All Things Urban

Sidewalk Labs is an urban innovation company that tackles cities' greatest challenges. We create products and solutions, invest in new companies, and help developers build more sustainable, innovative, and equitable places around the world. Our ambitious vision requires us to push ourselves beyond conventional thinking, and we work hard in pursuit of our mission. Our cross-disciplinary team consists of experts from real estate, urban planning, government, finance, technology, and engineering, among other backgrounds. Our urban innovations include Delve (a generative design product that empowers real estate teams to design better, faster, with less risk), Mesa (an easy-install kit for commercial buildings that cuts energy costs, improves tenant comfort, and simplifies building operations), Pebble (a low-cost vehicle sensor to help manage parking and curb space), and Affordable Electrification (a new way to manage home energy use to meet a customer’s monthly budget). We're also developing an offsite construction company that can deliver high-quality mass timber buildings for more sustainable living and working. With the potential to radically improve quality of life in cities for all, our work is both exciting and complex. We are working to achieve something unprecedented — help us build it!

Sidewalk’s Buildings Innovation team is responsible for the innovation strategy, design, and planning to create affordable, flexible, and sustainable buildings. Team members share a commitment to urban innovation and have diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise. This position is ideal for someone who is passionate about the future of cities and wants to be part of a team focused on how innovation will shape that future. The Associate Director of Buildings Innovation will report to the Director of Buildings Innovation. You will use your architectural background to drive innovation into the design and construction of physical plan development, specifically focusing on the architectural components of these plans. The buildings will be focused on reaching three goals: - Affordability—Reduce the cost and increase the speed of construction through manufacturing of buildings. - Flexibility—Allow for radical mixed-use on day one and for the years that follow by using interchangeable parts that enable spaces to be easily modified. - Sustainability—Use Passive House methodologies to make buildings more sustainable, healthier for the occupants, and more affordable to operate. You will be a key member of Sidewalk’s Buildings team, working collaboratively with the engineering, product, design, corporate development, and development teams across the organization to develop and source products. Initially, you will be focused on creating building design concepts that leverage the most advanced materials and processes to understand how far buildings can be reinvented when not beholden to century-old codes and construction industry inertia. To learn more about our planned innovations, see this chapter from our Master Innovation and Development Plan.

After 3 months: - Develop a deep understanding of the goals of Sidewalk Toronto. - Collaborate with Sidewalk’s other subject matters experts and key work streams, including Sustainability, Public Realm, Housing Affordability, Mobility, and Data Privacy & Governance to further their outcomes as well as that of Buildings. - Develop an RFP to solicit bids from various architecture and manufacturing companies to put contracts in place and complete building design work. - Be an ambassador for the buildings work with visitors to the 307 lab. - Become an expert in Toronto building codes including Toronto Green Standard Tier 3. After 6 months: - Synthesize design information from the Buildings teams with the others and drive (with colleagues) physical models to be constructed at our innovation lab in Toronto for further study and public interaction. - Lead meetings with architects and engineers that are producing designs for buildings. After 12 months: - Be able to articulate the most promising outcomes from the design and manufacturers’ work and begin to drive these outcomes into the design of first phase buildings in the project site of Toronto. - Conduct design review meetings to refine final designs from architects and engineers. - Review bid packages for 3 million square feet build out of Quayside. - Prepare specifications for the 2nd wave of buildings in Toronto or elsewhere.

Strong Architectural skills. - Have strong visual awareness. - Imaginative and resourceful. - Passionate about building technology and the built environment. - As interested in working in design as in the field. - Able to envision and bring to life the resident, worker and visitor experience through consultants. Strong project management skills. - Ability to manage complex projects with multiple internal and external stakeholders. - Receive direction and anticipate next steps; - Think through, communicate, document, organize, and execute on project goals and keep other team members on schedule. Solve problems, together. - Come up with novel solutions, working well with other disciplines. - Ask hard questions and challenge assumptions to ensure that we’re solving the right problems. - Have flexibility to work on the team’s most pressing problems.

We look forward to hearing from you. The community of the future is a place for everyone, and Sidewalk Labs is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We encourage individuals from underrepresented groups to apply. All employment is based on merit and business needs.

This job is available for international candidates.