People. Place. Planet. Conscious Architecture
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Newsletter: April 2025
Resilience has been much on my mind. Last month, I visited Washington DC to participate in Congressional and Agency meetings as part of the Los Angeles Business Council. The purpose of these meetings was to address with resilience the Affordable Housing crisis in our country — a crisis many more are now confronted with in the aftermath of the Los Angeles fires in January.
I returned home with an increased amount of respect for hard-working individuals like Congresswoman Maxine Waters, but also with a renewed understanding that the future of People, Place, and Planet will require re-imagining community and self-reliance in ways we never have before.
Those conversations and others have underscored for me that resilience goes beyond the physical. We must consider its emotional, spiritual, and social elements, as well. Celebrating Earth Day this week similarly reminds us that everything in nature acts as one. When humans work in the same way — with nature, technology, and each other — People, Place, and Planet all thrive.
This connectedness is at the heart of our Conscious Architecture , and everything we design. Our mission is to help you create Place that is safe, secure, productive, and enjoyable while contributing to community and the Planet we all share.
Read on to explore how that’s happening now at MCTIGUE. We’ll be continually sharing more across our platforms between newsletter issues as we rebuild and regenerate in community with you.
Drew Pedrick, AIA, Founder and CVO, MCTIGUE
Climate Week: What It Means to Be Resilient
Two events this month yielded fruitful conversations about Resilience: not simply the Physical elements, but the Emotional, Social, and Spiritual pillars that are also at its core.
Rebuilding Future-Proof LA: The Path to Resilient, All-Electric Homes presented by the KINN on April 8th, and SidePorch’s Resilience & Rebuilding Day on April 11th gave us opportunities to exchange with leading architects and building experts, climate tech venture executives, climate capital investors, infrastructure developers and project teams, community groups, and even residents what Resilience looks like as we Rebuild.
We were particularly energized to see how many new folks were inspired by the MCTIGUE process of designing homes, businesses, restaurants, places of work and recreation with these four pillars baked into the process from Day One — all conceived with community and purposefully planned to regenerate People, Place, and Planet.
Current Projects:
In the wake of Los Angeles and Pacific Palisades fires, we’ve taken on many new rebuilds, but these concurrent projects stand out as compelling examples of what Earth Day really means: designing with nature, minimizing impact, serving a social need, and possessing lifespans that can go long beyond their initial purpose.
Soon to be completed in May, this renovation of a historic building included three levels: the office floor, mezzanine, and rooftop deck, all connected by modular materials and systems. Walls, posts, beams, staircase, flooring, railings . . . everything is owned by our client and can be completely disassembled and reassembled based on purpose of Place, either at this site or somewhere else. Rather than throwing materials for an entire office space into a landfill in five years, everything here is reusable — both an environmental and economic asset!
The “Missing Middle” is a term used to describe families and individuals who lack the ability to own a home of their own due to the rampant affordable housing shortage in our home state and our nation. The First Wave Project reimagines the mobile home as one possible solution: a community campus of 13 tiny homes that are water and energy efficient, durable, lasting, clean, healthy — full of light and fresh air. Residents can easily move these MSIP-constructed homes to safety if needed, and can also age in place with modular internal walls that allow the floorplan to adjust to your lifestyle needs.
The walls of this 3600 square foot food space in the historic warehouse headquarters of an ocean health nonprofit are completely made of — reusable fabric. The light footprint minimizes material cost, waste, and impact on the Planet, but also allows an atmospheric benefit for People and Place. Light projections cast on the walls can be changed to create nearly any mood or feel at any time.
Hope Springs Forth
Nature’s resiliency continues to inspire and astound us. Recently USC’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences published results from a study tracking CO2 emissions during an 18-month period. As the Los Angeles Times reported , “trees absorbed up to 60% of CO2 emissions on average during daytime, according to the study — significantly more than expected.” We hope this knowledge may inspire you to consider undertaking your own tree conservation efforts for the week of Earth Day.
In other promising CO2 news, agreements between Canada's federal government and international materials supplier Heidelberg will fit the cement manufacturer's facility in Edmonton with a carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) system designed to absorb one million tons of CO2 per year, plus the greenhouse gas emissions produced. “The global concrete sector, a market worth over $75 billion,” reported Canada’s National Observer, “is responsible for some 7% of worldwide emissions.”
We applaud all strides in emission reduction, but ultimately we must do more. The way we build today is unsustainable — a cycle of too much, too big, and too often. Conscious Architecture can become the norm to ensure that we — and the planet — thrive.
Earth Day Observations
Earth Day means a variety of things to the MCTIGUE team, and we’ll all be observing in multiple ways. Here are three reflections from us to you:
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