an embodied carbon perspective.

Has your learning at BBBC inspired you to want to write a White Paper?  Sign up to Shift & Share by emailing bootcamp@sbcanada.org to pitch your idea at Friday's Shift & Share session.