Page 94 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MORRIS ARBORETUM PROJECT 71

consulting, the SWOT analysis combines a candid discussion of the following four ele-
ments with a future vision, to arrive at an action agenda for the project. The SWOT
analysis can be used to uncover opportunities, such as external funding for energy effi-
ciency upgrades, things that might fall outside of any individual discipline’s particular
responsibilities. It provides a convenient way to create a bridge from the present situa-
tion to a desired future outcome.

■ Strengths—internal to the project; these can be particular design talents, owner
resources, and the like.
■ Weaknesses—internal to the project; things that can inhibit sustainable design, such
as disagreements over goals, lack of resources to pay for energy efficiency
upgrades, and so on.
■ Opportunities—external to the project; these can be natural resources (solar, wind,
etc.), financial incentives for green buildings; partners willing to invest in the proj-
ect, and the like.
■ Threats—external to the project; these can include anything that would threaten
the success of the design process, such as a change in ownership or local laws
that do not allow graywater systems.

The University of Pennsylvania

Morris Arboretum Project

Robert Shemwell is an architect and principal of Overland Partners, San Antonio, with
a string of high-performance, sustainable design projects to his credit. Called upon to
design a new Horticulture and Education Center for the Morris Arboretum for the
University of Pennsylvania, Shemwell’s team took a unique approach to the design
charrette process.* As of March 2008, the project was in design development and aim-
ing squarely at a LEED Platinum rating.

If you’re going to have an integrated design process you have to bring everybody to the
table at the initiation of the project. In this case, we had several daylong brainstorming
sessions with the clients, board members, staff members, people from the university’s
facilities group, and all of our consultants. We started with a couple of different things.
We went through an image creating process over a social hour, our first evening. At that
time, we did two exercises (Fig. 4.3). We drew two copies of same object similar to a
“paint by number” outline and cut them up into squares. We had two tables set up with
pastels. At the first table they came to as they were coming into the dinner, for five min-
utes or so, they would sit down and color one of the squares. They could color it how-
ever they wanted to. Then they went to the second table where they would pick up a
square, which included instructions about what colors went where.

*Interview with Robert Shemwell, Overland Partners, February 2008.