Low Carbon & Regenerative Design

AC Martin welcomed Dr. Pablo La Roche to present “Low Carbon & Regenerative Design” as part of Environmental Awareness Month events organized by our Sustainability Committee. Dr. La Roche is Professor of Architecture at Cal Poly Pomona and recently was the interim Director of the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies. He is also a Principal & Sustainable Design Director at CallisonRTKL where he leads the firm’s sustainability initiatives and works on projects worldwide. In his presentation, Dr. La Roche described regionally sensitive architecture and computational passive design strategies including circulated fluid windows, breeze permeable floors, and evaporative cooling towers. AC Martin staff enjoyed the event and found it very thought provoking. Dave Waite, a designer in our Los Angeles office, said, “Dr. La Roche’s personal and students’ projects inspired me to think about capabilities and design opportunities to elevate our projects’ comfortability, environmental consequence, and influence.”

More about the speaker:
Pablo La Roche has a Ph.D. from the University of California Los Angeles and has authored more than 150 technical papers, several books that include “Carbon Neutral Architectural Design” with a third edition scheduled for 2023, and book chapters including one the 2022 Routledge Manual on Thermal Comfort. Pablo has served as chair and technical reviewer of numerous conferences, including organizing and chairing the Passive Low Energy Architecture PLEA 2016 conference in Los Angeles and is past president of the Society of Building Science Educators, SBSE. Dr La Roche also co curated the exhibit “Technology and Environment: The Postwar House in Southern California” supported by the Getty Foundation. His awards include the Fulbright by the US Department of State, the Chancellors Fellowship from UCLA, the IMPACT Award from the USGBC, and the NCARB Grand Prize for Architecture for his work with students developing an affordable house prototype made of papercrete at Cal Poly Pomona.