Winn Darden: I am Winn Darden, business manager for Lumiflon Fluoropolymer Resins for North America. Welcome to our new podcast series called In the Mix, Choosing the Right Coating Solution, where we'll be discussing with industry experts what influences their decision-making processes when it comes to coatings. We'll delve into how experts develop their strategic planning approach to current structural and future market demands. In our first episode, we'll talk with Fiona Levin of IFS Codings and Rowan Georges of SOM New York City on how they, as a coating supplier and architect, develop and meet the requirements of a coating spec in the architectural space. They will educate us on their processes and hopefully talk about some of the challenges that they get along the way for this. So I thank you very much for joining us today. If you guys can give an introduction of yourselves, give us your background and everything, I think that's a good place to start. Rowan Georges: Great, thanks Winn for welcoming us. My name is Rowan Georges. I am the lead specifications writer at SOM. I sit in the New York office, but I also sit over all of the firm-wide specification writers. And I've been at SOM now for upwards of 18 years. It's been a great run and I look forward to working with you on great projects using Lumiflon coatngs. And great to be here. Winn Darden: Thank you. Winn Darden: Fiona, how are you? Winn Darden: Good, good. We see each other several times a year, so. Rowan Georges: My name is Fiona Levin-Smith. I work at IFS Coatings. I've been working in powder coatings for 16 or 17 years now, originally in Europe, and then I implanted to the US about 10 years ago, which is about how long I've known Rowan now, I think, about 10 years. And I look after the architectural specification outside of IFS Coatings as well, which is a lot of fun and keeps me out of trouble. Winn Darden: That's good, good to hear it. And we'll probably see you at AIA would be my guess. Fiona Levin: Yes, sir. And Rowan will be there as well. Winn Darden: You guys are intimately familiar with the design process and also the specification process for coatings. Maybe you guys can walk us through a kind of a typical, procedure that you would start at the beginning and then run through the specification. Rowan Georges: Sure. So historically when we do a facade, which is where we would use the FEVE coatings, we start with a palette and the colors and the sheen from that palette are derived basically from a design or what we're comfortable with, what we've used in the past. And so for us, you cannot separate performance of the actual coating from the selection in the machine. So they go hand in hand. And so we start with, you know, AMMA 2605 compliant coatings. And more recently within the last 10 or so years, we've been focused on getting powder coating as the kind of default for any of our coatings. Again, with an eye towards performance. In recent... times powder coating has enjoyed more use in the Northeast. And that's important because we view that as more environmentally friendly than the other choices on the market. And so we've been leaning heavily in the last three and a half years doing our research into why powder coatings are better. And we've... tried to do a good job in convincing our clients in going that direction where historically liquid coatings have enjoyed the lion's share of the market. But we see some inroads being made in the powder coating industry. Winn Darden: Well, we like to hear that as a powder coating resin supplier, so that's good to us. So you typically work with the AMMA 2605 standard as the one that you shoot for, is that right? Okay. Rowan Georges: That's correct. And there are some caveats there that we can go into more detail. But yes, typically for our exterior facing components, AMMA 2605 is the SOM standard. And then for anything on the interior, we have started doing the AMMA 2604, Winn Darden: Okay. Rowan Georges: whereas before we would default to 2603, but we see value in bumping it up to 2604. Winn Darden: Okay. Fiona, what do you do? How do you and Rowan interact with each other when you get a project like this? Fiona Levin: So whether it's Rowan or where else the project is, then quite often they'll come to us and say, OK, we're looking at a coating for this specific project. And our first question is, what is the performance? Obviously, if we're talking to Rowan, then we know it's going to be 2605 for exterior. If it's elsewhere, then that's a good question. There's different levels of education on powder coating. So we might try and help educate to the different types of powder coating. Cause quite often people don't realize that there are different types or architectural grades of powder. That's a better way to put it. And that you can get 2603, 2604, 2605 types of powder. So we might do a little bit of education there. Um, and obviously with, with SOM and Rowan, we know it's going to be 2605. So, um, then it's, it's literally, okay, what is the the color and the sheen that you're going for, the gloss that you're going for. And then