Episodes

  • Ep 6: The Evidence Gap with Kati Peditto and Stacey Root

    Ep 6: The Evidence Gap with Kati Peditto and Stacey Root
    Jun 23 2026
    There is a gap between what design teams know about human behavior and what actually ends up in a building. Research exists. Tools exist. The problem is getting evidence into the process before it is too late to act on it. In this episode, design researcher Kati Peditto and architect Stacey Root dig into how that gap closes. GUESTS Kati Peditto is Principal Researcher at Built Experience Lab, where she studies and consults on the intersection of human behavior and the built environment. With a PhD in human behavior and design, Kati has worked across healthcare, K-12, and higher education projects at multiple firms, bringing research into the design process at every phase from pre-design through post-occupancy. Her work focuses on turning evidence into design decisions that produce measurable outcomes for patients, staff, students, and communities. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katipeditto/ Stacey Root is Health Practice Leader for the Denver Office of Cannon Design, with deep experience in healthcare architecture, IPD, and design-build delivery. Stacey returns to the conversation to offer the practitioner's perspective on how research integrates with the realities of project teams, budgets, and client expectations. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceymroot/ IN THIS EPISODE Why evidence-based design is not about finding articles that validate decisions already made, and what real evidence actually looks like on a projectHow design researchers work across pre-design, schematic design, and design development, and why post-occupancy evaluation only works when research starts at the beginningWhy research fees get cut from project budgets even when the return on investment is documented, and what it would take to change thatHow real-time research methods are beginning to replace the pause-and-study model, and what that means for how design teams make decisions under pressureWhat happens to the cognitive health of designers when budgets are tight, schedules are compressed, and competing priorities never stopWhy healthcare led the adoption of evidence-based design, and where K-12 and higher education are catching up TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Introductions and what brought Kati and Stacey into this conversation 01:48 - Kati's background: why a PhD in human behavior landed her in architecture, not a lab 04:36 - The difference between evidence-based design as a marketing term and as an actual practice 06:02 - How architects and researchers work together without getting in each other's way 09:12 - Why every evidence-based design conversation eventually comes back to ROI 09:44 - What a research scope looks like across pre-design, schematic design, and design development 12:03 - Owner timelines and the pressure to compress the front end before research can do its job 13:40 - Researching in real time: why the linear model of study-then-design is giving way to something faster 17:29 - What it would take to connect visioning session data directly to real-time design decisions 18:01 - The owner's role in enabling research and why pulling clinical staff off the floor is the real obstacle 21:28 - The long view: why operational costs over a 50-year building life dwarf pre-project planning and design costs, and why owners still struggle to get there 22:43 - Why healthcare adopted evidence-based design first and where K-12 is now following the same path 24:38 - A current project: a vulnerable California school district and what a post-occupancy study reveals about design decisions made years earlier 27:49 - How to scope a research plan when the options range from cortisol studies to something a school board will actually approve 33:00 - What architecture schools are not teaching designers about cognitive load and task switching under pressure 45:13 - The cognitive health of design teams: what Stacey's office is actually doing about it, not just talking about it 51:30 - Why leadership has to be the one to break the cycle when neither the client nor the firm will RESOURCES MENTIONED Evidence-based design: a framework for informing design decisions through research, lived experience, stakeholder engagement, and measurable outcomes. Grew from evidence-based medicine and is most developed in healthcare design. Learn more at the Center for Health Design: www.healthdesign.orgHCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems): a national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patients' perspectives of hospital care, developed by CMS and AHRQ. Referenced in the episode as an example of owner-side outcome metrics that evidence-based design directly influences. Since 2012, HCAHPS scores have played a role in hospital payment through the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing program. Learn more: www.cms.gov/medicare/quality/initiatives/hospital-quality-initiative/hcahps-patients-perspectives-care-surveyAIA Framework for Design Excellence: a ten-principle framework defining design excellence in the 21st ...
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    54 mins
  • Ep 5: Filling in the White Space with Stacey Root

    Ep 5: Filling in the White Space with Stacey Root
    Jun 16 2026

    There is a common assumption that an architect is handed a business plan and disappears for six months before reappearing with a finished set of drawings. The actual process is messier, slower, and far more human than that. In this episode, Stacey Root walks through what design really looks like from the inside: the rework nobody plans for, the gap between a sketch and a finished room, and why the best architects describe themselves as "orchestrators" rather than "designers".

