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 this episode, we'll talk with Sameer Kumar, founder and principal at Techne Architectural Design, a building enclosure design and consulting firm in New York City. Sameer began his education in architecture in India and obtained a master of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He's been involved with enclosure design for notable structures like 111 West 57th Street Tower and Hudson Yards in New York City, 1508 Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, the Latte World Tower in Seoul, and Campus Santander in Santiago, Chile. Sameer, welcome to the podcast.

Sameer Kumar:
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Winn Darden:
Well, we appreciate you being here. I also wanted to introduce Fiona Levin, Fiona is sales and marketing manager for IFS Coatings.

Winn Darden:
Okay. What are some of the projects that powder coatings have been used on that you've worked on?

Sameer Kumar:
Theres a multitude of them. You named some of them when you were starting out. But 111 West 57th Street is one of the most recognizable super tall towers of New York City recently completed recently as in 2021, I think it was completed in. I think there are I mean, you named them American Copper Bill was another one. We have powder coatings on the Brooklyn Tower, which is another super tall tower recently completed in Brooklyn, the first super tall tower in Brooklyn.

Fiona Levin-Smith:
I actually saw that one recent, in person for the first time about six months ago, somewhere, and I was like, wow, it's beautiful.

Sameer Kumar:
Yeah. Yeah, it looks pretty good. It is a black tower. I don't know if you guys have seen it. And then one of the projects that we worked together recently was actually for the United States government for Department of State. It is one of the new embassy projects in Honduras. So that has IFS products on it.

Fiona Levin-Smith:
Really good.

Winn Darden:
Wow good. Yeah, we're very happy with IFS. They're one of our good customers. I've got a question here and I don't know any of that, but what do you see as the benefits of deep study analysis? So this got put in there and I have no clue what that means.

Sameer Kumar:
Well, I will wager to understand that, but I think that we're talking about a specialist like me versus a more generalized architect. And I often like to talk about how architecture, which is an extremely vast field, our education especially makes it a point to give us a very diverse exposure and knowledge into many, different fields, you know, because determinants of architecture can be found everywhere. Economics determines what architecture will be. Sociology determines, politics determines, emotional and behavioral science determines what architecture should be or could be. But there's also, natural forces, the structural forces, the gravity, and then there's the materiality and weather and earthquakes and tornadoes and hurricanes. Everything shapes architecture. So there are architects who will choose to know a lot about a lot of different things. Never going too deep into any one thing just because their role on a project may require that. Their role, say, as a leader of a design team may require to keep an eye on every side of the development of a project and be able to identify potential problem that on any side, that they just need to know enough to know where there could be a problem, not necessarily be the ones to solve it. So there is a role for architects to be to be more widespread in their knowledge and in imparting that knowledge. And then there are others like myself who choose a smaller discipline to know a lot about. And we have architects who know a lot about elevating and design of cores and staircases. are architects who know a lot about working with mechanical systems on super tall buildings because they're highly specialized things there are architects who will know a lot about how to lay out apartment buildings on floors or how to lay out office buildings or how to lay out university buildings. My wife was an architect. She specializes in college campuses and educational architecture. So the value of deep study in my viewpoint is that someone like me who limits one's scope to a smaller area but goes deeper is that I can see how the same question gets answered on different projects. And I can get a more holistic understanding of how one issue may play out or how many facets there are to a certain question. Moreover, I can also, by repeating what I do from project to project to project, I become a bridge of knowledge. I bring knowledge acquired from one project to the next project to the next project. By doing that little bit, am actually, even though I may have a smaller sphere of influence in terms of the discipline, but I end up having a bigger sphere of influence because I can connect across projects that way. So that is really the difference between a person who performs deep study versus a person who stays sort of more horizontally integrated across the various disciplines within architecture.

Winn Darden:
Okay. How did you get started on that path that led to the founding of Techne?

Sameer Kumar:
how much time do you have?

Winn Darden:
Hahaha!

Sameer Kumar:
No, mean, for the most part, when I completed my education in India, I felt like I did not know how to build, how buildings were built, assembled, put together. And I felt that it was a bit of a limitation in my ability as an architect that I didn't know how buildings were put together. So when I decided to pursue my master's program in the US, it was specifically, you I joined this program, this course at University of Pennsylvania. It was a master's program in emerging technologies and architecture. It had nothing to do with computers. It was all about understanding sort of the role of knowledge, human knowledge, human ability to manipulate materials, and human ability to develop space and emotion through the use of materials. So that is where my journey began. And once I learned to look at architecture through that lens, I realized that it was something that was more profound than anything else I had dealt with in terms of finding an anchor for myself within the profession. And then I pursued that through different ways, through across many practices. And in 2022, after basically being an architect in New York for whatever, 23 years, I decided that I was going to found my own practice because I felt that the world of facade consulting, within the context that we were all living in and we were just out of the pandemic and we have the whole climate emergency on one hand, and then we have this whole evolution of the practice and the industry owing to computer technologies, advanced fabrication and robotics and AI on one side, while the design technologies with AR, VR and what humans can imagine and what we can represent. All of these things, all these radical changes happening all around us, I felt that there was a need to create a facade consulting practice which is positioned to navigate these significant changes. And it would require, in some ways, a rethink of how we offer our services and what services we do offer and how we develop knowledge for ourselves as well as for the projects we're working on because I felt that a lot of the existing facade consulting models were somewhat outdated. I hope that means something.

