Prioritizing aesthetic value and innovation through consensus-based design

As design professionals, we often hear that innovative design, environmental sustainability or aesthetically-pleasing space may be difficult goals to achieve within a publicly-funded budget.  The truth is, if an innovative design or an environmentally sensitive project isn’t a priority from the very beginning of a project, those goals will certainly be difficult to achieve. That difficulty has more to do with project planning than project budget.

However, there are design methods that we utilize time and time again to successfully meet any reasonable design priority within a given budget.  I’ll outline the design process below to show you how project teams can successfully prioritize aesthetics and innovation and still meet the project budget.

1.)    Establish need:  Typically, the first step for an owner in any construction project is establishing need.  A current facility is too small, too old, or too expensive to continue to operate.

2.)    Establish project budget:  After the project need is established, determining a budget and programming the use of the building often follow.  While the overall budget is established through a bond issue in major capitol improvement projects, it is important to remember that how the building program fits within that budget is almost always malleable.

3.)    Establish design priorities: During the programming and planning process of a project, appoint a representative (or representatives) from each stakeholder group in the proposed project.  If the project involves a school building, invite student, educators, administrators, board members, parents and the public to be stakeholders in establishing the design priorities.  Once the stakeholder group is established, open the planning discussion to those stakeholders through a design priority workshop (also known as an “integrated design charrette”) – check out the end of this article for several resources on design charrettes and workshops.

Teachers, administrators, parents and design professionals meet during a design charrette for Ferguson Township Elementary School

Successful workshops incorporate the following elements:

• Ensure that design professionals are present at the workshop that can inform, guide and educate stakeholders on the design possibilities.  These design professionals are typically architects, engineers and construction managers that are adept at fostering creativity and discussion.  They are there to educate, inspire and convey professional expertise to the stakeholders.

• During the design charrette, democratically establish design priorities from all of the stakeholders.  Discuss the priorities as a group and rank each of the priorities in order of importance.  In our experience organizing and overseeing design charrettes, most stakeholders actually nominate aesthetics and innovative technologies as top priorities.  There may be several stakeholders that prioritize “budget” as the top priority.  While project budget will always be the ultimate priority, it is important to educate all stakeholders that project budget is not scope budget.  Each design priority’s scope only makes up a portion of the over project budget.  Prioritizing one scope of work over another allows the group to understand where funding priorities fall within the overall project budget.

4.)    Establish a plan:  The next step is finally putting pen to paper to develop schematic designs that balance the budget and design priorities into a cohesive building program.  From these preliminary plans and some additional design development, the design professionals are generally able to generate rough cost estimates for each design priority.  These estimates then allow the stakeholders to evaluate cost vs return on investment for each of the design priorities and determine the feasibility of pursuing one priority over another.

Elementary students sit down to design their new school during a charrette

For further reading on design charrettes and integrated project design, reference the National Institute of Building Sciences’ Whole Building Design Guide: http://www.wbdg.org/resources/charrettes.php  and the National Charrette Institute http://www.charretteinstitute.org/ .  Both of these sites provide excellent resources for those interested in the integrated project design method.

Near Net Zero Energy Buildings

NET ZERO

The concept of Net Zero Energy is one in which, through a combination of passive and active design strategies, a building or campus of facilities achieves a “net” of zero use of electricity annually. This strategy goes beyond “high performance” building design because energy generation is a required step to overcome the inevitable need for power, artificial lighting, heating, cooling, and ventilation.  Some very specific building types, such as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory built in 2010 In Colorado, are leading the way with mission-driven owner occupied specialty buildings at a first construction cost of $259/sf with a LEED rating of Platinum.

The US DOE’s current building technologies program states, “The long term strategic goal is to create technologies and design approaches that lead to marketable zero energy buildings by 2020 and to zero energy commercial buildings by 2025.” Four critical metrics have been established as part of the definition: Net Zero Site Energy, Net Zero Source Energy, Net Zero Emission, and Net Zero Site Energy Cost.

These benchmarks will be critical to enabling national goals of future US energy independence. However, a purely Net Zero Energy budget is a perceived challenge to the pro-forma driven financing of development projects today. It is the active systems designed to achieve net zero energy use, such as solar and wind power, which can push construction costs beyond typical costs viable in a return-on-investment driven real estate economy. Budget relevancy is also a concern in the institutional sector, especially in today’s highly competitive market of higher education.

NEAR NET ZERO

The important differentiation of Near Net Zero Energy buildings is the idea that with market relevance, this approach to design can flourish in the main-stream of commercial and institutional design now. If a near net zero energy strategy will allow one to build multi-use, tenant occupied buildings, the “market” will naturally assimilate this building type. If the First-Costs of development are within acceptable margins, then the radical reduction of Life-Cycle cost of ownership and utilities can take a relevant position in the development and marketing of buildings.

Although driven by financial pragmatism, if one considers that buildings account for nearly half of energy use in this country, it is easy to understand the impact that energy use reduction and even generation can contribute back into the grid if done at a market-wide scale.

Successful Near Net Zero strategies require integrated design management to think in terms of natural forces, energy performance, building systems, cost analysis, and built environment continuously across all disciplines in the development team.  In a truly integrated design approach, the design team has considered all passive strategies for energy use reduction first; including site orientation and solar/climatic influences, rainwater and gray-water harvesting, while simultaneously considering the quality of the inhabited spaces. These investigations can be balanced against cost at each step in design and folded into a Pro-Forma strategy.

Energy performance is the most important variable in affecting our global carbon footprint. It is also one of the biggest influences on U.S. energy independence. Current initiatives such as the “2030 Challenge” adopted by Universities, Colleges, the AIA, ASHRAE, USGBC, the US Conference of Mayors and more are a direct benefactor of large scale improvement in energy performance in the built environment. In order to meet a goal of zero fossil fuel consumption by 2030, new buildings and renovations are targeted to achieve 50% fossil fuel consumption starting now. Near net zero design can achieve or exceed this design parameter on a case-by-case basis, and by being relevant Market-Wide, will align with the 2030 Challenge.

VALUE 

Regardless of political position on issues such as energy independence and global warming, the greatest value of a Near Net Zero approach is impact. Impact on cost of development, impact on energy use, impact on marketability, impact on cost of ownership (not only for private developers but also for publicly funded institutional facilities such as schools), impact on quality of living, and impact on the environment all occur when achieved at scale.

Achieving market-relevant First-Costs does require a knowledgeable team of experts. This development team will provide an integrated strategy and implementation in the fields of  financing, design, and project delivery. As Architects, we find our greatest skills lie in the synthesis of these factors into the tangible built environment. It is the informed negotiation of these variables that is critical to an integrated approach. In a successful NEAR Net Zero strategy, Architects facilitate this “consensus-based” process throughout the design, bidding, and construction phases.

Strategies such as financial benefits, energy partners, and tax incentives for new construction, renovation and energy reduction must be added to the typical community economic development incentives. In a pro-forma driven investment, the cost of energy reduction – and how close it gets to Net Zero – will be influenced by potential subsidy like any First-Cost added value. Perhaps most valuable is the development strategy that leverages the investment return on Life-Cycle cost benefits into real reductions in construction costs.

Translating those opportunities into building strategies is what we do.

Written by David McIlnay