Melanie Silver Archives

Material Innovation: Interior Fit-Outs Make a Difference

July 18, 2025

Melanie Silver, Mickey Chapa, Olivia Humphrey

To drastically reduce carbon emissions and meet Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) carbon reduction goals, the impact of interior projects must be accounted for, reduced and not be an overlooked scope in Life Cycle Analyses (LCAs). [...]

The Design Process of Reducing Embodied Carbon

April 26, 2024

Melanie Silver

Measuring and reducing embodied carbon for a building is a complex topic and task, but over the last few years we have been integrating embodied carbon analysis into our design process. [...]

A Holistic Approach to Materials Selection

April 23, 2024

Mark Scott, Melanie Silver

As stewards of design, we take a comprehensive view of material selection, considering not only aesthetics, cost and performance, but also material health, life cycle impacts and supply chain equity. [...]

Payette at 2023 ACSA/AIA Intersections Research Conference: Material Economies

December 20, 2023

Endian Xu, Melanie Silver, Olivia Humphrey

PAYETTE People at the 2023 ACSA/AIA Intersections Research Conference: Material Economies. [...]

Low Carbon Week, Part 2

April 13, 2023

Andrea Love, Becca McGee Sturgeon, Elisabeth Machielse, Melanie Silver, Olivia Humphrey, Yoko Furuya

Welcome to Low Carbon Week at PAYETTE. This week we will be sharing strategies on how to reduce embodied carbon within your own projects. [...]

Low Carbon Week, Part 1

April 12, 2023

Andrea Love, Becca McGee Sturgeon, Elisabeth Machielse, Melanie Silver, Olivia Humphrey, Yoko Furuya

Welcome to Low Carbon Week at PAYETTE. This week we will be sharing strategies on how to reduce embodied carbon within your own projects. [...]

Kaleidoscope Updates: Choose Your Partitions Wisely

March 28, 2023

Becca McGee Sturgeon, Elisabeth Machielse, Melanie Silver, Olivia Humphrey, Yoko Furuya

We are thrilled to share another update to Kaleidoscope. This update expands upon the interior assemblies to now include partitions. [...]

A’22: This Is How We Do It: Integrating Sustainability Into Design

July 14, 2022

Becca McGee Sturgeon, Jennifer Hardy, Melanie Silver

At A'22, Jennifer Hardy, Melanie Silver and Becca McGee Sturgeon led a 2.5 hour practicum on integrating sustainability into design. [...]

Kaleidoscope: New Assemblies Added!

June 21, 2022

Becca McGee Sturgeon, Denise Gravelle, Melanie Silver, Olivia Humphrey

PAYETTE is excited to announce another update to Kaleidoscope, our web-based tool to bring the imperative topic of Embodied Carbon further into our design process. [...]

Kaleidoscope 2.0: Embodied Carbon Design Tool Updates

April 27, 2021

Becca McGee Sturgeon, Denise Gravelle, Melanie Silver

PAYETTE is excited to announce an update to Kaleidoscope: Embodied Carbon Design Tool, our web-based tool to bring the imperative topic of Embodied Carbon further into our design process. The update to Kaleidoscope contains additional envelope systems and introduces flooring. We first… [...]

Introducing Kaleidoscope: Embodied Carbon Design Tool

October 15, 2020

Becca McGee Sturgeon, Denise Gravelle, Luke Laverty, Melanie Silver

PAYETTE is excited to announce that we have launched an open source web-based tool, Kaleidoscope: Embodied Carbon Design Tool, to bring the imperative topic of Embodied Carbon further [...]

Day of Service: Greater Grove Hall Main Streets

March 18, 2020

Laura Devine, Melanie Silver

Greater Grove Hall Main Streets came to PAYETTE to realize their vision of creating a vibrant, dynamic corridor and establishing a sense of place for this important stretch [...]

It’s Time to Talk About Carbon (Part 3): Net Zero or Bust. How can we Reduce Carbon in our Buildings?

December 20, 2019

Andrea Love, Melanie Silver

Our previous posts on carbon this week have focused on what the science reports are saying, and where the biggest impacts of carbon in the built environment are. But the most important thing for everyone to understand is what YOU can do in your work to reduce impact on climate change… [...]

It’s Time to Talk About Carbon (Part 2): Where is the Carbon in our Buildings?

December 19, 2019

Andrea Love, Melanie Silver

If we look at a typical building’s lifespan of sixty years and graph total carbon emissions – embodied and operational – the operational energy over time has a larger impact. Reducing operational energy is the most effective strategy to reduce overall carbon emissions over a sixty year building lifespan. Historically… [...]

It’s Time to Talk About Carbon (Part 1): What the Science is Telling Us

December 18, 2019

Andrea Love, Melanie Silver

Next month brings us into the new decade of 2020 and one year closer to 2030. The year 2030 is significant for many reasons, including the AIA 2030 Commitment which PAYETTE has been reporting predicted operational energy for eight years, with the goal of reaching carbon-neutral operations by… [...]

Melanie joined Payette’s Building Science team in October 2017. She is currently working with numerous design teams to meet rigorous sustainability targets as well as implementing a new healthy material policy throughout the office. Prior to joining Payette, Melanie was the Sustainability Coordinator at FXCollaborative. She managed over 10 LEED projects, lead environmental analysis and assisted in updating green specifications. Melanie earned her Master of Architecture and Ecological Design Certificate from the University of Pennsylvania, and her Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Columbia University.

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