Page 149 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

COST DRIVERS FOR GREEN BUILDINGS 125

general contractor and key subcontractors such as the mechanical contractor. When
they understand how high-performance projects come together and are well-integrated
into the building team from the beginning, cost premiums tend to evaporate. Indeed,
without accurate estimates for the cost of mechanical systems, many energy-saving
opportunities can be missed.
Matthiessen sees a link here between early contractor involvement and project costs.

Contractors are becoming much savvier. As they understand what this takes, they’re not
charging more for it. We’re seeing more contractor-related points [in LEED-certified proj-
ects]. A lot of contractors have a much better understanding of those LEED points, are lot
more willing to do them and are not asking for more money. Again, that’s not necessarily
changing the design, it’s changing the construction practices and it is bringing costs down.

DESIGN PROCESS AND SCOPE
You can expect that a serious commitment to integrated design will add to design
costs, because of additional meetings, design charrettes, and further studies and analy-
ses during the design period. A typical all-day meeting is going to cost $20,000, if it
involves many consultants, each billing $1200 to $2000 for the day. The least costly
approach is to get everyone together just once, but not to leave the project venue until
most key design decisions or directions are made. This approach is especially impor-
tant when consultants are brought in from out of town or even out of country. You’ll
see that multi-day charrettes are often quite useful; you’ll also see that shorter meet-
ings can also work, in cases where the client side is really well informed about LEED
and experienced in delivering high-performance projects. Other authors note that inte-
grated design can require a series of facilitated charrettes.
It’s also important to do most of the key thinking at the initial meeting and to use
energy models particularly to get better and earlier design decisions. Some of the new
developments in Building Information Modeling (BIM) promise to allow energy out-
comes to be modeled for alternative design approaches very early in schematic design.
At the USGBC’s 2007 Greenbuild show, one BIM vendor showed a promising
approach that would eventually allow modeling of approximate energy outcomes even
with rough sketches.* Relating to the issue of getting to higher levels of sustainability
without spending more, Matthiessen says,

Oddly enough, some of that is just using an energy model correctly, which we’re see-
ing more teams doing. They’re using an energy model earlier in the process as a design
tool. They’re using it as a way to make smart choices. Some of the changes they’re
making are not actual changes to the design, rather, the changes are to the operation of
the building. They’re looking at operating sequences and things like static pressures.
They are looking at the assumptions they’ve made about how the building will be
designed and operated and being a little tougher on those using the energy model [to
provide specific advice and feedback on the energy implications of alternative designs].

*Plenary presentation by Phil Bernstein, Autodesk, at the USGBC’s Greenbuild conference, Chicago, November 2007.