Rooted:

Design Practice Reimagined

An 8-week professional training for architects, designers, and built environment leaders who want to create healthier spaces—and shift the internal patterns that shape how we design.

Develop the Leaders Your Firm's Future Requires

Rooted is designed as a bi-directional learning experience where participants at different career stages and expertise levels learn with and from each other. When firms send a cross-functional cohort (10-30 participants across studios, experience levels, and specializations), the exchange creates exponential value—technical knowledge flows upward from specialists while systems thinking and leadership capacity flows across all levels.

This approach is particularly powerful for firms that have made institutional commitments, like signing on to the AIA Materials Pledge or 2030 Commitment, and need to translate those pledges into cultural transformation and operational practice across the entire organization.

who rooted is for

To enable the bi-directional learning that is so critical to the experience of the cohort, there are two different participant profiles recommended for participation. Each of these play a key role in sparking firm transformation:

  • Emerging Practitioners become the connective tissue between specialized sustainability teams and everyday project work. They're positioned to normalize healthier specifications across the firm's portfolio, not just on certified projects. Experienced Practitioners become culture carriers and change leaders who can influence firm policy, mentor emerging designers, and model what values-aligned practice looks like at senior levels.

  • Profile:

    • Early/mid-career designers (3-10 years xperience)

    • Limited exposure to healthy materials or sustainable practice but personal value for health and wellness

    • May be feeling cognitive dissonance between their values and their daily work

    • Want to do better but lack frameworks and confidence

    • May work at conventional firms with limited sustainability focus

    What they bring to the cohort:

    • Fresh perspectives unburdened by "we've always done it this way"

    • Direct experience with on-the-ground barriers to healthier specifications

    • Questions that push more experienced practitioners to articulate their tacit knowledge

    • Energy and hunger to implement changes immediately

    What they gain:

    • Technical competence in material health, transparency tools, and specification frameworks

    • Permission and frameworks to trust their values and challenge inherited defaults

    • Language and confidence to advocate for healthier materials with project teams and clients

    • Mentorship connections with senior practitioners who've navigated similar challenges

    • Clarity on where they can effect change within their current role and projects

  • Profile:

    • Mid/senior-career, possibly with sustainability credentials (LEED AP, WELL AP, etc.)

    • Technically competent but feel something is missing

    • May be experiencing burnout from "checking boxes"

    • Hungry for deeper meaning and systemic change perspective

    What they bring to the cohort:

    • Technical depth and real-world project experience to ground discussions

    • Understanding of firm dynamics, client pressures, and practical implementation barriers

    • Pattern recognition from years of navigating resistance and trade-offs

    • Mentorship capacity and willingness to share hard-won lessons

    What they gain:

    • Systems thinking frameworks that contextualize their work within larger transformation

    • Paradigm-level perspective that reconnects technical practice with regenerative principles

    • Community of peers navigating similar questions about impact, agency, and systemic change

    • Inner work practices to process burnout, grief, and cognitive dissonance

    • Renewed sense of purpose and strategic clarity about their unique leverage points

Why this mix matters

Signing institutional pledges is the first step, but implementation requires culture change at every level—from principals making strategic decisions to emerging designers writing specifications. Too often, sustainability expertise remains siloed in specialized roles while the majority of practitioners lack the literacy, confidence, or frameworks to operationalize firm commitments.

THE CHALLENGE :

Institutional commitments require institutional transformation

By bringing together technical specialists and generalist practitioners, senior leaders and emerging talent, firms create the conditions for knowledge democratization and peer-driven accountability. Explore how this applies specifically to firms who’ve made the two common commitments below: 

THE SOLUTION :

    • Emerging practitioners gain the technical literacy to evaluate materials across all five impact areas

    • Experienced practitioners develop frameworks to integrate these considerations into firm workflows and client conversations

    • Together, they create specifications standards and advocacy strategies that can be adopted firm-wide

    • Emerging practitioners learn to prioritize embodied carbon in material decisions from the start of their careers

    • Experienced practitioners gain systems-level understanding of how their project-level decisions aggregate to industry transformation

    • Together, they build internal capacity to meet aggressive timelines through collective action rather than individual heroics

Rather than relying on a handful of sustainability specialists to have eyes on every specification,  Rooted presents an opportunity to cultivate distributed leadership—a critical mass of practitioners at all levels who understand the stakes, have the tools to act, and feel empowered to lead change within their sphere of influence

THE OUTCOME :

Benefits of firm participation

Investment: 8 weeks. Return: Every project, every year, every designer.

