Evolve Builders Group
103 - 123 Woolwich Street N1H 3V1 Guelph, ON, Canada

Tune in this evening for eMERGE Guelph's Steve Tedesco who delivers this years' key note talk to kick off the final week of the Transition Guelph Resilience Festival. (7PM Thursday March 25) Following a 2020 to forget, Steve is going to ask "what can go right" and importantly, what can we each do. For some ideas, check out the festival's final weekend: canning, seed saving, planting, preserving, knitting & darning, more! And to close out the program for the year, join our o...wn Stephen Wilson and Melanie Martin (who also devote their efforts to Ecovillage Guelph), our Ben Polley, together with Mike Craig of Junction Village who can be found breakout rooms to chat about life in an #intentionalcommunity, #climateconscious building or about whatever the mood leads us to! Register for this fun, unique #EarthHour virtual potluck, 6-8PM this Saturday March 27.

So far this year we have in design two #undergroundhomes, two #rammedearth homes on which we are imminently due to begin construction, and one if not two or more #strawbalehomes to construct! These are in addition to another half dozen ultraefficient #PassiveHouse quality homes. All in all its shaping up to be a pretty #climateconscious construction year for Evolve! But our (natural) world will rock when in the future we first get to fabricate with fungi!!! Bring it on #bio...scientists, researchers and precommercial manufacturers...we are ready! Thank you CBC Radio: Spark for another interesting and encouraging story! https://www.cbc.ca//why-fungi-could-be-the-future-of-envir #fungisarethefuture #naturalmaterials #naturalbuilding #carbonneutral #carbonsequestering #lowcarbon #sustainablebuilding #greenbuilding #netzerohomes #biomaterials #bioengineering #bioscience #buildingmaterials

The language used around possession of a home is ordinarily "ownership." We and some of our clients will sometimes instead use the term "stewardship." As stewards, we acknowledge that our use and occupancy of a property followed others before us. Importantly, it suggests a consideration for the generation(s) that in turn follow us. Our clients for this particular project feel themselves fortunate to have come in to past possession of this rare treat of an architecturally desi...gned, modern styled, urban retreat in the middle of a small woods. They wish to respect the original #architects design yet update the aging #cladding and shell of this nearly 50 yr old structure to meet today's - and tomorrow's - energy, comfort and #climatechange future. We are thrilled to have been invited to collaborate with such considerate and thoughtful clients. We thank our friend and colleague Whitefish Architecture for the introductions! Presently we are assessing various new exterior finishes, #windowreplacement and critically, new airtight barriers and #climateconscious #lowcarbon #continuousinsulation. Keep watching for the ideas & solutions intended to steward this unique home through the next half century and beyond. #resilience

Our own Ben Polley shares some words of window wisdom in the most recent issue of Fenestration Review magazine And we are busy practicing what he preaches...watch our next post of a future proofing, outsulation retrofit to be carefully performed on a unique architecturally designed, modernist house now reaching its first half-century of life...and in need of upgrades for its next 50 years! #windows #fenestration #glazing #windowinstallation #makeittight #airtight #retrofits #...ultraefficient #energyefficient #buildingenvelope #buildingscience #energymodelling #passivehouse #netzeroenergy #futureproof #renovation #remodel #insulation #continuousinsulation #rvalue #buildingcode #exteriorinsulation https://www.fenestrationreview.com/through-the-wrapper/

Hold the date(s) and check out the agenda. * From-home hands-on workshops (yes, that is a thing!) * Interactive talks * Ideas, interactions, innovation

Its baaaaaack! Resilience Festival online. Check it out!

So incredibly honoured, thankful and excited that #climateconscious construction (through Evolve, our clients and our partners) is the focus of @PendulumEntertainment 's thoughtful new docuseries TV pilot! http://ow.ly/SXNp50Bu6AI No contrived arguments. No staged disasters. Only the true reality of today's building industry and how desperately change is needed - and how in various corners, it is happening!... This is timely and so critically important. And hopefully soon it will be coming to a small screen near you. To help ensure this is so, we ask that you please share widely and tell us what you think! #climateconscious #passivehouse #passivehousecanada #passivehousebuilder #passivehousedesigner #passivehousedesign #passivehouseinstitute #passivehouseplus #passivehaus #highperformancehomes #netzero #buildtight #energyefficiency #sustainability #netzero #netzeroenergy #netzerocarbon #carbonneutral #climatecrisis #buildingscience #healthyhomes #comfortablehomes #sustainablehomes #customhomes #modernhomes

This weekend...much natural building geek-speak, connecting and just plain fun. Check out the schedule here.

