Page 99 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

76 THE ECO-CHARRETTE

Eventually we found that we were able to create a concept that is sort of a half of a
figure eight arrangement, a giant S curve. The front end of S curve is the public court
and the public faces that and then it flips around and there’s the work court and all of
the work functions face that. A huge point of conflict for the project was that the hor-
ticulture staff needs to move around with big machinery, dangerous materials and
things that they don’t want the public to a part of. However, they do love the idea that
people get a glimpse in and can see the amount of work that goes into maintaining the
place. That is horticulture, that’s the process and that was an important aspect of the
building. This building is about process.
But on the education side, others were saying, “We can be a very educational place,
we can bring the public here, we can address the public’s needs and give them a
dressed up face, with a glimpse into what the [horticultural] process is.” If that hadn’t
come to the surface, as a big point of tension, it would have been easy to skip past it
instead of making it the heart of the concept of the project.
The benefits of this process are that we get further faster and we start the design
process with a huge amount of buy-in and a lot of integration. The engineering, land-
scape architects, the person in charge of the parking lot, person in charge of catering
were all there and letting us know what his or her needs are. Even if we haven’t quite
got it figured out, we can start to shape the response around making allowances for
everyone’s needs. When the drawing is started early on, it’s very easy to forget pieces
because you’re trying to deal with big issues. You can leave out very important parts
of the program.
When you’re talking about a LEED Platinum project, you need every inch of every-
thing working together. Because what you’re trying to do is create a building that is
a system where everything works together. We talk about strategic, systemic and sus-
tainable. The building is strategic; it’s not an end in of itself, it’s something that helps
people get closer to their mission. The natural systems, construction systems, budg-
etary systems and all of the other systems create the context of the project, so that the
project can become a systemic response. In other words, the ideal Platinum building
operates as an integrated system, not necessarily a series of isolated components.

Let’s break down the approach used by Bob Shemwell and his team and look at some
of the elements. First, the opening dinner with a team building and mind-bending exer-
cise indicates to everyone that something special is happening with this project and that
something creative and fun is about to take place. Second, key stakeholders are engaged
in a very uplifting way to examine the project from many different viewpoints to come
up with a mission statement that will guide the project and help resolve any conflicts or
trade-offs. Then there is a hiatus while the design team and key client staff work on
design concepts and look for potential conflicts that can be resolved in a “both/and”
fashion rather than “either/or.” In this way, true integration is achieved and each person’s
viewpoint is respected, even if it can’t be fully incorporated into the design. Finally,
there is a concluding dinner in which the design concept is presented to the full stake-
holder group again, looking for buy-in to guide the design team from then on. Building
systems emerge “strategic, systemic, and sustainable” from this process. In the case of