Design the Future

Hosted by Lindsay Baker & Kira Gould

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Episodes

126

Latest episode

Jun 2026

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EN-US

About the show

Women are living, learning, and leading towards a sustainable future. Their stories can help us all accelerate toward that vision in the built environment. Design the Future is a podcast created to elevate and explore the voices of women driving sustainable practices in the built environment and related fields. Lindsay Baker, a sustainability and social impact leader, and Kira Gould, a writer and communications strategist, host these conversations.

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60 recent

June 4, 2026Episode 12640 min

Lauren Alger on infrastructure as climate solution driver

Lauren Alger is vice president and national director of sustainable design at STV, a multinational company focused on the design, engineering, and planning of infrastructure at all scales. Lauren, a civil engineer by training, is dedicated to transforming how infrastructure is designed, built, and measured, so it becomes a driver of climate solutions for our communities. She leads ASCE Infrastructure 2050, an industry-wide initiative to reduce embodied carbon emissions of infrastructure assets. She has been a leader with the New York Embodied Carbon Working Group (an AIA New York State effort) focused on actionable recommendations for reducing embodied carbon across the built environment. The group is issuing a key report this month. “It has been incredible to see this group evolve,” Lauren says. “It has shown me how much is possible when we make a choice to collectively show up. We all had the same belief: that we could, together, shape better outcomes for future generations.”

May 25, 2026Episode 12524 min

Lindsay Baker at Living Future 26

At Living Future 26 in Seattle, Lindsay Baker’s address was interrupted by a fire alarm. It was a false alarm, but it also persisted for a while, so the entire community got to witness Lindsay’s humor and grace as she continued her remarks. We decided to share them here. Lindsay re-recorded the talk for us without the aggressive interruption (such an on-the-nose metaphor for our times that it seemed surreal). Every year on this stage, Lindsay brings wisdom about the movement building that is under way. This year’s message is especially crucial. She talks about the signals in the world, what people in power do when they feel threatened, and what we can do right now to stay together, stay focused, and scale our progress.

April 30, 2026Episode 12432 min

Jill Sherman on developing buildings for a thriving future

For developer Jill Sherman, buildings are not just assets, they are support systems for a thriving future. Jill leads Edlen & Co.’s public-private partnerships and build-to-suit projects. Jill sources new deals and manages all aspects of the development process, with a depth of expertise at integrating non-conventional sources of financing including low income housing tax credits, new market tax credits, historic tax credits, tax-exempt bonds and urban renewal funds. “We are focused on developing work that is community focused, impacts underserved communities, and pushes the boundaries of sustainability to try to bring that to scale,” she says. One such project, the PAE Living Building, was “the world’s first developer-led Living Building” and the approach (it was a conventional capital stack model) will be studied for some time. Jill shared about her path to becoming a developer, which germinated in noticing needs in the community and a desire to do positive things. The key attributes for development work, she says, are deep curiosity, comfort with math, and a high tolerance for unexpected challenges. We were at the Living Future conference, surrounded by the community, so our question about “being part of the movement” resonated. “When I'm able to meet with like-minded developers and architects and contractors and engineers,” she says, “I do feel like we are all trying to, yes, move our industry forward, but more importantly, create some positive change in the world.”

March 26, 202644 min

Beth Heider on a career in the movement

Beth Heider is a thought leader at the intersection of high-performance buildings and sustainable design, global business strategy, and organizational leadership. As founder & CEO of Heider Sustainability Advisors, Beth supports businesses, organizations, and start-ups create more resilient, healthy, and just-plain-better solutions for the built environment. She led at Skanska USA for nearly two decades, including a six-year stint as the company’s Chief Sustainability Officer. Beth has been at the forefront of the green building movement since its early days in the mid-90s.A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, LEED Fellow, and Living Building Hero, she has served on multiple organizations, notably as the Board Chair for the U.S. Green Building Council and Living Future.We talked with Beth about how she got interested in architecture, how she came to work in construction, and what it takes to “keep tough pups on the porch.”

February 19, 2026Episode 12147 min

Miranda Gardner on decarbonizing digital infrastructure

Miranda Gardiner is Executive Director of the iMasons Climate Accord (iCA), a non-profit trade association focused on decarbonization of digital infrastructure. She has an architecture background and has worked in a range of organizations -- design firms, associations, and tech companies -- giving her a special perspective. She sees herself as part of multiple industries and communities. Her leadership is marked by commitment to fostering collaboration and facilitating progress, highlighted by successful partnerships with Open Compute Project and RICS Tech Partner Programme, frameworks like the iCA’s Maturity Model, and volunteer engagements. In 2025, Miranda was recognized in Data Centre Magazine’s “Top 100 Women in Data Centers” and Capacity Media’s Most Influential People. We asked her about what advice she has for young professionals, especially as someone who has navigated into a field at the vanguard. She quoted the late Dr. Paul Farmer, who summarized his approach to intense, worldwide healthcare work as “doing hard things with friends.” Miranda says, “That’s it. We get up knowing that it is a challenge every single day. The advice I give is to remain consistent -- keep learning and asking questions and sharing and telling the stories.” Miranda shared some of the challenges in the digital infrastructure realm right now, and mentioned some data center work that she is watching with interest right now, including urban sites in existing buildings and with aggressive water and ecology strategies. “One issue that we’re looking at right now is water and the water-energy nexus,” Miranda says. “I am excited about the potential of this focus and how it relates to how these buildings are designed and how they relate to their communities.”

