The Awakening Spaces Podcast - Conscious Construction for a Healthy Home

What would it look like to plan the electrical and technology systems of a new home around human biology, starting with the very first site visit? This is Part One of a rich and detailed conversation with electrical engineer and EMF specialist Mitch Marchand, founder and principal consultant at EMF Aware and instructor with the Building Biology Institute. In this episode, guest host Zara D’Cotta of The Healthy Home and Mitch explore what a low-EMF new build means, why the process ideally begins with site selection and baseline testing, and how electrical planning, assessment, and early project-team coordination ca...

Baby registries are overwhelming; the internet tells you to buy everything, and then your baby arrives, and half of it sits in the corner untouched. In this solo episode, Ashley is back three weeks postpartum to share an honest, low-tox, minimalist breakdown of what she and Brandon actually used in those first weeks with Stellen, what they returned, and what she wished someone had just told her before she spent hours building a registry.

Ashley covers everything from the rocking chair nobody warned her she might not need, to the bottle sterilizer both her lactation consultants told...

In this special solo episode, Ashley walks through everything that led up to Stellan’s birth, from the journal entry she wrote to him on his due date to the moment her water broke twenty minutes later, through two and a half hours of the most intense and fast labor she could have imagined, to catching him in her own bedroom with Brandon by her side and her midwife barely making it through the door. It is exactly the kind of first-time home birth story Ashley wished she could have found when she was pregnant and searching for proof th...

What does it look like when Building Biology, building science, and natural building are integrated from the beginning of an ambitious, health-focused project in the American Southwest?

In this episode, guest host Zara D’Cotta sits down with Ray Clamons, architectural designer, natural builder, licensed general contractor, certified Passive House consultant, and founder of Natural Building Works in Tucson, Arizona. Zara first met Ray on site at the Dancing Raven project last year and returned for blower door test day, and the conversation they have here is rich with the kind of real-world detail that only comes fr...

What would it look like if your architect understood not just how you live, but who you are at your deepest level, and designed your home from that place outward? In this episode, guest host Zara D’Cotta sits down with Jo Gillies, registered architect, director, and founder of Archisoul Architects, for one of the most expansive and genuinely surprising conversations this podcast has had on the intersection of architecture, health, and the human spirit.

Jo’s path into this work runs through Guillain-Barré syndrome at twenty-five, a long journey of questioning what we put into our bodie...

What does it actually take to shift an entire industry toward building healthier, higher-performing homes, and where does that change actually begin? In this special episode, Zara D'Cotta of The Healthy Home steps in as guest host and sits down with Mark Wille, author, builder, carpenter, and storyteller, and an integral part of the team behind The Build Show, for one of the most wide-ranging and genuinely inspiring conversations this podcast has had on the culture of construction. Mark brings decades of hands-on experience across renovation, rehab, new construction, and green building supply, and a philosophy about people, relationships...

What does it look like when the healthy-home conversation begins moving upstream, from homeowners fighting to be heard to building professionals asking better questions themselves?

In this special solo episode, guest host Zara D’Cotta of The Healthy Home introduces herself and reflects on the shifts she has witnessed since being diagnosed with mould illness in 2015.

Zara and Ashley have been friends since 2021, connected through shared experiences with environmental illness and their parallel paths through Building Biology. Zara is stepping in to host a series of episodes while Ashley is on maternity leave.

Sh...

What does it actually look like to build a business around helping people create healthier homes while simultaneously growing a human inside your own body? In this special solo episode, Ashley comes to you at 38, almost 39 weeks pregnant, with a life and business update she has been sitting on for months. From the fear that she might never be able to get pregnant, to the moment everything clicked into place the day after a wishing card session with Brownell Landrum, to the nesting spiral that took over her entire home instead of the gut renovation she had originally planned...

What if the biggest barrier to building a healthy, high performance home was not the technology or the knowledge but the way the industry still builds one house at a time from scratch? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Mariana Pickering, Chief Brand Officer and Community Director at B.Public Prefab, for a conversation that makes a genuinely compelling case for why prefab is one of the most exciting developments in healthy home building right now. Mariana brings over fifteen years at the intersection of architecture, sustainability, and education, a Master's in Design Science from the University of...

