Page 246 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

222 CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS PHASE

We conducted numerous design charrettes that included the design team members
and the owners, plus the various user groups and advisors from Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, an architect from Germany, and
others. The charettes were designed to optimize and integrate building systems while
at the same time reduce energy consumption and initial construction cost. Our first
goal was to reduce the heating and cooling loads of the building by optimizing the
building envelope and reducing otherwise assumptive loads such as plug loads. We
then studied various mechanical systems, and selected a hybridized system which
resulted in a 100 percent outside air system with an energy savings of approximately
60 percent. The integration of these systems into a building, which had a predeter-
mined footprint and severe height restrictions due to the regulatory agency require-
ments in the Lake Tahoe area, created a separate challenge in itself, requiring signif-
icant design creativity. It was also necessary that the exterior design of the building
reflect the Lake Tahoe alpine architectural vernacular which further restricted the
choices of style, form, and building materials.
There were essentially two types of charrettes and workshops generally categorized by
size. The larger charrettes were important and provided the opportunity to step back
and listen to divergent opinions and provided a forum for stimulating discussions while
providing some long range perspective which is needed and helpful at times to prevent
you from getting tunnel vision. However, the most productive and focused meetings
were smaller group workshops of 8 to 12 people consisting of the core design team
members with representation from the owners and the user groups. The smaller group
size enabled us to focus on, and further evaluate, specific issues which may have been
raised at the larger charrettes, but also to refine the details of the design concepts. It
was optimum for our project to have the larger design charrettes at intervals of about
60 days, with focused smaller workshops at two week intervals.

There was a certain “bottom line” philosophy, according to Lankenau, about how to
use LEED as a metric, considering that it is still, and will probably remain for the fore-
seeable future, a work in progress:

Our goal was this: if there was a choice between good design practice and sacrificing
the best design solution in an effort to attain a LEED credit, we would always choose
good design practice. As a design team, we agreed that we would try never to design
something just to attain a LEED credit, but rather, if it appeared close, we would sim-
ply work harder to refine the design, and through the additional effort, perhaps
achieve a better design which would result in achieving the credit. It can be a formi-
dable challenge to avoid the temptation to accumulate additional credits, but I believe
that good design practice will yield a well-designed building incorporating exemplary
sustainable design principles which may or may not qualify as a LEED credit.

Of course, the temptation during the construction documents phase is always to get
just a few more points, to get to the next certification level, a practice that inevitably
distorts the goals of LEED and probably at this stage adds cost to the project without
attendant gain. Lankenau says there has to be a balance and that at the construction
document (CD) phase level it can be very effective to try harder: