WHO WE ARE

We’re a team of architects, designers, tradespeople, and change-makers meeting the climate and housing crises head-on. We’re reimagining building for the better with technology that achieves extreme energy reduction, deep sustainability, and unmatched livability—at scale.

The right product, the right time.

B.PUBLIC is a women owned Public Benefit Corporation

PUBLIC BENEFIT PURPOSES

Housing Sustainability & Environmental Responsibility: Providing communities with building systems that prioritize sustainability, reduced carbon footprint, and resilience for equitable development.

MISSION

B.PUBLIC’s mission is to design high performance buildings that are built by people who can afford to live in them. 

VISION

B.PUBLIC’s vision is to create a future with better homes for more people, with less impact on the environment with flexibility and speed.

Manifesto:

Climate Change

We believe that architects, developers, builders have a professional mandate and responsibility to the earth and our environment. Status quo building practices must be replaced immediately with practical solutions that reduce the carbon footprint. To address increasing environmental shifts and disasters, the housing we create must be resilient, scalable, rapidly developed and support an evolving landscape.

Housing Shortage

We believe that the shortage in housing is a humanitarian crisis. Building faster, better, responsive housing to address specific and growing needs is urgent and all effort should be made to create access and affordability.

Quality Budget-Conscious Building

We believe that with the materials and technology available today and all that we know - building a home that is cost-effective does not equate low-quality. Everyone deserves healthy, stable and affordable to maintain homes. Quality living space is not a luxury - it is a human right.

Labor Stability

We believe that contractors are vulnerable to fluctuations in the market and the environment outside their control. We strive to create a more attractive and sustainable ecosystem for tradespeople to work and take the risk off the back of labor. We believe that education and skill development can expand access to better jobs, small business and workforce engagement on new ways of thinking and building prefab.

OUR STORY

Some say that timing is everything and some say that all good things come to those who wait — both bode well for Jonah, the very patient protagonist in the story of our company. For 10 years, he worked to make energy-efficient and super comfortable (Passive House standard) easier to achieve in U.S. home construction. 

For the last 5 years, Jonah’s problem-solving focused on developing a panelized system that could be built in a controlled workshop and delivered to the building site for quick assembly (off-site construction). In 2019, the first of his systems were built in New Mexico. That component system went from truck to installed in 2 weeks for a 2-story, 2,500 sqft house on a sloped site at 10,000 feet. Boom! — the beta version of the wall system that would launch B.PUBLIC was up and performed beautifully.

Meanwhile, Edie was working to fix the broken education-to-workforce system and spending a lot of time with tech developers, educators, and foundations looking at national data. Jonah was seeing a mismatch in the construction industry — with escalating prices, construction timelines slowing down, and aging contractors and crews. The 30-year skills gap that Edie was seeing in vocational training was a part of the problem Jonah was seeking to change by off-site fabricating. Add in a love of architecture, a passion for system change, and a personal call to contribute positively to the climate and housing crisis, and Edie was ready to commit her all into this B.PUBLIC venture.

And finally, as Jonah completed an artist studio for Charlotte, a longtime friend, and an artist/filmmaker & activist, they got to talking about this prefab system he had designed. Little did Jonah know that after twenty years of producing documentaries, Charlotte, who comes from a family of architects and builders, had been exploring working in environmental advocacy and social impact. One conversation quickly became partnership and investment in B.PUBLIC.

All three partners agreed that the timing was right, the need was pressing, and the kit-of-parts approach was a clear solution. So, after 30 years of friendship (Edie and Charlotte met in college) and 20 years of marriage (Jonah and Edie also have 2 teenagers and 3 dogs) — the trio jumped into the shark tank to make B.PUBLIC happen.

In 2019, they incorporated B.PUBLIC as a Public Benefit Corporation to ensure that the guiding principles of B.PUBLIC were protected for the life of the company.