What if your daughter's autism diagnosis was not autism at all, but a mold-induced inflammatory response that could be reversed? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Cristina, founder of Conscious Healthy Home and former corporate attorney, for one of the most powerful origin stories this podcast has ever shared. Cristina's family spent years living in a home with mold compacted inside the HVAC plenum, watching their daughter regress in ways that three years of speech, occupational, and physical therapy could not explain, before a single question from a functional medicine doctor finally cracked the case. When the inflammation...

What happens when an interior designer watches her husband get taken down by mold toxicity, CIRS, and Lyme disease and realizes that everything she was putting in their home was making him worse? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Kaleigh Concannon, founder of Uniquely You Decor and one of the only non-toxic interior designers in Denver, for a conversation that is equal parts practical, personal, and genuinely eye-opening. Kaleigh's path into this work runs through Seattle during COVID, a moldy apartment in LA, a Denver home that tested positive for black mold after purchase, a GC who spilled...

What happens when the attorney who spent years suing companies like DuPont for deceiving consumers about toxic products becomes the patient who gets taken down by mold, Lyme, and CIRS? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Karen Bloom, founder of Natural Haven, for one of the most layered and honest conversations this podcast has had on what it actually takes to detox your home, your body, and your life at the same time. Karen's path runs through a traumatic ankle break in Shenandoah that triggered a cascade of mysterious symptoms nobody could diagnose, years of pharmaceuticals that made...

Most people buying a home are thinking about square footage, school districts, and whether the kitchen has been updated. Almost nobody is thinking about what is behind the walls, under the floors, or in the crawl space until they are sick and the remediation quote arrives. In this episode, Ashley sits down with Rachel Klein, licensed real estate agent and healthy home advisor based in Boulder, Colorado, for a conversation that every homeowner and prospective buyer in America needs to hear. Rachel bought a home, got sick from it, spent months figuring out why, and came out the other...

Most homeowners never think about their building envelope until something goes wrong. And by then, the mold is already there, the sheathing is already rotting, and the remediation quote is already six figures. In this episode, Ashley sits down with Erika Bonfanti, structural engineer turned building enclosure specialist and forensic consultant, for one of the most practical and eye-opening conversations this podcast has had on what actually keeps water out of your home and what happens when it does not.

Erika breaks down what an envelope consultant actually does, why they are not the same as an...

What happens when the host becomes the guest? In this special episode of the Awakening Spaces Podcast, Ashley's dear friend and building biology colleague Zara D'Cotta flips the microphone and interviews Ashley herself, pulling back the curtain on the work Ashley does behind the scenes on every project she touches. From the lawsuit that changed everything in her early career to what owner's rep work actually looks like day to day.

Ashley walks through how a project gone wrong became the foundation of everything she does now, why oversight is the single biggest indicator of project success...

What does it take to go from two cancer diagnoses and years of undiagnosed mold illness to becoming one of the most quietly influential voices in the healthy building industry? In this episode, Ashley sits down with her dear friend and longtime colleague Zara D'Cotta, building biology educator, electromagnetic radiation specialist, and founder of The Healthy Home in Australia, for one of the most personal and wide-ranging conversations this podcast has had. Zara's path into healthy building ran through a breast cancer diagnosis at twenty-nine, a melanoma two years later, and a slow, devastating journey through multiple water-damaged buildings...

What happens when a commercial construction veteran with a five-hundred-million-dollar mixed-use project on his resume gets taken down by mold? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Dylan Hutcheson, healthy home builder and founder of Holistically Built in Atlanta, Georgia, whose path from high-rise construction management to residential healthy home construction runs straight through two years of mystery illness, medical leave, a disability insurance lawsuit, and a slow, humbling rebuild of his health and his career. Dylan brings something rare to the healthy home conversation: deep mechanical systems knowledge earned not just from building but from years of tearing...

What does it actually mean to build a pretty good house, and why is that sometimes a better goal than building a perfect one? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Emily Mottram, licensed architect, building science educator, co-author of the Pretty Good House book, and one of the most thoughtful voices in the residential design space. Emily grew up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, got into architecture because her drafting teacher told her it was hard, and has spent the last two decades chasing every building science certification she could find, not because she thinks she knows...