we would look to see what we have available already existing stock colors or pre-formulated, something that we've made in the past, we'd send out samples and colors for the architectural team to look at. And then if they like one of those, then great. If it's well, you know, somewhere between this one and this one, then it becomes a custom color match. And we would match that for them. We turn those matches around pretty quickly and send the panels back. And then it's a tweaking process till we get the exact color that they're looking for. And then that product code that it's an FEVE, Lumiflon, fluoropolymer, that information plus the product code plus the color name and the class would go to Rowan. And that's what... makes it into the spec. Right. Rowan Georges: And I will qualify that when that 2605 statement for exterior only, right? And so we know that once you go to 2603, for instance, there are a lot more choices in terms of specular quality and textures, et cetera, that we might use for interior applications. But the 2605 is primarily used for our monumental exterior high-rise projects. Winn Darden: Okay. Now you mentioned environmental considerations as being a driving factor for using power coatings. Which ones of those are they? You know, they have no solvents. That's a pretty good reason right there. Rowan Georges: We look at everything, so from the actual content of the resin to also how the manufacturing plant is powered, all of these are factors for us. But yes, the biggest one obviously is no solvents. And then the ability for it to be reused, anything that is not used on the first pass, it can be reused. So those are big factors where competitively, if you were to compare it against liquids, they don't really match up. Fiona Levin: And I think some of the other areas as well that can be advantageous is like you said, obviously, no solvents means no VOCs. So that's a huge advantage for the design community. Likewise, the ability to reclaim and then reuse or recycle. But there can be differences in the pretreatment. So powder does not have to go over chrome pretreatment it can go over non-chrome pre-treatment, so that can help with a design push. It has a great embodied carbon footprint comparatively. And so we also have environmental product declarations, EPDs, including one for our fluoropolymer powder range. And so... having that information available, the EPD that we can send to somebody like Rowan who can then use that in the discussion and get all the environmental information from that EPD. We have that for our 2605, obviously the Lumiflon powders that we create. We also have it for 2604 and 2603 powders as well. But having that is a help and that obviously contributes as well. Rowan Georges: Yeah, and to that point when, you know, we are now requiring for all of our projects that EPDs are a sub-biddle requirement. And so that is a huge plus for power decoding. I think all of the major manufacturers have EPDs and that's great. And so we're asking for all of our projects to produce EPDs for our coatings. Winn Darden: Okay, yeah, and I think we're supplying information as well into that area. Obviously, we have a different view of the business, I think, than you guys do, but we do supply information to people who are doing EPDs. Now, what about LEED credits? I'm, you know, as a, I'm one-step removed from where you guys are, but when we talk to architects... they do ask about things like that. And we kind of think we know what's available, but what do you guys look at as far as LEED goes in specing a coating like that? Rowan Georges: Well, I think the current version of LEED 4.1, building product optimization for transparency documentation like EPDs and healthy product declarations gets you credit. So same discussion as before, EPDs go a long way in getting us there. So the recycled content and also the low embodied carbon emissions are valuable. I would say the majority of our domestic projects shoot for LEED certification in some way, and there are other sustainable design platforms that our international projects also ascribe to. Fiona Levin: Have you seen an uptick in the number of LEED projects? Rowan Georges: It's becoming the norm as we struggle, or wrestle rather, with the... Many architecture firms have signed on to the 2020... 30 and 2040 goals to reach net zero. So yeah, I would say for the most part there has been an uptick in those products. Obviously, if it's a private developer client who may not necessarily need to comply with LEED, a lot of these developers are shooting for it regardless because they see it as the smart thing to do since many of their tenants have also subscribed to. more sustainable buildings and tenant fit outs. So yes, I think both in the public and private realm, lead or sustainability in general is very much on the minds of people who own the buildings and people who occupy those spaces. Winn Darden: Are there any other standards that you look at? You know, we have things that are out there like the Red List and some of these other measuring organizations, I guess, or they're looking for material