Page 206 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

182 GETTING STARTED—PREDESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

part of an integrated design process. In this project, Lord Aeck Sargent did most of the
interior of the building and Gould Evans did the exterior shell. Lord says:

We had set roles; having set roles on a project is really important. That made the rela-
tionship [between the two firms] work. It’s just like in a theater production where you
have this role and I have that role and you can’t cross over roles, you have to do your
thing in the production. It worked much like that.

The Gould Evans team of Trudi Hummel, principal in charge, John Dimmel and
Tamara Shroll spoke about when they saw the integrated design process work, in very
practical terms.

[Hummel] It was a real team effort. In terms of the overall project, we tried to split it
up evenly. So there was tremendous motivation on both of our parts to make it work.
The issue of the interdisciplinary, interactive philosophy was really important in
developing the overall concept for both buildings. The internal atrium is a very large,
wonderful space, and natural light comes from the light monitors above. The discus-
sion about how that would end up working was really a dual dialog. Often times there
would be conflict, but in our minds that’s not a bad thing. That’s often what generates
some of the best ideas.

A unique feature of this project is how the design team thought about water use and
integrated the efforts of the landscape architect into the overall thinking.

[Hummel] One of the project’s significant features that really speaks of good sus-
tainable design practices is the integration of the bioswale, which is a concept that
was brought to the table by our landscape architect, Christie Ten Eyck. It’s a feature
that is really tied into the general workings of the building in the way that it captures
the condensate water from the mechanical equipment. That water is stored and fed
into the irrigation system. But also, it’s an integral feature of the way that the land-
scape is a living place for the occupants of the building and visitors. It really is a big
part of one’s experience of the site. It has become one of the very well known features
of the project, and it’s something that we talk about a lot in terms of architecture and
landscape working really well together.
[Dimmel] To feed water into the bioswale, all of the roof drains had to be organized
in way so that they all come down the side of the building and feed out to the
bioswale. When it rains, it becomes an event out there. All of the rain from the roof
is collected, brought down from the building, and redirected to the bioswale which is
a low desert area. There was a lot of building system coordination to get all of those
roof drains into that one area, crossing major utility lines and through the basement
of the building. There was a lot of working that had to be done in order to get that to
work but it came out to be something that was really spectacular and really speaks to
what the research at the Biodesign Institute is about.
[Shroll] There is a nice connection with the type of research that actually happens in
the Biodesign Institute, which is so much about nature. What they’re doing it is trying