    GUEST

    Stacey Root is Health Practice Leader with deep experience in healthcare architecture, IPD, and design-build delivery. Stacey brings a practitioner's candor to what the design process actually involves, the costs of rework, and what it takes to build trust on a project team.

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceymroot/

    IN THIS EPISODE

    • Why Stacey describes herself as an orchestrator rather than a designer, and what that distinction means for how she builds project teams
    • How some firms use data analysis to remove ambiguity from early decisions before the design team is ever handed the problem
    • Why rework is the most frustrating part of the design process, and the difference between productive iteration and waste
    • What actually happens during schematic design, design development, and construction documents, and why pricing usually arrives too late to prevent surprises
    • Why bringing the contractor in early changes the kind of input they can offer, and why bringing them in late costs the project more than people realize
    • A stucco building in Utah that turned a tight design-build budget into one of Stacey's favorite project stories, and a Colorado project that went a half-million dollars over budget because no one spoke up soon enough

    TIMESTAMPS

    00:00 - Stacey's path to architecture, and why her childhood aptitude test said firefighter 01:38 - Why Stacey calls herself an orchestrator, not a designer 04:37 - The harder parts of the job: assembling the right people in the right seats 07:14 - Rework: the most frustrating and most common waste in the design process 09:01 - How data analysis can help bridge the gap between strategy and design 11:02 - Walking through the design process: schematic design, DDs, and construction documents 17:08 - Why bringing a contractor in late limits the value of their input 22:15 - Generalist or specialist: how Stacey balances competing priorities across a project team 23:50 - The Utah hospital project: a stucco budget turned into a design challenge worth celebrating 28:38 - A counterpoint: a Colorado project that ended up significantly over budget, and what Stacey wishes she had said sooner 30:40 - Advice to her younger self and to project teams: ask more questions, and build a culture where people feel safe doing it 33:06 - The lesson Stacey would give her younger self about not needing to fit a mold

    RESOURCES MENTIONED

    • AIA Document B101, Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Architect: defines the five phases of basic architectural services referenced in this episode (schematic design, design development, construction documents, procurement, and construction)

    WHERE TO FIND STACEY

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceymroot/ Canon Design: https://www.cannondesign.com/
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    36 mins
  • Ep 4: Before the First Drawing with Stacey Root and Chad Kruse