February 5, 2026Episode 12243 min

Lara Kaufman on embedding sustainability in design

Architect Lara Kaufman is a Design Principal based in Studio Gang’s New York office. As the firm's Sustainability Lead, she directs teams on implementation of holistic design approaches for decarbonization, water conservation, site ecologies, and healthy materials. An advocate for urgent climate action within the building industry, Lara is currently co-lead for the Carbon Leadership Forum’s NYC hub and engaged with other working groups promoting environmental policy, best practices, and education. Touching on reuse, Lara talked about “the alchemy of taking something that nobody cares about and turning it into something incredible that is transformed through adding on to it or collaging it with something else.”She shared about how she and Studio Gang teams get from big topics to benefits to people: “Often, we think about decarbonization, wellness, and biodiversity as these large priorities. But what’s powerful about the design process is that it makes sustainability tangible. We’re talking about real benefits that you can see and feel at the human and community level. If you integrate sustainability into the design concept, you'll have a better chance at implementing it and realizing it.”

December 18, 202546 min

Anjanette Green on being there and making change

Anjanette Green has more than two decades of architecture, design, and material research experience. She launched A Greener Space in 2016, the same year she ventured into the Peruvian Amazon to lead a team in a zero waste project. An advocate for alternative building solutions, she has travelled the world promoting research for bio-based materials. Address-independent, Anjanette can be found in remote areas of the world building with bio-based materials and learning from local communities.We talked about all the things: bio-based materials … indoor air quality … the importance of certifications … the big moves forward … and the big gaps that remain. When we talked about might guide others and Anjanette mused about how we learn about our industry and how we show up in our movement: “Nothing can replace the in-real-life experience,” she said. “And for me, that is incredibly important to show support, especially for the manufacturers that I want to prop up, but also for the job sites that need a helping hand. I'm the one who shows up with a backpack to a job site and says, “Where’s the hammer? Where is the earthbag?” I think that that’s the best way that a person can learn, and then I can be enough of an authority on a subject that I can then share that with other people.”

November 20, 202550 min

Kristy Walson and Sarah Gudeman on collaboration and advancing decarbonization

For our latest episode, we spoke with Kristy Walson and Sarah Gudeman of BranchPattern. It was a fun moment to catch them, right after Greenbuild, and we talked about their careers and also how partnerships and friends are important in this work. Kristy is a mechanical engineer and she is a Principal and Building Science Practice Lead at BranchPattern. Based in Orlando, Florida, Kristy is dedicated to advancing sustainable design and decarbonization and collaborates to deliver building science services that propel the industry. Sarah is a Principal and Engineering Practice Lead at BranchPattern; she is based in Omaha, Nebraska. She integrates engineering and building science to create practical, scalable solutions that improve building performance, reduce carbon, and enhance health and comfort.This was a wide-ranging conversation that included their youth experiences and their thoughts about the power of collaboration, their work at BranchPattern, and the imperatives that the movement and industry are facing in 2025. “We have an obligation to do better once we know better,” Sarah says. “As designers and engineers, we have a lot of power to shift the norms -- what is high performance, what is human centered, what is low carbon -- and really help elevate that baseline, instead of treating those things as an upgrade. Kristy says she is empowered by the community. “I wouldn't be here doing this work if I didn't have that North Star of feeling like I'm part of a movement,” she says. “Sustainability is, in some ways, a technical craft, but being part of the movement has enabled me to advocate for equity, policy, systemic change, and for breaking and remaking the systems that don't work for all of us.”

October 16, 2025Episode 11841 min

Julie Ju-Youn Kim on design impact and relationships

Julie Ju-Youn Kim, FAIA, is the William H. Harrison Professor and Chair of the School of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she founded and directs the Flourishing Communities Collaborative, an interdisciplinary research and design lab. She is also founder and partner of C2 Architecture Studio.In her early-career years in Detroit, Julie tried to meet as many people as possible and found that opportunities -- for practice and teaching -- presented themselves. Julie’s current graduate studio, which is also a Flourishing Communities Collaborative effort, is related to her vision for the school -- melding practice, research, education, and technology into a common conversation rooted in relationships. Navigating the moment from where she sits, Julie says that she “thinks about the capacity of architects and designers as agents of change for the better and stays focused on the students and their futures as empathetic, compassionate leaders for the future. They ground me!” In addition to her teaching and practice work, Julie is working on a new book (anticipated from Routledge in 2027): Intervening in the Urban Palimpsest: Design, Equity, and Community Agency. “This exploration is about understanding cities as dynamic palimpsests: they are shaped by meaning, memory, history, and by transformation,” she says. “This is our context.”

September 11, 202541 min

Gladys Ly-Au Young on belonging and resilience

Gladys Ly-Au Young is a founding partner of the Seattle firm, Side x Side Architects. The firm is changing practice by broadening the spectrum of architectural services, to promote community focused design that supports equity and sustainability in the built environment. Gladys was honored this year with the Hero Award from Living Future, which recognizes people who are advancing progress toward a living future for all. Gladys described what it’s like to work at the intersection of architecture, sustainability, and social justice. “It is important for build a community of care,” she says. “We have to focus on transformational changes. And I think we have to shift our thinking from ‘what is the impact?’ to ‘who is impacted the most?’” She talked about agency: “Building resiliency for me has everything to do with finding belonging and a sense of connection. That helps me make the changes I need to see.” She is also thinking a lot about regeneration, which she says “depends on our collective capacity to improve the ecosystem for a thriving future for all. All means everyone and everything.”