Winn Darden:
So I see that you've won several awards recently. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Sameer Kumar:
Well, so I think the most humbling one and comprehensive one was that I was recently awarded the fellowship of the American Institute of Architects. That is a, that feels like an achievement, especially because it comes from my peers as architects And I think that that in itself represents a certain evolution, you know, holistically within the field of architecture that there is a growing recognition of the sub -disciplines within architecture. I don't think that there are too many facade specialists or too many even specialists out there that would have gotten recognized a few years ago. So I think that that is an important endorsement for me at a personal level, but also at a professional level. And I think, apart from that, I was recently named by the US Glass Magazine as one of the most influential people in the glass industry, which is very flattering. But I think that To some extent, it must be a matter of age, but I also think that to some extent, is for me, the fact that the recognition is coming from two different sides, from my professional peers versus from the construction industry side, is the most satisfying thing because I do believe that I am a representation of these two halves of my background And I learned from both sides and I represent the interest of both sides in everything that I do. for me, that is really.

Winn Darden:
Okay. So where does facade design go? What are the new things that people are looking at in facade design? And how far out in the future, what are the technologies that are gonna be most useful or usable in the facade design?

Sameer Kumar:
So right now there is a lot of conversation around the climate crisis and the evolving understanding of human impact on environment. And there is a term that I'm sure all your listeners are familiar with or should be if they're not, which is embodied energy or embodied carbon. Both terms have been used sort of interchangeably. Embody carbon is sort of the new paradigm of how we may want to quantify the impact of human activity on nature. Of course, it is not, even though it might be a new term, the idea that we have been trying to quantify our impact on nature has been going on for a while. the core idea that we should have a better balance with nature has sustained for at least, I would say, 75 years since the Second World War, that we humans are being, we need to be a lot more careful and cognizant about the impact of our actions on nature. So these days it is embodied carbon that seems to be coming at us at a rapid speed, and we are all trying to educate ourselves much like we were looking at energy efficiency 25 years ago, which was a new concept back then. And we were trying to understand what does that mean and how do you think about buildings like that. Today, energy efficient building is not a difficult thing to understand at all. And I hope that in a few years, a low embodied carbon building will not be as difficult to understand as it sounds right now. So that is sort of the main thrust of a lot of conversation. Although I would personally, I believe that there's almost too much conversation about a murdered carbon, that there are still a host of other really important things that need as much attention as they have always needed. Things around human health and wellbeing, including mental health, including societal health, issues of, you know, Let us say how much natural air we are allowing through our building facades, how much natural light we are allowing through our building facades, what is the relationship between human and nature as mitigated by the building facade. So all of those issues are still continue to be central and will remain important. And then there is this whole side which is driven by emerging technologies And I'm not really talking about AI, although I mean, that could be a conversation, but I believe that AI is a tool like many other tools that have come to us through technology. But I do think that computing power, as computing power improves and as it percolates into all aspects of our life in a more defining way, it continues to change either how we think about something or how we analyze it and predict its behavior or how we choose to communicate it or how we choose to then convert that information into something that is readable by machines to be fabricated and readable by machines to be installed and stuff like that. So there is a whole side to technological evolution and the impact it keeps having on what is possible with facades and what could be possible later on with facades. So I think that there are three real things. There's the environment, there is the human side of it, and then there is a technology side of it. And of course, they all intersect as well.

Winn Darden:
Good. Right, right. Okay. I think I've kind of reached, we've, we've, had a good conversation. think that anyone want to bring up anything else, that we can include in the, include in it. Fiona, you want to talk, did you want to mention the IFS and embedded carbon that might fit in with, some of your comments there.

Fiona Levin-Smith:
Sure, mean, I think, well, two things. One thing to mention is that Sameer's completely right with the embodied carbon as being the real focus. And I think that honestly, since I've been in the coatings world, that's something that I've really seen taken off, like that the architectural world's really embraced maybe more quickly or more noticeably anyway than some of the previous thrusts towards sustainability. It felt like that became a really big thing very quickly and everybody was talking about it, which is a good thing, right? And I think obviously the role that powder coatings can help in doing that is they do have a reduced carbon footprint when you compare them to competing technologies. obviously at IFS we have environmental product declarations, which we renew. And what's interesting is of course, those the goals and what's included, the product category rules change and evolve as we learn more and we're getting those in what we're tested against in those EPDs. So that's always interesting to see how that changes and moves and that obviously as a company, IFS is moving with that as well. So that's, we have that and it's been a big part of our conversation. It's a part of the conversations we have with SEMI, it's part of the conversations that have all the architects that we that we work with and it's obviously somewhere. It's an area that powder coatings can really help. So I think that's really positive. The other thing that to try and mention to get in somehow, I don't know how we weave this one in, but is that obviously Sameer is a real materials expert, right? And obviously he knows about coatings, but he knows about so many other things. Like you told me a fascinating story about meeting this, is it the terracotta guy? That you ended up having, anyway He knows a lot about a lot of Dormisi's fascinating people and is really uses his resources as well. 