    Ep 4: Before the First Drawing with Stacey Root and Chad Kruse
    Jun 9 2026
    The moment a project moves from conception into design, something shifts. The owner's questions change, the team changes, and the leadership required to hold it all together changes. Most projects never acknowledge that transition out loud. This episode is about what happens when you do. GUESTS Stacey Root is Health Practice Leader for the Denver Office of Canon Design, with deep experience in IPD, design-build, and complex healthcare projects. Stacey brings a practitioner's honesty to what onboarding actually looks like from the design side, and what owners rarely understand about the process they are putting teams through. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceymroot/ Chad Kruse is Executive Director and Project Advisor at Nebraska Medicine, where he provides business support for strategic and campus planning. Chad joins as co-host throughout the series, offering the owner's perspective as the conversation moves from concept to concrete. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-kruse-6714b47/ IN THIS EPISODE Why owners often answer the question of what before they have answered the question of why, and what that costs once design beginsHow some design firms are embedding strategy and data analysis upstream of architecture to help owners arrive at design ready, not just willingWhy bringing designers on too early can be just as damaging as bringing them on too late, and what the right timing actually looks likeWhat the RFP process does well, what it fails to do, and why both owners and designers are complicit in a process neither side thinks is workingHow the best owners structure selection around team chemistry and problem-solving rather than page counts and project resumesWhy chartering works on paper and fails in practice, and what it actually takes to hold a team to what it agreed to in that room TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Introduction: when leadership changes hands and no one says so 01:50 - Stacey's introduction and what her real job description actually is 03:35 - The most common misunderstanding between owners and designers at project launch 05:22 - Brought on too early, too late, or just right: what timing looks like from the design side 07:10 - How Canon's Blue Cottage team works upstream of architecture to ground projects in data 09:16 - Why owners answer what before they answer why, and what that costs in design 11:04 - When smaller owners rely on their designers to fill the strategy gap 13:43 - Is there value in bringing designers into ambiguity, or does it just slow things down 15:00 - The RFP process: what it is supposed to do and what it actually does 16:27 - Stacey's 80-page response, 50-minute interview, and what that signals about how owners decide 18:55 - How one owner ran a work session instead of a pony show and what the team learned 20:29 - Chad on running two procurement processes simultaneously and why he weights interviews at 70% 26:07 - Selecting teams instead of firms: why Chad asks designers and builders to come as a package 31:29 - Chartering: what it looks like when it works and why it almost never does 35:28 - Why owners think they are giving context when they are actually giving ambiguity 37:38 - What happens when the owner preaches collaboration and then does not behave it 39:32 - Why the owner's representative in the room is the difference between IPD and theater 41:00 - The owner's role is not to have all the answers; it is to hold the team accountable RESOURCES MENTIONED Canon Design Blue Cottage: strategic advisory and data analysis arm of Canon Design, referenced in the context of upstream owner strategy workOwner Project Requirements (OPR): referenced by Chad as a foundational document that most projects launch withoutGallup CliftonStrengths: referenced by Chad in the context of team selection and understanding how people are wiredIPD chartering process: referenced throughout as both a best practice and a commonly misapplied one WHERE TO FIND STACEY LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceymroot/ Canon Design: https://www.canondesign.com
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    52 mins
  • Ep 3: No Perfect Answer with Chad Kruse, James Peace, Howard Ashcroft