quality and things like that. Rowan Georges: Yeah, I think LEED tries to cover all of that under their general umbrella for sustainable practices. So, you know, the red lists and other transparency documentation or data points all feed into those healthy product declarations that are required that give you that credit for building optimization. So yeah, the red list is one. I'm sure there are many others around the globe that publish these data points. We wish at some point everything becomes more standardized so that we're not checking a million and one lists. But again, it goes back to doing what's right, both in terms of the environment, but also doing what's right in terms of the chemical content and healthy material choices. Fiona Levin: I think that's a conversation that we've had for a long time as well, isn't it? About that it's whether you're designing to lead standards or whether as an architectural practice, you subscribe to aim towards sustainable design, then it's choosing products that can help you achieve that, whether that's an actual LEED credit or whether that's the, okay, we want to be a sustainable design practice. So. Let's push that forward. Rowan Georges: Yeah, and I think for us at SOM, whether or not a building or a project is pursuing LEED certification, we want our spec to be the most environmentally conscious spec and also the most health conscious spec. And so regardless of if you're pursuing that platform or not, what's in our spec is going to be what we feel is the most responsible for the environment and for the occupants of the building. Winn Darden: Okay. What would you like to see if you can change anything in the powder coating or add properties or attributes, I guess, what would you like to see in a powder coating? You know? Rowan Georges: So, and this has been my kind of calling card when it comes to powder coating, right? So I'll give you anecdotally how I even got here. Back in 2010, I believe, I was working on a project in Mexico City and all of the extrusions were coming from Europe, which meant they were going to be powder coated. We would traditionally were a liquid coating firm. That's all we specified that would meet on the 2605. And so when I first got the samples that were being produced out of Europe that were powder coated, they were not as specular, as glossy as I would have liked. And so in general, my feeling was, well, why would I ever specify powder if they're not going to look as glossy as I would have been accustomed to with liquid? And so the question you asked, what would I like to see? I would like to see the AMMA 2605 power coatings improve upon their specular quality. I know that we can do it in 2603 and even 2604 where we get some more exotic metallic finishes. It would be great if we had that same quality in 2605. I know it's asking a lot. If you, not just the IFS coatings, but any and one of the manufacturers that come to see me, I say the same thing every time I see them. Can we improve upon the specular quality of the 2605? So that would be the one ask. Winn Darden: And Fiona, I know you guys are always moving toward adding these properties to your coding in your research lab. Fiona Levin: Yeah, we do a lot of research and obviously trying to meet the different requests. And that's one request obviously from Rowan. We get all sorts of other requests in terms of different colors that are maybe more difficult to achieve. Like a red break one, I think, was one that we talked about last time I was here. And, you know, that comes back down to pigment availability and that type of thing that makes it more difficult to achieve some of the colors. I think we've come a long way in terms of what we can do with metallics and that's improving and changing all the time. Likewise with some of the things that we can do in powder that you can't do in liquid, like some of the speckle, almost a speckle, which makes it sound much bigger than it is. I don't know how else to describe it. It's much smaller and it gives the coating a very, it's kind of good depth and a lot of texture without being physical texture. You know, you don't touch it and feel a texture. it really gives it that kind of multi, slight speckle, and a lot of depth to the coating. And we can achieve that in a 2605 coating. So there's a lot of things that we can do. Even the wood grain stuff now is becoming available in 2605. So there are things that we can do. But there's always a wish list, right? And so when it comes to gloss, we really have a nice range of gloss that we can do in 2605, whether that's down to the kind of matte, low gloss sheens or whether all the way up to about a 70 gloss is possible with a, you know, with a 2605 powder coating. So to extend that even further obviously would be great, but we want to do that without negatively affecting the weathering capability and that's sometimes what holds us back within developing some of those colors or some of those gloss levels or whatever, you know, the effect that we're being asked to develop is sometimes it's because we can do itnbut it's going to negatively affect