At EskewDumezRipple, we have been committed to sustainability in architecture and design for decades, and that commitment is woven into our practice today. We were the first firm in Louisiana to become a member of the U.S. Green Building Council in 2002, and we signed the AIA 2030 Commitment in 2009. Our focus on more intentional materials selection, however, is a newer area of study.
Because South Louisiana’s petrochemical corridor is right in the backyard of our New Orleans studio, the health and equity impacts of material production hits close to home. So, a couple years ago, staff members began exploring materials selection more seriously. They found a complex, fragmented body of information and began asking how to distill it enough to make materials review a regular part of the design process, much like carbon reporting and energy modeling already was in the firm.
By 2024, we’d assembled a loose framework for our process, the same year we signed the AIA Materials Pledge (again, being the first firm in Louisiana to do so). It focused on three steps:
1. Identify healthier options in each materials category (utilizing tools such as Habitable’s Informed Product Guidance). For example, in selection of flooring – we tried to focus on products like linoleum (in the guidance’s “green” category) versus vinyl flooring (in the guidance’s “red” category).
2. Identify products with transparency documentation, such as Health Product Declarations (HPDs) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). We prefer utilizing tools such as The Transparency Catalog or Ecomedes for this. We won’t know that we’re making better selections without the information to do so.
3. Establish a good, better, best system – which categorizes those materials containing transparency documentation into their level of optimization, to help our designers reduce our use of chemicals of concern and support lower carbon material choices.
Though the tools in steps 1 and 2 utilized excellent resources available to designers already, step 3 was a trickier one. Pre-screened material lists such as Parson’s Healthy Material Lab Collections helped, but we found that we needed a better way to navigate the process for a larger variety of materials that we select in our projects, and give our designers the flexibility to select based on project needs, cost, and durability – all while considering the five impact categories of the AIA Materials Pledge - human health, social health and equity, ecosystem health, climate health, and circular economy.
In 2024-2025, our Research Fellows Theresa Mark and Kenza Hajji helped us explore this topic further. Theresa joined us for a full year, and Kenza contributed during a summer. The fellowship, titled “Living in a Materials World,” resulted in a powerful tool that Theresa helped develop: The Better Materials Toolkit. The toolkit translates the consideration of the aforementioned AIA Materials Pledge’s five impact categories into a process we can apply to our real projects.
The hope with publishing the Toolkit is that by sharing what was learned in our Research Fellows’ yearlong journey, other firms can adopt and adapt the resources it contains to improve the impact of the materials selected throughout the industry.
The Toolkit begins with what was learned about the unexpected ways materials intersect the Material Pledge’s 5 impact categories through case studies.
It continues with EDR’s process of revising our material library standards in a Good/Better/Best ranking system and setting priority products for the firm.
It then shares and explains the Materials Charette, EDR’s process for facilitating productive and actionable discussions for material optimization in our projects. This research further explores support resources for supply chain inquiries, spec requirements, and talking points to navigate conversations with clients and product reps.
Finally, the book concludes with research into materials’ health and equity impacts on neuro-inclusive design strategies, understanding how material selection shapes sensory experiences to better include neurodivergent individuals.
We continue to refine this work by creating resources for later project phases, including client-facing templates that explain material choices and tools that connect selections to Materials Pledge reporting. We are also always looking to share and collaborate with other firms on this topic – please reach out to Michelle Carroll-Barr (mcarrollbarr@eskewdumezripple.com) with any comments or questions