    Ep 3: No Perfect Answer with Chad Kruse, James Peace, Howard Ashcroft
    Jun 2 2026
    Every owner eventually has to choose a delivery method. Design-bid-build, CM at risk, design-build, IPD. On paper they all promise something different. In practice, the choice ripples through every decision that follows: the team, the risk, the contingency, the contract, and ultimately whether the project succeeds or fails. In this episode, two of the most experienced practitioners in collaborative project delivery break down what owners get right, what they get wrong, and why the contract is never the solution, only the enabler. GUESTS Howard Ashcraft is a Partner at Hanson Bridgett LLP and one of the leading construction attorneys in the country on project delivery and integrated project delivery. He has structured 150 to 180 pure IPD projects over his career and was among the first practitioners involved in developing what became lean integrated project delivery. He is a Fellow of both the American College and Canadian College of Construction Lawyers, a member of the National Academy of Construction, an Associate Fellow at the Said Business School at Oxford, and the author of a forthcoming book on contracting for integrated project delivery to be published by Wiley in 2026. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howard-ashcraft-7485178/ James Pease is Vice President of Health Major Capital Projects at UCSF Health, where he is currently leading a $7 billion-plus program including a $4.5 billion adult hospital expansion and a $1.62 billion children's hospital expansion, both using integrated project delivery. He has delivered more than $8 billion in complex healthcare projects across his career and has worked on more than 25 IPD projects. He is also the founder and executive editor of leanipd.com, a practitioner-focused resource on lean and integrated project delivery. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamespease/ Chad Kruse is Executive Director and Project Advisor at Nebraska Medicine, where he provides business support for strategic and campus planning. Chad joins as co-host throughout the series, offering the owner's perspective as the conversation moves from concept to concrete. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-kruse-6714b47/ WHAT YOU WILL LEARN Why design-bid-build makes perfect sense until you have actually worked in design and construction, and what the data says about final project cost versus bid priceHow to match delivery method to project type, owner capability, and the likelihood of scope change during executionWhy the contract is an enabler and not a solution, and what happens to collaborative projects when things go sideways under a traditional contractHow owner resource requirements differ dramatically across delivery models, and why IPD front-loads people rather than back-loading themHow contingency works differently in fragmented versus collaborative delivery, and why shared project contingency changes team behaviorWhy risk cannot be transferred through a contract and what actually happens to risk when you try TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Introduction and framing the delivery method decision02:21 - Howard's background: 150 to 180 IPD projects and why project delivery became his focus03:40 - James's background: $8 billion in healthcare delivery and the leanipd.com resource05:01 - Why design-bid-build makes sense on paper and falls apart in practice09:45 - How project complexity and likelihood of change should drive delivery method selection11:52 - Owner resource requirements: how delivery method shapes team size from start to finish15:17 - More people upfront, fewer at the end: James on IPD staffing at UCSF20:45 - How to phase team onboarding and avoid bringing partners on before you need them23:37 - The Brooks Act, the Spearin doctrine, and how procurement law affects collaborative delivery25:59 - Public versus private procurement rules and why Canada has more IPD public projects than the US28:33 - How owners ensure competitive pricing in negotiated contracts32:36 - Why James uses all delivery models at UCSF, and what drives the selection on each project36:34 - Contingency: how it works in fragmented delivery versus collaborative delivery39:13 - The risk register as a secret weapon versus a shared tool, depending on delivery model43:40 - Can contracts actually transfer risk, or does risk just move to the least capitalized party47:50 - Parting shots: what owners need to understand first before choosing any delivery method RESOURCES MENTIONED Ashcraft, H. (forthcoming 2026). Contracting for Integrated Project Delivery. Wiley.leanipd.com - James Pease's practitioner resource on lean and integrated project deliveryThe Spearin Doctrine: United States v. Spearin, 248 U.S. 132 (1918)The Brooks Act: governing quality-based selection of design professionals on federal projectsKingston Third Crossing, Ontario, Canada: referenced as an example of mid-project design adaptation under a collaborative delivery model WHERE TO FIND HOWARD LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howard-ashcraft-...
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    51 mins
  • Ep 2: Front-End Planning and Why It's Failing with Dr. Ed Gibson and Mr. Chad Kruse

    Ep 2: Front-End Planning and Why It's Failing with Dr. Ed Gibson and Mr. Chad Kruse
    May 26 2026
    Front-end planning has been studied for decades. The data is clear, the tools exist, and the ROI is documented across more than 1,300 projects and $100 billion in capital work. And yet the industry is getting worse at it, not better. In this episode, we talk to the researcher who helped build the evidence base, and ask why none of it seems to stick. GUESTS Dr. Ed Gibson is President and CEO of the National Academy of Construction and Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University. A civil engineer by training, Ed has spent more than three decades researching front-end planning and capital project performance. His work through the Construction Industry Institute helped develop foundational tools including PDRI, the Project Definition Rating Index, now used on projects across every major sector. If you have ever used the term front-end planning instead of pre-project planning, there is a good chance Ed's research influenced why. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/g-edward-gibson-jr-pe-phd-dist-m-asce-nac-600b9128/ Chad Kruse is Executive Director and Project Advisor at Nebraska Medicine, where he provides business support for strategic and campus planning. Chad joins as co-host throughout the series, offering the owner's perspective as the conversation moves from concept to concrete. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-kruse-6714b47/ WHAT YOU WILL LEARN Why the industry is performing worse at front-end planning today than it was 30 years ago, and what specifically drove that declineThe three phases of front-end planning and what a mature scope actually means before a project moves into executionWhy the best time to kill a project is during planning, and how good front-end work makes that decision possibleWhat PDRI measures, how it is commonly misused, and why the discussion it generates matters more than the scoreWhy front-end planning went from 90% technical to 90% people in Ed's view over his careerHow to staff a planning team, why new graduates should never lead planning work, and what experience profile actually predicts success in the owner's seat TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Introduction01:47 - What the National Academy of Construction is and why it exists04:34 - Why front-end planning is getting worse, not better, and what COVID accelerated07:05 - Slow trigger, fast bullet: why speed at the front creates delay at the back11:33 - The three phases of front-end planning: initiation, concept, and detailed scoping14:55 - Mercedes appetite, Volkswagen budget: scope creep and where it actually starts17:16 - Why keeping end users out of planning backfires every time25:45 - How to get the right stakeholders in the room without sinking the process27:40 - Front-end planning as both art and science: form versus function33:53 - PDRI: what it is, how it works, and why the conversation it generates is the real value46:17 - How to build and train an owner's planning team from the ground up52:50 - Ed's five things you need to know about front-end planning56:16 - Why Ed reversed his view: from 90% technical to 90% people RESOURCES MENTIONED Gibson, G.E., Wang, Y., Cho, C., and Pappas, M. (2006). "What is preproject planning, anyway?" Journal of Management in Engineering, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 35-42.Ed Gibson's research on front-end planning performance: approximately 1,300 projects representing over $100 billion in capital work, conducted through the Construction Industry InstitutePDRI, Project Definition Rating Index (Construction Industry Institute): construction-institute.orgNational Academy of Construction: naocon.orgGallup CliftonStrengths WHERE TO FIND ED LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/g-edward-gibson-jr-pe-phd-dist-m-asce-nac-600b9128/ National Academy of Construction: https://www.naocon.org
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • Ep 1: The Owner's Role with Chad Kruse