Winn Darden:We know how Sameer learned about superior performance powder, how do others find this info?

Fiona Levin-Smith: I guess the thing for us as IFS to talk about as well as that we have these lunch and learns, we have these experts available to help other experts like Sameer like other architectural practices. We go in and we do lunch and learns, you know, which is kind of a basic level, but it's a great introduction to learning and diving a little bit more deeply into a powder coating and not just thinking, it's powder. That's the stuff I can coat my bike with or my furniture with. Or maybe I'll put it on curtain wall if I know the right one. There's lot more to it than that. We talk about the resins. We talk about Lumiflon. We talk about what that really brings to a superior performance coating. So there's that side of it. And then there's just using us as a trusted advisor, which is what I'd like to think over the years we've become for some, know, and some of the other architects that we've worked with as well. Likewise, going to talk about and tell you about the great things that the product will bring, but we're also going to tell you, hey, it's not going to work there. Please don't use it there. Because we don't want it to fail just like you guys don't want it to fail. So becoming a trusted advisor and working through problems that a project or industry might bring to you as part of what we do as well.

Winn Darden:
Right, right.

Sameer Kumar:
Can I add a few more words, please? Yeah, so I think in general I do, you know, for any architects or people on the design side who might be listening to your podcast, I would like to say that today there is really no argument against us as designers to continue to do things that we've been doing without questioning them specifically when it comes to coatings. I think that it is imperative that each one of us invest a little time and learn for the sake of our environment, for the sake of our planet. We learn the impact of our choices. And I think that if you paid any attention to the world of coatings, you would know that powder coatings are the future and the only future that we should be investing in today. That is one thing I want to say. The other thing I would like to say is that IFS is a company that had impressed me when I first learned about it. And it continues to impress in how progressive they are and how forward looking and agile they are in not only staying ahead of the curve when it comes to all matters sustainability, whether it was the use of non -chromate primers or whether it is the developing the first CPDs in the industry. But also in terms of, you throw a challenge at Fiona and she appears a few months later with a solution and it has happened more than once. So I think IFS is a fantastic...I couldn't call them partners because we're not really in any kind of an economic partnership, but as knowledge partners, think IFS is a fantastic partner. And I think that if a designer is looking to learn more about codeings, then I think Fiona is one of the best out there. And I would recommend anyone to take a little time and reach out and meet with Fiona or IFS people, because I think that these guys are doing some of the most cutting edge work in this field.

Winn Darden:
Agree with that, yeah. Yeah, we feel the same way about the fluoropolymer coatings, think, in general. From our perspective, we're a resin manufacturer, but we believe things like life cycle costs and environmental benefits of not having to recoat structures very often. We think there are some real things there, not only on the powder side, but also liquid and water bases.

Sameer Kumar:
I mean, on that note, I would say that fluoropolymer coatings created a paradigm shift for the world of facades, if not for the world of architecture. Because till the time that we had coatings that basically could not withstand UV light for more than a handful of years, we were investing a lot of time trying to find ways of putting durable protection on metals. And it was a chore, right? A lot of our projects that I have worked on have also dealt with anodized aluminum. And anodizing was really the only durable option before fluoropolymers came around.

Winn Darden:
Yes.

Sameer Kumar:
And I cannot tell you how much of an improvement we have all enjoyed, not only in the quality of the built environment, the resulting quality of the built environment, but also in the quality of our own lives trying to track how to make our buildings be more durable. So, fluoropolymers have been quintessential in why we build the way we build today with aluminum, as much aluminum as we use. And of course, someone will argue that that's not such a good thing because aluminum has a pretty high embodied carbon content, but I'm sure we are all working on that and that'll come down. But the important thing is that fluoropolymers enable so much to happen that would otherwise have been out of reach for us So I am completely with you when you say that fluoropolymers are really the game changer in the last, I don't know, 30 years, 40 years, whatever it has been.

Winn Darden:
Yeah, that's what we think. Well, Sameer, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. We appreciate it and look forward to seeing what your work's going to be in the future. That's really, really exciting. And Fiona, thank you so much for joining us as well. We love IFS and you guys are doing a great job out there. So keep it up and we'll keep making enough product for you. Go ahead and sell as much as you can.

Fiona Levin-Smith:
Will do.

Sameer Kumar:
Well, we are here. I'm flattered to be included here. And thank you for having me.

Winn Darden:
We appreciate it. Thank you guys.

Fiona Levin-Smith:
Thanks.

Sameer Kumar:
Thank you.

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.