Collaborating for Sustainability

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The most effective collaborations reach beyond the project development team to bring in perspectives from across the building lifecycle.

Bringing the Users’ Perspective Forward

PNC Financial Services Group has developed a fleet of LEED-certified bank branches, and its Tower at PNC Plaza, now under construction, is expected to be North America’s tallest naturally ventilated office tower.

PNC kicks off each project with an eco-charrette, which engages not only the architectural and engineering disciplines, but also construction managers, building operations staff, IT personnel, PNC’s head of workplace and additional perspectives that can help shape the project’s approach to sustainability.

The information generated helps align what gets built with how users actually behave. If everyone in a workplace uses cell phones and laptops, for example, the IT system will pose fewer electrical demands than the sum of the usual faceplates.

And if a department tallies its real needs for me-space, we-space and flexspace, they may total less than an estimate based on square footage per person.

“There are so many links in the value chain, that any misalignment gets magnified,” says Tom Paladino, PE, CEO at Paladino and Company, strategic advisor on the Tower at PNC Plaza’s sustainability design process.

“For project teams wanting to push beyond LEED, highly integrated processes are what’s getting them there.”

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Tracking Design Intents Beyond Completion

By the time a building reaches completion, the owner may consider the development team’s role complete.

That could be a mistake.

According to Andy Frichtl, PE, principal with Interface Engineering, “Almost every building has issues that need to be addressed.”

For example, the Hood River Middle School Science and Music Building, an AIA-COTE Award-winning, LEED-Platinum, net-zero-energy facility, did not at first operate at net zero.

When Frichtl conducted a post-occupancy review, he found equipment and controls needing fine-tuning and maintenance staff needing to understand the significance of propping open classroom doors in cold weather.

Once those adjustments were made, the building not only achieved net-zero energy, it actually began producing more energy than it used.

Monitoring and commissioning may look like extra costs, says Frichtl, but having the design team track design intents, at least through the first year of building performance, confirms achievement of a project’s sustainability objectives, establishes benchmarks for owners’ reference in the future and brings a better return on investment.

Hardwired for Collaboration

Operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, which can typically amount to three times a project’s initial expense, are determined very early in the project’s design.

According to a 1994 analysis by Joseph Romm, FAAS, when just one percent of a project’s upfront costs are spent, up to 70 percent of its life-cycle costs may already be committed.

The design-build-operate-maintain (DBOM) method of project delivery breaks down the distinction between project development and O&M phases, bringing them under a single, often decades-long contract, and hardwires a project for collaboration.

With the contractor and O&M staff contributing from the start, and with environmental and financial implications brought together and forward in the decision-making process, DBOM builds in the holistic thinking that generates more sustainable solutions.

DBOM may be hardwired for collaboration, but other project delivery methods, including traditional design-bid-build, are capable of achieving similar levels of integration.

They just require a more explicit commitment. “The type of contract doesn’t matter all that much,” says David Riley, associate professor of Architectural Engineering at Pennsylvania State University, “it’s really about process. It’s about having the right talent [who are] having exchanges at the right time.”

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Dassault Systèms’ Lean Construction 3DEXPERIENCE® Solution
Lean Construction Institute
McGraw Hill Construction