What happens when the person who builds healthy homes for a living becomes the one who desperately needs one? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Brent Little, a thirty-year construction veteran and founder of Pinehaven Healthy Homes in McCall, Idaho, for one of the most honest and human conversations this podcast has ever had. Brent was a high-capacity, driven builder who had been exposed to mold on job sites for decades without incident, until a brand new RV became the straw that broke the camel's back, and both he and his wife found themselves navigating one of the...

What does it actually mean to build a healthy home, and where do you start when everything feels equally important? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Trey Farmer, Austin-based architect, passive house advocate, and co-organizer of the Humid Climate Conference, for one of the most grounded and practically useful conversations this podcast has had on the intersection of building performance and human health. Trey brings a rare combination of credentials: passive house certification work, affordable housing and emerging tech projects, natural building experience, and a seat on the advisory board of Malachi's Message, a Texas-based mold awareness nonprofit...

What if the chronic illness your doctors keep missing has been living in your walls the whole time? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Dr. Eric Dorninger, naturopathic doctor, acupuncturist, and CIRS specialist at Roots and Branches in Boulder, Colorado, who has spent over two decades helping patients with complex, mystery illnesses find the underlying causes that conventional medicine keeps overlooking. Dr. D brings something rare to this conversation: he is not just a clinician who treats CIRS. He is a patient who nearly lost everything to it, and his family's six-month remediation, biblical living conditions and all...

What if the appliance you hate most in your kitchen was actually one of the most important tools for your home's health, your food waste habits, and your daily ease? In this episode, Ashley sits down with Tim Ketchum, CEO and co-founder of Composer Appliance, a startup out of San Francisco that is doing what no one else has bothered to do in decades: completely reimagining the garbage disposal.

Tim walks us through everything that is wrong with the traditional disposal, from the disgusting rubber gasket to the ear-splitting noise to the pipe-clogging paranoia that keeps most...

In this episode of the Awakening Spaces Podcast, Ashley sits down with Riun Ashlie, electromagnetic radiation specialist and somatic healing practitioner, for one of the most expansive and soul-nourishing conversations this podcast has ever had. Riun brings decades of personal healing work, a background interning in psychotherapy, and a deeply trauma-informed lens to the world of EMF sensitivity, and what he shares will make you think about your body, your home, and your consciousness in an entirely new way.

Together they explore why some people are more sensitive to electromagnetic fields than others, how unresolved birth and...

In this episode of the Awakening Spaces Podcast, Ashley sits down with Scott Randall, founder of 7 Pines Design Build in Tampa, Florida, to talk about what it actually takes to build a healthy, high performance home in one of the most demanding climates in the country. Scott came into construction from a background in finance and risk management, and that lens makes for one of the most grounded, practical conversations this podcast has had on new construction. As of this year, 7 Pines made high performance building their standard across every project, and Scott shares exactly what that means in...

In this solo episode, Ashley Spanovich breaks down what an Owners Rep does and why having an Owners contingency will help you move through your project with less stress.  She also dives into some personal wisdom and something she's moving through in the moment in hopes that it will help you expand and move through your project with more ease.

THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

In this episode of Awakening Spaces, Ashley and Alex cover what the 99.97 percent filter rating actually means and why it tells you almost nothing about your room air quality, how to build a Corsi Rosenthal box for 150 dollars that outperforms most commercial air purifiers, what CADR is and why it is the only metric worth looking at, which climates are genuinely the best and worst for mold sensitive people, why Phoenix and Tucson are not the mold recovery paradise most people think, and why the research on sun exposure and cancer is far more complicated and interesting than the...

In this episode of Awakening Spaces, the two Ashleys walk through a full decision framework for thinking about indoor air quality, filtration, ventilation, dehumidification, ductwork sizing, and condensate management. They talk about why mechanicals are almost always an afterthought and why that is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make. They also get into Ashley's personal health journey and why healtth is always going to be person-specific no matter how clean your building materials are.

This is the mechanical systems conversation the healthy home space has been waiting for.

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