Webinars

Join us to learn about CAHP’s newly released report, Unlocking the Value of Existing Buildings, which explores how retrofits, adaptive reuse, and conservation-centric design can help Canada meet climate and housing goals while navigating today’s building and energy codes. Drawing on real-world case studies from Halifax, Montréal, and Vancouver, the webinar shares key findings on whole-life carbon, costs, and timelines, and highlights where current codes support or hinder retrofit and reuse. Participants will gain insight into the report’s technical data and learn how policy, building codes, and regulatory frameworks can evolve to better enable low-carbon, resilient projects.

Presenters:
Adam Hatch, President, Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals
Rashmi Sirkar, Partner, Ha/f Climate Design

About Adam Hatch:
Originally from Winnipeg, Adam Hatch is an architect and heritage consultant based in Vancouver and practicing across British Columbia. Specializing in contract administration, Adam sees projects through the realization of their design during the phase where everything finally comes out in the wash. He has been involved in the adaptive re-use of heritage buildings from masonry and wood to concrete Mid-Century Modern structures. Adam is the President of the Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals (CAHP) and a contributing author for CAHP’s Codes Acceleration Fund report titled Unlocking the Value of Existing Buildings which advocates for changes to national model codes.

About Rashmi Sirkar:
Rashmi is a partner at Ha/f Climate Design, where her work encompasses life cycle analysis of buildings and landscape, material strategies for decarbonization, and advocacy for reuse in the built environment. She has led research on the embodied carbon impact study of the City of Toronto’s Urban Design Guidelines, as well as work on the Materials Guide and Climate Resilience guide for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s national low-rise housing design catalogue. Her grant-funded Master of Architecture thesis proposed the creation of a circular economic model for Toronto’s postwar stick-frame housing stock and explored the various pathways of wood reuse for wood within the actor-network of a reuse economy. She has taught research seminars in the architecture and landscape architecture departments at University of Toronto investigating the embodied carbon impacts of construction.