the weathering capability. And we're choosing 2605 to have good weathering capability. It's the best there is. So we don't want to affect that. It would be, you know, would negate the point of using, using that in the first place. Rowan Georges: But Fiona's right. I mean, they have come a long way since 2010. I mean, what was available in 2010 was really basic for 2605. And so they have made significant inroads in giving us more options. We'd like to see more, just as much as you've done for 2604 and 2603, but I know that it's a slow process. But again, for us, performance and aesthetics cannot be separated. So they have to perform and they have to look great. Winn Darden: Yeah, that's one of the advantages of the FEVE, of course, is you can do that range of gloss. And we do have our own lab over here in the US where we do powder coatings. And one of the things we're working on, we work on metallics as well. So we think there's a big opportunity there for that. So do you guys see design complexity increasing in any of the projects upcoming these days? Rowan Georges: Um, that's, I guess, a relative term. There are, there's always innovation. I like to frame it in that, in that way, in terms of, you know, how the designs are derived. But I think, like just like anything else in the industry, everything evolves with technology. So I would say, you know, making things automated seems to be the next, uh, iteration or even AI, we see as an iteration of how to arrive at a design. And the question will always be, well, how does the fabrication or manufacturing process catch up with that? Or is it a step behind? Or is it on a different track? And so that's always been a challenge, I think, in the industry. But I think just like anything else, everything evolves in time. So the question will always be, are we as... architects and designers current with the industry in terms of practices or are we doing something that's counter to what the industry can can do? Winn Darden: Do you think, is North America kind of a typical market for you? I know you mentioned Mexico City, you guys are doing work down there. Do you see this as North America is being distinct and separate from other parts of the world? Or do you think everybody's demanding of the same thing around the world? Is it something consistent? Rowan Georges: I think if we were to talk about FEVE powder, Northeast has probably been leading the charge. I think North America in general has been a liquid market. And so we've been trying our best to kind of flip that, you know, some areas more successful than others, obviously. But we work globally all over the world and so we do lots of work in the Middle East where FEVE is used. China as well, Far East, Europe, they all are solid markets for powder coat. North America is not quite there yet, but we're trying our best to get it there. Winn Darden: Yeah, I think so. You're doing a pretty good job because we see our resin sales increasing at multiple tens of percentages every year. So we think last year was a breakout year and we think this year is going to be even better for powder. So did you have any other, uh, aspects of this you'd like to talk about Rowan and Fiona? Rowan Georges: Well, I just had one, which is, you know, we are very, what's the word I'm looking for, very active in engaging not just, you know, Fiona or not just Lumiflon, but everyone, including, you know, the applicators, even ownership and creating partnerships and making sure that, you know, everyone's on the same page with this whole embodied carbon, environmental and even healthy material issues, making sure that we are all engaged in the process of moving this forward and not doing business as usual, making sure that we're addressing this global crisis. And so we've been in talks with all of the major suppliers and even the applicators. So we're trying to set up a meeting with one of our favorite applicators here in North America doing plant tours and making sure we visit their facilities. And one thing that has been useful is having them explain to us what the process is of how we can get consistency, not just with powder-coated extrusions, but how that consistency translates to things like metal panels, even steel guardrails, et cetera. So that...if we have a color or a sheen that we want to be repeated throughout a project, that there is a way, a method by which we can achieve that while also achieving the performance and the environmental requirements that our specifications cover. So collaboration, collaboration, collaboration is key for us. Fiona Levin: Honestly Winn, Kudos to Rowan as well over the last 10 years being one of the spec writers that even 10 years ago was adding powder into the project specs and reaching out to not just me, to the other powder suppliers as well to help with, you know, making sure that the wording in the spec is correct because specifying powder is a little, the wording is a little bit different to what you would use in Liquid. And I can testify to the number of times I've had a GC call me and say, hey, I need you three coat powder system. And it's