Ryan Bruer

The Trade-Skillset Dialectic

A disregard for skilled construction workers will undermine the building industry’s response to the climate emergency. Reckoning with a history of unhealthy materials will require retraining skilled labour to adapt to low-carbon methods. However, provincial regulation silos thousands of workers into dysfunctional occupations by reducing trades to skillsets. Without a framework that engenders dignity and responsibility, these workers will lack the vocational momentum to transform the building sector to meet the impending climate crisis regulations. The change begins by overhauling the nomenclature of designated trades in provincial law and integrating the new trade amalgamations with training centre networks.

This thesis proposes a new trade to be adopted into provincial legislation: the Enclosure Specialist. Amalgamating trades like the EIFS (Exterior Insulating Finishing Systems) Mechanic into a single trade to fill a hole in industry knowledge of insulation products and enclosure systems. In this way they would carry the responsibility and capacity to adopt new climate positive methods.

By resolving the Trade-Skillset dialectic through the creation of a holistic trade, The Enclosure Specialist accomplishes both labour and climate goals simultaneously. Workers have vocational longevity and a trade which inaugurates a new era of standardized wall assemblies offering low-embodied carbon solutions.

The Trade-Skillset Dialectic
Demonstrations of EIFS Mechanic skillsets as the application of products.

Borrowing Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialectic as a template, I make my own Trade-Skillset Dialectic. The “Trade” determines the scope of practice, but beyond this has powerful social dimensions of individual identity and vocation. The “Skillset” interfaces with the physical world, constructing the edifice, and edifying the hands that made it. Like the development of the conscious spirit, workers require internalized coordination between these two elements to develop. Continuing education is not a modern criteria but an epistemological certainty; this certainty is an asset as we trade up for climate-positive construction.

O. Reg. 275/11: Scope of Practice – Trades in the Construction Sector (Diagram)
Ontario Reg. 275/11.13.1-7: The trade is siloed into stif exercises of product application, limiting the potential of a labour force.

Embodied Carbon analysis of EIFS systems

I find that the EIFS Mechanic is exemplar of a dysfunction between trade and skillset as stipulated in provincial law. The scope of practice exclusively limits the construction of specific wall assemblies. I delaminate various EIFS systems and create a database of the materials, provenance, and embodied carbon per assembly layer. For example the blue layer represents the impact of the XPS foam. These studies provide a baseline to consider how a similar trade could expand to include low-carbon alternatives.

Composition of products used in the STO Powerwall ci – Outbound by layer
The 'STO Powerwall ci' is the most complex system offered by STO. I delaminate the assembly by layer (kgCO2e / m2)
This system represents to lowest impact possible, substituting for lowest-embodied products in use.
The range of carbon impact by EIFS systems. If you consider the designlife of these systems, the impact would increase exponentially [60 year building life/10 year design life = 5 replacement cycles]

Interview with Patricia

I was connected to Patricia through her training provider. She is a EIFS Mechanic. Our discussion raised many concerns about the issues on the work site: no continuing education, lack of on-site coordination, and no future career in EIFS – despite her pride for the skills and competency she has.  This conversation informs a new model of building which prioritizes laborers like Patricia to lead us into these new material cultures. A model of building which orbits around the trades. The training centre hosts all the constituents of building on one site – producers, manufacturers, employers.

Patricia

A New Model of Building

Acknowledging the complexity of industry coordination which would be active throughout this process, I recommend that a network of training centres are the only way to administrate a new model of building.  The training centre hosts all the constituents of building on one site – producers, manufacturers, employers.

Building in Ontario: Government, Developers, Manufacturers, Designers/Consultants, Employer Associations, Industry Associations, Building Officials, Labour Unions, Colleges, and Training Providers.
I experiment with existing models and remap building's constituents onto them. “What is building" asks what are the relationships between these symbols, what remains unseen, and then what framework can allow us to meaningfully intervene.
I find Dante's model of the universe more applicable. This sketch of the universe is a model maintained by human narrative. Medieval man was not a dreamer nor wanderer. He was an organiser, a codifier, a builder of systems so that the meaningful narratives that organized their society constantly orbit around and refer to the mundane, daily lives to the individuals which reinforce it.
In this model the training centre is the site. Concentric rings represent the various strata of building: producers, officials, manufactures, employers – all of which are intersected by the training centre.
A concept diagram showing the aspirations of the Training Centre

The Training Centre

The centre becomes a laboratory where these assemblies are tested and refined by those who will build them. Panelized systems are hoisted to place, cladding fastened only to be re-examined by the next group of apprentices – cycles of assembly and disassembly exhibited. The enclosure specialist training centre is where the ephemeral nature of architecture starts to be disclosed

I selected the existing LiUNA 506 TRAINING CENTRE as a test site for the new model of building. The site is a mix of conservation land and training facilities.  I keep the existing buildings and look to design a 6000sq/m training centre for the Enclosure Specialist Trade.

 

Site perspective
SITE: 1600 Major Mackenzie Dr. E., Richmond Hill, ON
Site Plan
Site Model
Site section, partial axonometric of mock-up gallery
Axonomentric of classroom
Plan showing the training centre, apprentice residencies, officials offices, manufacturer incubators, and contractor workshops

Dynamic Trade/Skillsets

The short term mandate is take the easy-wins – eliminate the largest carbon offenders, and transition the knowledge and skill sets to lower carbon materials. The long term goal is to change the supply chain and integrate natural materials into the trades.  Earth construction, hemp, and straw offer opportunities to replace traditional assemblies. None of these are miracle methods but make excellent addition to the ‘tool-kit’ of building solutions.

Alternative wall assemblies using hemp, straw, and earth
Apprentices build mock-ups in classroom courtyards
The S-SIPs, timber framed hay bales sealed with plaster, wait to be completed as the workers rest.
Prefabricated earth panels transit through the training centre network

Towards Halving the embodied carbon of construction by 2050

The Enclosure Specialist is on the critical path to halving the embodied carbon of construction by 2050.  The long term goal is to change the supply chain and integrate natural materials into the trades.  Even before adjusting my comparison of assemblies to match the thermal resistance, the reduction of embodied carbon compared to EIFS is immense. Earth construction, hemp, and straw offer opportunities to replace traditional assemblies. These types become the baseline for the training at the centre.

These are simple assemblies with low impact. For earth construction, so long as the mixture is sans-cement, the transportation is the primary impact to embodied energy and embodied carbon, (as much as 80% the total), it is difficult to calculate a useful generic number – needless to say it is very low.
Comparative analysis of EIFS and Enclosure Specialist assemblies showing kgCO2e/m2 and RSI values

Building/Training Network

The Enclosure Specialist is not just a prelude to the building but instead the primary organizer of sequences within building; sequences which interface with all the numerous stakeholders within a construction process. Resolution of the Trade-Skillset dialectic would inherently assign authority and responsibility to the trade as they negotiate these sequences so that they are no longer a means to an end. The training center and building site collapse into the same epistemological space so that deployable low-carbon solutions can be generated by the trades – transforming building from the bottom up.