Rooted is a unique, cohort-based learning approach developed specifically for mid- to large-size architecture firms. By enrolling a group of designers to participate in the course, firms not only support their individual professional development pathways, they realize significant organizational benefits - explore each category in more detail below:

  • Operationalize Sustainability Commitments

    • Translates firm pledges (AIA Materials Pledge, Embodied Carbon Commitments, Sustainability and Climate Action Plans) into practical competencies across project teams

    • Creates internal capacity to deliver on public sustainability commitments without relying solely on specialized sustainability staff

    • Demonstrates measurable investment in professional development aligned with industry leadership

    Differentiate in Client Relationships

    • Equips designers to proactively lead material health conversations rather than react to RFP requirements

    • Builds confidence to advocate for healthier materials even within budget constraints

    • Positions firm as thought leaders in regenerative practice, not just LEED compliance

    Scale Sustainability Expertise Firm-Wide

    • Extends the impact of specialized sustainability teams across all studios and project types

    • Creates shared language and frameworks for material health across disciplines and locations

    • Develops specification standards that can be adopted firm-wide

  • Attract & Retain Values-Aligned Talent

    • 73% of designers under 35 cite sustainability as a top career priority—this demonstrates meaningful investment in values alignment

    • Addresses widespread professional dissatisfaction by providing space for paradigm-level transformation

    • Creates differentiated professional development that goes beyond technical certifications

    Build Leadership Capacity

    • Develops change leadership skills and systems thinking capabilities applicable beyond sustainability

    • Identifies emerging leaders who can become internal champions for firm initiatives

    • Cultivates ability to navigate resistance and drive culture change

    Support Career Development Across Experience Levels

    • Early-career participants gain technical competence and confidence in material health advocacy

    • Mid/senior-career participants access paradigm-shifting frameworks and peer community they're hungry for

    • Cross-generational learning creates organic mentorship relationships

  • Improve Specification Quality & Consistency

    • Reduces reliance on outdated material defaults that undermine health goals

    • Creates standardized workflows and decision frameworks for healthier material selection

    • Decreases time spent researching individual products by building foundational literacy

    Reduce Risk & Liability

    • Proactively addresses growing regulatory pressure around material health (e.g., PFAS restrictions)

    • Prepares team for emerging client requirements and disclosure mandates

    • Builds documentation practices that demonstrate due diligence in material selection

    Enhance Collaboration & Communication

    • Develops shared vocabulary for discussing material health across disciplines

    • Improves ability to communicate technical sustainability concepts to non-specialist colleagues and clients

    • Strengthens cross-studio knowledge sharing and collaboration

  • Cultivate Culture of Responsible Design

    • Creates critical mass of practitioners operating from regenerative paradigm

    • Normalizes conversations about values alignment, intuition, and systemic thinking in design practice

    • Shifts firm culture from compliance mindset to regenerative leadership

    Empower Grassroots Change

    • Develops designers' agency to challenge norms and advocate for change

    • Creates peer accountability structures that sustain momentum beyond the 8 weeks

    • Builds internal coalition of practitioners committed to advancing firm sustainability goals

    Strengthen Sense of Purpose & Meaning

    • Addresses burnout and disengagement by reconnecting designers with deeper purpose

    • Creates space for processing climate anxiety and professional dissonance in supportive community

