10:30 - 11:30 AM | Breakout Sessions
+ Material Agency Reconsidered: From Specifications to Stewardship
Material agency is often framed as innovation—smart materials, new technologies, or biomimicry. This session challenges that assumption. Instead, it reframes material agency as an ethic of care rooted in time, memory, and responsibility across the full lifecycle of building materials.
Using concrete and other durable construction materials as primary case studies, the presentation explores buildings as anthropogenic archives—repositories of embodied carbon, labor, performance data, and future value—and cities as emerging urban quarries. From specifications and durability design to adaptive reuse, deconstruction, and material recovery, the session positions architects, specifiers, and constructors as custodians rather than inventors.
Attendees will gain a new framework for thinking about material selection, specification strategy, and lifecycle performance—one that aligns sustainability, risk management, and long-term value creation with CSI’s core mission of advancing the science and practice of building construction.
Learning Objectives:
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Understand buildings as material archives, with implications for specifications, durability, embodied carbon, and future reuse.
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Apply lifecycle thinking to concrete and other structural materials, connecting design decisions to maintenance, adaptation, and end-of-life scenarios.
Speakers:
Frank Mruk, CSI, FAIA, RIBA, LEED AP, Senior Director Building Innovation, NRMCA
Philip D. Allsopp, D.Arch., M.S.(Public Health), RIBA, CSBA, CEO of Orbis Dynamics Inc.
This session is approved for 1 AIA HSW LU.
+ Electronic Leak Detection: Lessons Learned from ELD Testing and Continuous Monitoring for Roofing
This one-hour course provides practical insights and proven lessons from over 20 case studies involving Electronic Leak Detection (ELD) in a variety of roofing applications. Participants will explore the use of ELD for quality control testing during new construction, forensic investigation of active leaks in existing buildings, and continuous moisture monitoring of conventional roofing systems.
The course will review key principles from ASTM D7877 – Standard Guide for Electronic Methods for Detecting and Locating Leaks in Waterproof Membranes and ASTM D8231 – Standard Practice for ELD on Roofing and Waterproofing Membranes, helping attendees understand proper testing methods and avoid common sources of moisture intrusion. By the end of the session, participants will be equipped to apply ELD testing more effectively as part of comprehensive roof quality assurance and maintenance programs.
Learning Objectives:
Speaker:
Shaun Katz, Product Line Manager, Detec Systems
This session is approved for 1 AIA HSW LU.
+ Elevate Everyday to Gourmet: Crafting High-Performance Architectural Specifications
Most Specifications are written the way weeknight dinners are cooked — familiar, repetitive, and safe. We copy from the last project and default to what has always worked. We don’t question ingredients. But what if writing Specifications were more like crafting the perfect Arizona chimichanga? A truly great chimichanga isn’t just a tortilla and fillings dropped into a fryer. It requires quality ingredients, thoughtful seasoning, technique, attention to texture, and artful presentation. The same is true for writing exceptional Specifications.
Specifications play a critical role in project quality, risk management, and design execution. This course uses a culinary metaphor — crafting a gourmet chimichanga — to illustrate how intentional product selection, coordination, quality assurance, and construction administration requirements elevate Specifications from routine documents to strategic project tools.
Learning Objectives:
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Identify common deficiencies in repetitive or generic specification writing and describe strategies for creating project-specific, coordinated content.
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Develop targeted submittal, mockup, and quality assurance requirements that enhance performance, reduce risk, and protect design intent.
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Establish more effective methods for evaluating products, generating standards, and understanding the Architect’s design intent.
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Develop strategies to move your specifications beyond minimum code compliance.
Speakers:
Shelby Fisher, Specifications Manager, Kirksey Architecture
Melody Jackson, Senior Specification Writer, Populous
This session is approved for 1 AIA LU.
+ Reduce the Risk of Flooring Failure Through Flooring Commissioning
Commercial flooring failures exceed $3B/yr. Most warranty claims are denied, despite manufacturer warranties and contractor assurances. This course examines why flooring systems fail and how specification strategies can be used to reduce failure risk through verified installation compliance. Flooring failures have direct impacts on health, safety, and welfare, including trip hazards, prolonged VOC emissions, and mold growth from moisture trapped beneath floor coverings. This course explores the underlying causes of these failures, focusing on the gap between specified requirements and verifiable installation conditions. Participants will examine contributors to this verification gap, including limitations of testing methods, schedule pressures, and systemic conflicts of interest that prevent objective confirmation of compliance. Case studies drawn from 25 years of commercial installations will highlight the hidden, unknown and surprising causes of flooring failures.
Learning Objectives:
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Identify systemic causes of commercial flooring failures—including testing limitations and documentation gaps—and explain how reliance on assumed installation.
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Describe why most commercial flooring warranty claims are denied and evaluate how specifications that lack verification requirements fail to protect building performance, occupant welfare, and professional risk exposure.
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Explain why specification requirements that rely solely on stated compliance are insufficient to prevent flooring failures, and how verification-based specification strategies reduce risk by requiring documented confirmation of installation readiness and environmental conditions.
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Apply Division 01 specification strategies that convert flooring requirements from assumed compliance to documented compliance by establishing acceptance criteria and verification documentation consistent with other critical building systems.
Speaker:
Sylvia Bowman, CSI, CDT, CCPR, Founder, CertiFloor
This session is approved for 1 AIA LU.
+ The Why of PPD: Are We Delivering Documents—or the Owner’s Expectations?
Construction projects generate more information than ever before, yet Owners continue to experience design disconnects, coordination problems, change orders, uncertainty, and difficulty obtaining the information they need to operate the completed asset. The problem is not simply whether we have produced enough documents. It is whether the information created throughout planning, design, construction, and turnover remains connected to the Owner’s original expectations.
The Why of PPD explores Project Planning and Documentation from the perspective of the User Experience. Rather than beginning with specifications, drawings, classifications, or software, the session begins with a more fundamental question: why does project information exist in the first place? Using a deliberately simple narrative approach inspired by The Tao of Pooh, the presentation examines how increasingly sophisticated project processes can sometimes obscure a basic responsibility—to communicate intent clearly enough that the Owner receives the project they believed they were buying.
The session will explore how CSI standards, structured information, specifications, digital workflows, and emerging technologies can support a more continuous information environment—from early Owner requirements through design and construction to facility use. The objective is not simply better documentation, but greater continuity between expectation, decision, documentation, execution, and experience.
Learning Objectives:
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Explain the relationship between Owner expectations and project documentation, and identify how information disconnects introduced during planning, design, procurement, and construction can affect the Owner’s ultimate experience of the completed project.
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Distinguish between producing construction documents and managing project information, recognizing how structured information can preserve design intent and decision-making across the project lifecycle.
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Describe how CSI standards and classification systems can support information continuity by connecting planning, design, specifications, construction, and facility information rather than treating each as an isolated documentation activity.
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Evaluate opportunities within their own project workflows to improve the User Experience, reduce information loss, and strengthen the connection between what the Owner expects, what the project team documents, and what is ultimately delivered.
Speaker:
Keith Robinson, FCSC, FCSI, RSW, LEED AP, CSI Standards Program Strategist
This session is approved for 1 AIA LU.