Holistic Design

One of the biggest complaints that I hear about green building is the cost of implementing green strategies.  There’s some pretty flawed logic in those complaints because our employees have worked for many years to prove over and over again that it doesn’t cost to go green, it pays to go green.  The secret to reducing upfront costs as much as possible is in the design process.

True enough there can sometimes be an upfront cost premium in green buildings especially with the integration of some pretty exotic building systems.  It is also true that there will be fees incurred if a building owner elects to pursue a green building certification such as LEED, but by changing the way we design our buildings we can bring most of the upfront cost premiums associated with green building down to very little or in a lot of instances be cost neutral.

Traditional Design is a Broke Process

Traditionally the architectural design process has been very linear.  By that I mean that the design progress in a linear fashion from architect on to the structural and mechanical engineers then on to any specialty consultants that may be required for the project.  The problem becomes that a lot of times the engineers and consultants working on the project further down the line have good ideas about making the project more sustainable and energy efficient.  However, the process is usually so far down the line that making any meaningful change is costly in terms of redesign time and often left out of a project.  What we usually see at this point is a bunch a green band-aids put on a project that are costly and don’t fully integrate into the design.  This is where the cost of green building really starts to ratchet up.

Changing Mindsets with Holistic Design

If we change the way we think about the design process and bring all of the designers together (even the ones that normally come in towards the end) to the table in the beginning and define what the common goals are for a project, everyone can start working together instead of against each other.  This is what’s known as a holistic or integrated design process.  When you bring the design team together and lay out common goals for a project you can start to discuss tradeoffs.  Sure it costs more to install higher levels of insulation in a building.  However, if your building is better insulated you may be able to downsize the HVAC equipment, thus saving money.  These tradeoffs back and forth really do work, but only if you have everyone at the table working together as a team.

So the next time you hear a building owner lament about the cost of his green building ask them what the design team did to combat that issue.  My guess is that you won’t hear about their holistic design process.