Page 77 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

54 THE PRACTICE OF INTEGRATED DESIGN

■ Lighting designer/consultant
■ Energy expert
■ Cost management consultant
■ Specialized design consultant (e.g., for data centers, laboratories, corrections)
■ Mechanical contractor (especially for design/build projects)
■ Commissioning authority/agent (especially at the design development phase)
■ Natural resources specialist (depending on project)
■ Onsite waste management consultant (if using constructed wetlands, for example)

Sally Wilson is global director of environmental strategy for CB Richard Ellis, the
world’s largest property management firm. She brings the perspective of the commer-
cial real estate broker to the integrated design team.*

Speaking specifically of tenant brokers, a lot of them think the design process is
something that the architect or the engineer deals with. It’s critical that you lock
some of the LEED components into the lease, otherwise it’s going to be an uphill
battle for the architect or the engineer to get documentation or to get a commitment.
The building has to commit to providing infrastructure for certain pieces [of LEED
certification]. For example, if you’re a multi-floor tenant and you want the water
credit and you have to change out the bathroom fixtures to water-free urinals,
they’re probably not going to let you do that. But if it’s the lease, they’re going to
let you do that. If you negotiate it early as a requirement for the tenants, then you
can get that change.

So, here’s another participant (the real estate broker) who may need to be inte-
grated into the design process, especially for commercial real estate projects and
especially in multi-tenanted buildings such as the 1600 or so commercial develop-
ment projects now underway seeking certification under the LEED for Core and Shell
(LEED-CS) standard.

Integrated Design from the
Engineer’s Perspective

Geoff McDonnell is a mechanical engineer in British Columbia. Here’s how he
†
describes the integrated design process, from an engineer’s viewpoint. You can see
that the integrated design process can get fairly intricate in a hurry. The real key is
that everyone is engaged early as a team, goes off and does their specialized work of
analysis and design, then gets back together and tests their ideas against the larger

*Sally Wilson, CBRE, Interview, February 2008.
†
Personal communication, Geoff McDonnell, Omicron, April 18, 2008.