High-performance buildings are designed to protect people during extreme conditions but survivability isn’t guaranteed by good design alone. It’s often won or lost during execution.
In this session, Mark Attard explores where resilient building strategies break down between design intent and real-world delivery. From material substitutions and sequencing mistakes to communication gaps between teams, he’ll unpack the common field failures that can compromise building performance when it matters most.
Drawing from firsthand project experience, Mark will share a practical framework for evaluating materials beyond the spec sheet, asking better questions before products are specified or substituted, and building accountability into every phase of construction.
Attendees will leave with a simple field-tested checklist they can apply immediately to help ensure the buildings they design actually perform as intended during extreme heat, outages, wildfire smoke events, and other disruptions.
What you’ll learn:
Where survivability strategies commonly break down between design and construction
How to evaluate materials for real-world performance under extreme conditions
Ways to prevent costly communication and sequencing failures in the field
A practical audit framework to help ensure what gets built matches the original performance goals
Mark Attard is the founder and director of Point 6 LLC, where he helps architects, builders, developers, and municipalities deliver verifiably better buildings through Passive House analysis, energy modeling, site training, and project verification. With experience spanning field supervision, executive leadership, and business development, Mark brings a full-spectrum perspective on how teams can close the gap between design ambition and real-world execution.