Page 207 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

PROGRAMMING 183

to solve all kinds of problems in their research but they’re doing it from a point of
view of [how] nature [solves similar problems]. The idea was for them to have a con-
nection from their offices into this amazing natural landscape that’s all about the
desert. It was a motivational and inspirational aspect of the connection between a
building and its place.

The difficulties of making something happen is an example of how strong the project
team has to be in terms of the strength of the design ideas and what the team is trying
to achieve together. When there is such strength of ideas and such incredible support
from the university’s project manager, it makes some of the conflicts seem uneventful
because everyone is working toward the same goal. Some questions to ask during the
programming phase include:

1 How much building do we really need (more or less than first thought)? Can we
afford what we need, or do we need to reduce the program? (This was done in the
Ohlone College project, because the overriding goal was to have a high-performance
green building, within a pre-established budget.)
2 Are our assumptions about building use still valid, with respect to emerging and
established social trends, such as Internet use, telecommuting, 100 percent work
from home, and so on? (In other words, do we still need all the space we thought
we did?) If our assumptions are incorrect and we build too much space for our
current needs, can we lease out space to others for 5 or 10 years?
3 Are there pieces of this building that do not require a permanent building to be
constructed? For example, can seasonal and periodic uses be accommodated
through temporary structures or partially enclosed spaces, for example, food serv-
ice at a golf course? More architects are experimenting with temporary structures—
in one case, a 10,000-square-feet LEED Silver sales office for a large Seattle
development was specifically designed for deconstruction, so that it could easily
be moved to another site when the development required the site it was on for
future building phases.
4 Are there elements of our building program that can be overlapped in multi-
use spaces that would reduce the size of the building? Shared parking is an
obvious way to reduce environmental impacts, but shared meeting spaces in
schools that can be used for community meetings at night are another obvious
example.
5 Are we designing the building to be flexible enough to adapt to a new life after
we’ve moved on or outgrown it? Can the interior walls easily be moved without
affecting structural strength? (I visited a project in Oslo, Norway, a few years ago
and found that it’s quite common there for smaller buildings to be designed with-
out any interior load-bearing walls, so that other uses can be more easily accom-
modated in the future, simply by moving walls.) New demountable wall systems
are available on the market and help with this task.
6 Has the plan allowed for easy building expansion or expansion of cooling systems
for future data centers or increased occupant load? It’s easier to expect that we