Talks, virtual campfire socials, product displays, learning opportunities. This year's Natural Building & Ecological Design Colloquium hosted by O.U.R EcoVillage has it all! Interested in cob, strawbale building, earthen plasters, rammed earth and other natural building systems? Keen to discuss and develop more solutions toward solving the climate crisis? A veritable who's who of those who have been rocking natural building in North America for the past three decades are blended with those who are taking the torch for the next many miles. See you there!

Thanks for your patience! As promised, an interior of Deerwood - a modern home nestled in the forest. Everyone please share thanks too to our gracious clients who are allowing us all into their private refuge with this shoot!! What do you think? Might you too be induced to hole up with a favoured book and enjoy the warm glow of a fire in this space? Or perhaps simply sit back and wait to spy a doe and her fawn ambling by? Maybe, given that it is Friday, you will be given to i...magining (preCOVID of course) the conversations that would flow when you have a house party into this most inviting of spaces? The possibilities...transport yourself in your thoughts into this living room and tell us what you would do this weekend from here? Shout out to Grand Valley Tile & Flooring for this perfect hearth and surround! And of course same to Winter, Michel, James, Jon, Darryl, Lisa, Luke, Dan, and Dwight who are always the unsung heroes that set the stage perfectly for others to shine!!!! Solares Architecture Inc. #climateconscious #highperformancehomes #netzero #buildtight #energyefficiency #sustainability #netzero #netzeroenergy #netzerocarbon #carbonneutral #climatecrisis #buildingscience #healthyhomes #comfortablehomes #sustainablehomes #customhomes #modernhomes #fireplace #hearth

*SWIPE* Commuting! And games?? This is the view on my daily walk to work to our downtown Guelph office in the storied Trafalgar creative arts building. A serene start to the day! For the next month this walk - and the footsteps taken by each of our staff - will take on additional meaning. Evolve has created an internal game where we compete not against one another but against a benchmark that we then work to beat as part of training in developing projections and monitoring k...ey performance indicators (KPIs). And like all games, there is a prize - this one chosen by staff - to be awarded if we collectively win! The game which has been dubbed Stairway to Heaven, will have us compare historical records of how many steps we each ordinarily average per day with our totals over the next 6 weeks. The challenge will be to exceed our norms by a predetermined amount. If we do, then we win! Oh and the prize invented by our team? Evolve principals Ben Polley and Chris Vander Hout will have to do their best Led Zepplelin impression and live perform Stairway for you and all to see!!! Interested? Please encourage our team along here! At regular intervals we will send updates as to how close we are to putting a mic in front of Ben and Chris! #gamification #training #kpi #keyperformanceindicators #greatgameofbusiness #makemyday #evolvebuildersgroup

Prospective clients are quite understandably always interested in peeking into the homes of past clients. Construction quality. Finish materials. Even more general curiosity such as "what does a Passive House heating system look like?" Pre-COVID, we frequently arranged visits between past and future clients for this expressed purpose. Can't visit in person? Well, join architect Craig England of @ph43architecture on his video tour of our recently completed Fort Erie "100 yea...r house" project, with kind permission of the owners. It is only missing the offer of tea and cookies but I am certain it will delight nonetheless! What do you think? Any details that you are curious about? Any questions on what you are seeing? #climateconscious #passivehouse #passivehousecanada #passivehousebuilder #passivehousedesigner #passivehousedesign #passivehouseinstitute #passivehouseplus #passivehaus #highperformancehomes #netzero #buildtight #energyefficiency #sustainability #netzero #netzeroenergy #netzerocarbon #carbonneutral #climatecrisis #buildingscience #healthyhomes #comfortablehomes #sustainablehomes #customhomes #modernhomes #customhome

Behavioural psychology. You know that feeling of well-being, even security, that certain spaces seem to secretly somehow cast over you? Did your mind just go to your own safe, happy spot? And even while you know that this space makes you feel contented, can you pinpoint what it is about those surroundings that makes it so? The Theory of Prospect and Refuge seeks to unlock these internal senses. It proposes that we possess an innate, instinctual need to observe (Prospect) ye...t simultaneously be protected from observation (Refuge). It suggests that our ancestors sought views - from which to see prey or a path of escape - combined with shelter at their backs and above - from which to safely strike or to hide - and that this survival instinct remains with us today, if only unconsciously. Applied to contemporary #architecture, this theory underpins Sarah Susanka's "The Not So Big House" book. It does the same for architectural strategies of "compression zone" techniques. Or here at DeerWood, where it is expressed in the form of this entry. (wait til u see the reverse view!) Where is your happy place? Does this theory seem to explain why your place feels so good? Share! . @Solaresarch #behavioralpsychology #notsobig #moderndesign #prospectandrefuge