    Ep 1: The Owner's Role with Chad Kruse
    May 23 2026

    Nobody wakes up wanting to be an owner. But the owner's seat might be the most consequential seat in design and construction, and it is the least understood. In this first episode, we start where every project starts: with the person who has to hold it all together before anyone else is even in the room.

    GUEST

    Chad Kruse is Executive Director and Project Advisor at Nebraska Medicine, where he provides business support for strategic and campus planning across one of the country's major academic medical centers. With 25 years in the industry spanning general contracting, design firms, and owner roles, Chad brings a perspective that is equal parts operational and deeply human. He is one of the clearest thinkers in the business on what it actually means to lead from the owner's seat.

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-kruse-6714b47/

    WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

    • Why the owner's role is consistently underestimated and what genuine owner leadership actually looks like in practice
    • How the pressure to move fast at the start of a project creates problems that no amount of good design or construction can fix later
    • Why picking the right team has more to do with people than brands, and how Chad approaches that decision under time pressure
    • How front-end planning works at the project level, and why you cannot rush or replicate that time
    • What procurement and contracting choices signal about an owner's priorities before a single drawing is made
    • Why Chad's institution pursued IPD, what surprised them when they got into it, and what integration actually looks like when it stops being a philosophy and becomes daily behavior

    TIMESTAMPS

    • 00:00 - Introduction and what this podcast is trying to do
    • 03:29 - Chad's background, from GC to owner, and why he keeps coming back
    • 07:21 - What a good owner actually looks like and the stewardship mindset
    • 09:30 - The convergence challenge: clinical, operational, financial, and design, all at once
    • 13:25 - Why you cannot fast-forward front-end planning, at the project or career level
    • 17:46 - A real $30M project that started with a phone call and what made it work
    • 19:50 - How procurement and contracting decisions shape everything downstream
    • 22:13 - Why owners need sociology more than technical expertise
    • 27:37 - Picking teams: people over brands, and what that looks like under pressure
    • 32:26 - Staying ahead of how the industry is changing
    • 34:03 - IPD in practice: what Chad's institution learned going through it for the first time
    • 39:39 - Advice for anyone who wants to get into the owner's role

    RESOURCES MENTIONED

    • Gallup CliftonStrengths
    • National Academy of Construction

    WHERE TO FIND CHAD

    • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-kruse-6714b47/ Nebraska Medicine: https://www.nebraskamed.com
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    48 mins