like it. doesn't exist and here's why, you know? So just making those changes and taking the time. And I think Rowan was again, trailblazing and adding powder into the spec, putting it up there, putting it first, not taking liquid out, but adding it in there so that you can get the most sustainable product, you know, when it's available and then helping to work, like you say, like Rowan says, working with applicators, working with the different suppliers, whatever that, you know, who might be using. different coatings, whether it's powder or not, and asking for them to consider powder and adding that into their repertoire, into their supply chain so that we can help with pushing the industry towards the more sustainable types of coatings. And kudos to Rowan for doing that for over 10 years now. Winn Darden: Yeah, and we try to do that as best we can. We have, of course, we have a different perspective than you guys do, but we try to get our powder technology out to as many people as we can. So we call on architects and curtain wall suppliers and things like that. We're also doing things like presentations at kind of general coating symposiums. So rather than sticking to the powder coating area, we're going out into the general market. And trying to do exactly that, get people more acquainted with powder and what the advantages are for them. And hopefully we can start to grow the market. You know, there's a lot of aluminum extrusions are used in the curtain wall right now, but there's a lot of steel that's used that could be powder coated as well. So these are things that we look at and try to get out there with our technical guys. Fiona Levin: Do you guys use a lot of powder coated steel as well, or does it tend to be on aluminum? Rowan Georges: So yeah, the majority obviously will be aluminum, but we have seen an uptick in things like guardrails for steel. But that's an interesting conversation because there's this whole other side of the embodied carbon discussion that aluminum is not great. And so we're looking at, you know, what if we did a curtain roll out of steel, what would cost, what would that look like? And so we have been in conversation with various steel curtain wall suppliers and trying to convince them to come over to the North American market. And then obviously we say, well, if you come over, we want you to use powder coating as well. So it's been great. It's been great, this whole exploration into what else is available on the market to address embodied carbon. And so I think you guys are positioned well because you can go on both aluminum and steel. And so as we see more and more steel curtain walls and more and more steel components being used because of environmental reasons, it's a great win for a powder coating. So, I think that's a great win for a powder coating. And so I think that's a great win for a powder coating. Winn Darden: Yeah, and we'll continue to look at things like that. One of the other things we do in the lab, we're looking at low temperature curing products. So we can get onto things like fiberglass and other type materials, mainly for the window market. But some of these polymeric materials are becoming more common and are being used in applications other than windows. And I would love to switch that business over to powder. It's gonna take some work, but. All of these things are going to gain traction, I think, as people you look to do things like reduce energy. In the window market, the big advantage of powder coatings is, or yeah, powder coatings, I'm sorry, FRP, is you don't have to insulate. The FRP does it for you. You don't need the insulating spacers when you put the windows together. And that's a big advantage to some of these manufacturers going into some of these projects. So I think innovation is something that is really key to the marketplace. And we want you guys to come, just as Fiona does, we want you guys to feel free to come to us so we can start looking at stuff that's interesting to you as well. Obviously we can't plan our research or product development if we don't get your input on it. Okay. Rowan Georges: Great, well thanks for having us. I think for SOM, it's very important for us to stay connected with industry. And so if there's any innovation that can be beneficial or anything that you think will be upcoming in the market that we need to have eyes on, we're more than happy to make that connection with you and to stay connected. Winn Darden: Perfect. Fiona Levin: Thank you, Winn, as well from IFS. You guys are so important to us at IFS Coatings as our resin supplier. So we appreciate all that you do for us. And yeah, thanks for the invite. It's been fun. Winn Darden: All right. Well, thank you guys. We really appreciate it and take care. Have a great day Thank You for listening to our podcast, In the Mix. If you enjoyed this episode and you’d like to here more, be sure to subscribe. To catch all the latest from Lumiflon, you can visit our website at Lumiflon USA .com, or follow us on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn @LumiflonUSA. Thanks again, see you next time.