Zero Ambitions Podcast

We spoke to Tara Gbolade and Marianne Heaslip about how work towards demand reduction and healing our homes must be grounded in social justice. In what will be one of many conversations on these themes, we discuss the gender, race and class barriers within the construction industry, and explore ways that we can promote broader, truly diverse and representative design and construction teams.

Show Notes

Tara Gbolade is an architect, passivhouse designer and cofounder of Gbolade Design Studio, a design-led, community centred practice, focused on sustainable design. She is a member of the Architect’s Declare steering group, sits on a number of design panels and co-founded the Paradigm Network, an organisation that champions black and asian representation in the built environment: https://www.paradigmnetwork.co.uk 
 
Marianne Heaslip is an architect and expert in retrofit, low carbon design, building performance evaluation and participative design. She is an Associate Principle at URBED, works in collaboration with Carbon Coop and plays a key role in People Powered Retrofit, an organisation that exists to tackle many of the barriers homeowners face in commissioning retrofit work on their homes: https://retrofit.coop   
 
Our conversation started with a run-down of International Women’s day and the current state of the industry and went on to explore topics such as: how retrofit needs to be user-centred, solving complex problems by bringing broader voices to the table, and how we can learn from pioneers such as Wangari Maathai and Kate Raworth, who stepped outside and beyond their professions to have wide-ranging positive impacts. 
 
Tara and Marianne signposted lots of fantastic resources:
Book: Culture is Bad for You: Orian Brook, Dave O'Brien and Mark Taylor: https://thesociologicalreview.org/reviews/culture-is-bad-for-you-by-brook-obrien-and-taylor/
Book: Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking: Matthew Syed
Community Organisation: Homebaked Community Land Trust: https://homebaked.org.uk/ 
Training Organisation: B4Box: https://b4box.co.uk
 
Plus a few more post-podcast references:
Community Organisation: Arts Emergency: https://www.arts-emergency.org 
Book: Programmed Inequality: Mar Hicks: https://programmedinequality.com 
 
And don’t forget to check out: 
https://www.paradigmnetwork.co.uk 
https://retrofit.coop  
https://www.gboladedesignstudio.com
http://urbed.coop
https://carbon.coop 

What is Zero Ambitions Podcast?

Zero Ambitions is a consultancy and weekly podcast about sustainability and the built environment.

We find interesting and experienced guests who know what they're talking about, usually to discuss how we navigate the complexity of decarbonisation and sustainability in the built environment and its many related sectors.

The success of the podcast has seen it grow into a consultancy, Zero Ambitions Partners. The consultancy works with blue chip clients, public sector institutions, and niche-market innovators that operate in the built environment, advising about the development and delivery of sustainability strategy and how it should be communicated.

Hosted by Jeff Colley (Passive House Plus), Dan Hyde (Everything is User Experience) and Alex Blondin (Everything is User Experience).