Green Building Design Fundamentals (Part II - Integrated Design)

When we refer to integrated design, we are referring to a building that brings all design disciplines into balance so that the "optimized" building design can be found.  The traditional design approach would typically have mechanical, electrical, structural, civil, landscaping, and architectural elements designed in individual groups, then brought together for "coordination" of the design.  (e.g. shift this duct here, run your electrical services through this open space, increased beam depth on these members, add another catchbasin here, remove some shrubbery, or revise glazing locations).  When design elements are left to individual professionals, it is easy to consider mainly the scope of your own profession, with insufficient consideration being given to what sustainability trade offs other disciplines might have to make in order for you to meet your goal.  When a lack of coordination between the disciplines occurs, you can have disastrous results:

(For Example)

The Integrated design process is all about having each design discipline comment on the affects other design disciplines may have on their scope.  Electrical engineers can comment on how architectural elements may help or hinder the efficacy of their lighting layout.  Civil Engineers can comment on how the landscaping plans affects storm water runoff, and so on.

The process involves several key components for success:

Sustainable Design Planning

Before pen touches paper, all parties (including the constructor) should come to the table and establish what sustainable goals make the most sense.  Each team member WILL have something valuable to say about the practicality of each goal suggested.  This process is most successfully run by bringing in a third party that can offer specialized facilitation of what could become a pretty long and unorganized meeting.  Go through (division by division) what each trade and design discipline can offer in terms of sustainability.  Once you have an exhaustive list of things you can do, identify the ones that will bring most success and make those the goals you will do.  This is where the project owner comes in to sign off on the approach, or offer critical feedback.

Once the design goals are established, they will become firm guiding principals for ALL design disciplines.

Ongoing Integrated Design Coordination Meetings

At weekly meetings as the design progresses, each team member will be responsible for revisiting the progress of their own discipline as it affects the established design goals.  Each team member can also take the agreed to design goals and raise them as concerns if another discipline's scope is undermining their ability to meet their target.  This can become contentious, which is why it is critical to make sure everyone is on the same page at the planning stage.

This process continues until a final design can be realized, hopefully maintaining all design goals established during the planning stage.

Building Systems Modelling and Feedback

Occurring during the same time as the design coordination, and at key design milestones (30%, 60%, 90%) building modelling can be employed to quantify the ongoing design efforts against established benchmarks and sustainability goals.  The model can project if the team is exceeding or falling behind the goals, and can given the team a nudge towards more concentrated efforts at reaching the goals, or can give some opportunity to provide relief on certain efforts that may be putting too much pressure on other disciplines.

As an example, let's say your established the goal of saving lighting electricity costs by 25% and 25% savings on gas costs for heating.   If you model shows you are saving 50% of your heating loads and your are only saving 20% on lighting costs, then you can add more glazing to increase your daylighting and cut down on lighting while not being too worried about exceeding your heating load goal.

Integrated sustainable design is all about finding balance.  There is never a "perfect" building design, but there can always be one that finds a point of optimization that achieves strong balance across the broad categories of sustainable design.