    • Builds resilience and long-term commitment to the field

  • Fulfill Continuing Education Requirements

    • 8 AIA LU|HSW credits per participant (valued at $400-800 in marketplace)

    • Satisfies health, safety, and welfare education mandates

    • Group participation creates efficient use of professional development budget

    Create Ripple Effects Across Projects

    • Each participant influences multiple projects annually, multiplying impact of the investment

    • Participants become internal resources for colleagues navigating material health decisions

    • Learning translates immediately into current project work through capstone application

    Build Competitive Intelligence

    • Cross-firm cohort provides insight into how peer organizations approach material health

    • Develops external professional network that benefits firm relationships and business development

    • Access to cutting-edge thinking and emerging best practices in regenerative design

Weekly course content

  • Week 1

    Connecting with Context

    Understanding the systems we operate within and how we got here

  • Week 2

    Recognizing Dissonance & Tuning into Intuition

    Tapping into your inner wisdom to identify areas of mis-alignment

  • Week 3

    Kinship Worldview, Language, and Storytelling

    Remembering the Earth-centric blueprint for right relationship, shifting culture through thoughtful communication

  • Week 4

    Frameworks to Facilitate Change

    Locating yourself in the transformation and finding your unique leverage points to effect change in your organization and the industry

  • Week 5

    Life Cycle Impacts of Buildings and Materials

    Understanding the vast, interconnected impacts of building products from extraction to disposal

  • Week 6

    Materials Embodied Impacts - Part 1: Earth First

    Identifying impacts of materials on our climate and ecosystems

  • Week 7

    Materials Embodied Impacts - Part 2: Human and Social

    Identifying impacts of materials on human health and social health and equity

  • Week 8

    Circularity & Reuse of Existing Materials

    Closing the loop: designing for circularity, not disposal

LEARNING OUTCOMES

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LEARNING OUTCOMES ✳︎

Weeks 1-4

[inner work]

  • Analyze the systemic context of contemporary design practice, including economic systems, planetary boundaries, and the built environment's role in global ecological challenges

  • Identify cognitive dissonance between personal values and professional practice, and develop strategies to realign decision-making with ecological and health-centered principles

  • Apply systems thinking frameworks (including leverage points, feedback loops, and regenerative principles) to understand how individual design decisions create ripple effects across organizations and the industry

  • Articulate a kinship worldview and demonstrate how shifting from extractive to relational paradigms transforms approach to materials, stakeholders, and design outcomes

  • Recognize professional conditioning and inherited defaults that perpetuate harmful material choices, and develop agency to challenge these norms

  • Utilize storytelling techniques to advocate for healthier design decisions with clients, colleagues, and contractors

  • Map personal position within systems of transformation using established frameworks to identify strategic leverage points for change

Weeks 5-8

[Technical Application]

  • Evaluate the holistic life cycle impacts of building materials using the impact areas of the AIA Materials Pledge and Common Materials Framework: climate health, ecosystem health, human health, social health and equity, and circularity

  • Navigate transparency tools and certifications for both buildings (LEED, WELL, and Living Building Challenge) and products (EPDs, HPDs, Declare labels, Cradle to Cradle) to make informed material selections

  • Identify chemical classes of concern (PFAS, flame retardants, VOCs, etc.) and their health impacts, and specify safer alternatives

  • Implement embodied carbon reduction strategies and tools to reduce climate impacts of material selections

  • Integrate circular economy principles into design practice, including strategic material reuse and designing for disassembly

  • Develop project-specific material health strategies that balance performance requirements, budget constraints, and health outcomes

  • Create specification language and workflows that operationalize healthier material selection within existing project delivery processes

bonus learning outcomes

  • Build cross-firm peer networks to share resources, strategies, and support for advancing regenerative practice

  • Communicate the business case for material health and regenerative design to clients and firm leadership

  • Develop personal action plans for implementing learnings within current project work and organizational context

Explore cohort options for your firm

Add your information in the contact form to the right to express your interest and receive updates as more information on the course is released.

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