Page 262 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

238 CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATIONS

material availability. For example, we are working on a $100 million continuing care
retirement community with 250 units. The project was 50 percent through construc-
tion and the owner came to us and said, “I was wondering if we could make this a
LEED project.” This is almost the worst possible scenario from a timing standpoint,
because most decisions about sustainability had already been made and most of the
materials and equipment had been purchased.
We looked at what was in the design and what could still be procured and the mate-
rials that hadn’t already been bought. For instance, they specified 1.6-gallon flush
toilets and they were already ordered and sitting in a warehouse somewhere so there
was no way they were going to re-spec them. That was a missed opportunity. If we had
been sitting at the table during design, we would have said, “You know, there are
about 120 toilet fixtures out there that have lower flush rates. I think we can find one
within your budget, that you will accept from an aesthetics view point and you would
have the opportunity to get a water efficiency credit.” So that is an example of an
opportunity lost.

On the plus side, we were able to re-order the drywall from a plant that produced
100 percent recycled material with no change in price or delivery schedule and with
that single purchase, we were able to achieve both a local/region material credit and
a recycled content credit. So that was an opportunity gained at the last minute.

For Deane, the biggest challenge in integrated design is to get the owner and archi-
tect to engage the contractor early in the process and to include them as a full partic-
ipant in the design team, even on small projects. On very large projects, contractors
are almost always engaged early on (but it doesn’t always mean that designers are
listening to their advice.)

Once an architect asked me, “What do you want from us?” I said, “I want you to lis-
ten to us.” The challenge [as a contractor] is to be recognized as an equal player and
to get a seat at the table. Then the challenge is one of education because we have
found that the single biggest driver of increased costs in green building is lack of
knowledge. This stuff isn’t hard; it’s just that not everybody knows it yet. We spend
a lot of time informing people about what the realities are—the realities of cost, prod-
uct availability, installation difficulty and economic payback. We live with that day in
and day out because we’re at the end of the chain. An architect can design a beauti-
ful building but at the end of the day, the owner is going to want it delivered on time
and on budget, and that’s our job.

Paul Stoller of Atelier Ten spoke about the importance of the construction team on Yale
University’s Sculpture Building and Gallery, a project I’ve cited before in this book.*

Shawmut, the construction mangers, were superstars. When you go into construction,
there are a fair number of [LEED] credits that come down to the construction man-
ager being on the ball and making sure that submittals come through that meet the

*Interview with Paul Stoller, Atelier Ten, March 2008.