Page 164 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

140 COSTS OF GREEN BUILDINGS

PLATINUM PROJECT PROFILE
Shangri La Botanical Gardens & Nature Center, Orange, Texas
Near the border of Texas and Louisiana sits the 250-acre Shangri La Botanical
Gardens and Nature Preserve. Closed after a snowstorm wiped out most of the
gardens, the new Shangri La Botanical Gardens center was designed by
Lake/Flato architects and reopened in March of 2008. The building houses
research facilities, an outdoor education center, classroom pavilions, and a
visitors’ center. Solar panels throughout the property produce 21 percent of
the center’s energy needs. Many of the site’s structures were constructed out
of reclaimed brick from a 1920-era warehouse; the asphalt parking lot was sal-
vaged during the repaving of one of Orange’s city streets. Cypress trees recov-
ered from a Louisiana river bottom were milled for use as siding, slat walls,
fencing, doors, and gates. Rainwater is collected and used in toilets and for
irrigation.*

Flack & Kurtz’ Dan Nall comments on how this takes place. †

The stuff that we specify—mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, etc.—
typically represents anywhere from the high 20 percent up to 40 percent of the total
construction cost of a building depending on the type of building. If it’s a hospital or
something like that, it might well be 40 percent. Certainly if it’s a data center it could
be that much or more.
We specify a lot of things that the owner is going to be buying, but we don’t have
quite as much leeway in managing our costs because a lot of things are either man-
dated by code, mandated by the functionality of the building, or somehow are not dis-
cretionary. Yes, we can economize on quality and look for bargain materials and com-
ponents. But we also have to be very careful, because there are liability issues there
also. We want to make sure that the thing lasts—that it doesn’t break in a short period
of time and we get sued. After all, we are specifying a significant fraction of the build-
ing’s cost.

However, when the value engineering effort comes around, often times we’re stuck
with the issue of how much we are willing to compromise. We originally put this
stuff in the design for a reason. Very likely it wasn’t because we liked the way it
looked. Some could make the charge that in some cases (and in some cases I’m sure
it’s quite correct) the reason we drew what we drew, designed what we designed, and
the reason we specified what we specified was an over-abundance of caution. Surely,
that does happen, and as engineers we need to recognize when we’re being overly

*Sources: www.architechmag.com/news/detail2.aspx?contentID=58301495; and www.aia.org/aiarchitect/
thisweek08/0321/0321d_shangrila.cfm, accessed April 22, 2008.
† Interview with Dan Nall, March 2008.