Page 58 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

OTHER GREEN BUILDING RATING SYSTEMS 35

to do early stage energy modeling, for example, and then to change things without
incurring large additional design costs. BIM also helps the architect as lead designer
to spot conflicts earlier, for example, between mechanical and structural systems, and
resolve them before too many costs are incurred. One reason these conflicts can occur
is because usually a building’s architectural and structural systems are defined well in
advance of its mechanical and electrical systems, with only standard “rule of thumb”
space allowances reserved for the latter. This makes it harder to innovate with mechan-
ical systems, such as chilled beams, that require different space allowances.*

PLATINUM PROJECT PROFILE

Blackstone Office Renovation, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Massachusetts
Three nineteenth century masonry buildings were renovated to create a workplace
for Harvard University’s Operations Services group. The 40,000-square-feet
Blackstone Station was completed in May 2006 without any increase in initial

Photography by Richard Mendelkorn.

*Autodesk White Paper: http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/whitepaper_revit_systems_bim_for_mep_
engineering.pdf, accessed April 30, 2008.