Sustainability rhetoric is unsustainable. From expensive curtain-wall glass assemblies to checklist driven design solutions, green building is not only unaffordable; the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. Let’s shred our green shroud and design first and foremost for people, not planet.

The Panel

Joe Dahmen is founder of AFJD and assistant professor of design and sustainability integration at the UBC’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, where he teaches design studios and building technology courses.

Kaitlyn Gillis is project manager at Light House Sustainable Building Centre. Her most recent research looked at the restorative potential of biophilic design in work and living spaces.

Nicholas Waissbluth is an artist, architectural designer and cofounder of uAbureau, an international collective based in Spain, Canada and Colombia. His work seeks to promote and showcase social + participatory design build projects.

Caitlin Jones is the Executive Director of the Western Front Society in Vancouver. Last year, she curated Urgent Imagination, a two-part project that proposed creative alternatives to Vancouver’s current mode of developer-driven architecture and urban planning.

About Turncoats

Vancouver's Architectural debates are rubbish.

We've all been there: a panel of similar designers with similar views taking it in turns to talk at length about their similar work - too polite, too deferential, too dull. At best they are lukewarm love-ins, critically impotent, elitist and stuffy. Turncoats is a shot in the arm. Framed by theatrically provocative opening gambits, a series of debates will rugby tackle fundamental issues facing contemporary practice with a playful and combative format designed to foment open and critical discussion, turning conventional consensus on its head.