Guest Column: Green design focus changes professional relationships

Architects, engineers or builders who prefer to maintain the status quo with their professional services may find designing and building environmentally responsible buildings to be a big challenge. For building professionals, ways of doing business are changing to the demands of high-performance building design sought by clients.

The industry has learned valuable lessons about the negative impact of the traditional linear approach to solving problems for our clients. There are several prominent reasons for this shift in our design approach.

Cost considerations

While project cost is important, it can’t be the only point of view when sustainable design is being considered.

As designers study options for building projects, especially choices that directly impact energy consumption and building performance, life-cycle cost should be discussed.

Buildings have a life span. Institutional buildings, such as government facilities, schools and hospitals, anticipate a life expectancy of 50 years. For those structures, development teams must come up with building budgets that allow for improved performance and payback in the future, preferably within five to 10 years. Once payback has occurred, savings from green design techniques and materials become money in the bank for building owners.

Draining natural resources

Current statistics on building practices and environmental impact are alarming.

Building construction accounts for 3 to 5 pounds of waste per square foot of building. For example, the construction of a 2,000-square-foot home typically results in 8,000 pounds of waste.

The building industry has been tagged as one of the biggest contributors of landfill tonnage. But through building industry leaders such as the American Institute of Architects and the U.S. Green Building Council, our wasteful reputation is slowly fading.

More complex structures

Today’s buildings have many more systems. We are seeing levels of sophistication in building systems like never before. And all of these components must be cross-coordinated with other building components.

Architects have long perpetuated the “dictator” approach to the design process. The “old school” approach, for most of us, was taught in college and seen through examples of many of the great architects, enjoying visual impressions of the all-powerful, pen-wielding chief architect, parading through the design studio and systematically ripping up the design sketches of young intern architects.

The end result

To be successful designers, there must be a collaborative relationship between all the design team members. All stakeholders of a project, from the CEO all the way to the building maintenance staff, must be included in the design process. The relationship between architects and engineers must be built into one of mutual respect, so that all disciplines can come to the design table early and often, with a menu of possible design solutions for each design problem.

Business as usual is no longer an option. I recently sat in on a candid discussion about green design between architects and engineers. I wanted to gauge their attitudes about the issue. One participant, without hesitation, said, “I hate green design.” Needless to say, I’m not interested in including this individual in my next green project.

Responsible design cannot tolerate this closed-minded attitude. Relationships between architects and their consultants must improve and change or the same old team and their same old approach will not survive.

Lisa Drew-Alton is an architect with Sapp Design Associates Architects PC and a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-accredited professional. She may be reached at drew-alton@sdaarchitects.com.