Dan Thiede live-blogs this session at the Minnesota Green Communities third annual statewide GREEN BY DESIGN Conference. View all conference presentations here.
Presenters: Brad Kruse, Weis Builders (Contractor) | Gretchen Camp, BKV Group (Architect) | Heather Gay, Kandiyohi Development Partners (Consultant) | Joel Salzer, Lutheran Social Service of MN (Owner)
The panel uses their recent building project at 24th and Park in the Phillips West Neighborhood of South Minneapolis, the new Park Avenue Apartments and the Center for Changing Lives, as a model for the integrated design process
Overview: This session will demonstrate that it is possible to successfully develop green affordable housing without breaking the bank. Leaders in green housing will share their approach to integrated design and construction through real project experiences and examples. The experienced panel combines perspectives from a building owner, architect, and general contractor. Participants will learn the basic elements to integrated design, along with considerations for forming the right team of owner, architect, contractor, and other key consultants. The session will cover how the team can work together to identify strategic green goals and how to achieve those goals throughout design and construction. It will also explore how to best research and choose green products and how to balance cost, durability, and green criteria when exploring such design options.
View the presentation from this session
The buildings in brief
Park Avenue Apartments: 38 units of affordable housing, 10 units of “long term homeless” housing, 5 stories, and 65,000 sqft.
Center for Changing Lives: social service programming, Messiah Lutheran Church, Kaleidoscope Children Center, Phillips West Neighborhood Organization
Redevelopment Goals: Think big on this 2+ acre site; Improve the fabric of the neighborhood; Emphasize community center focus; Conduct enviornmental remediation
Integrated Design & Goals
Green Goals:
- Minnesota Green Communities grant
- LEED certification (silver)
- Save on operational costs
- Create a neighborhood and city model of green building practices
- Broad stakeholder outreach and consulation for maximum buy-in
- Fundraising: being “green” really helped in this regard
Definition of Integrated Design from US DOE: Integrated building design is a process of design in which multiple disciplines and seemingly unrelated aspects of design are integrated in a manner that permits synergistic benefits to be realized. The goal is to achieve high performance and multiple benefits at a lower cost than the total for all the components combined. This process often includes integrating green design strategies into conventional design criteria for building form, function, performance, and cost. A key to successful integrated building design is the participation of people from different specialties of design: general architecture, HVAC, lighting and electrical, interior design, and landscape design. By working together at key points in the design process, these participants can often identify highly attractive solutions to design needs that would otherwise not be found. In an integrated design approach, the mechanical engineer will calculate energy use and cost very early in the design, informing designers of the energy-use implications of building orientation, configuration, fenestration, mechanical systems, and lighting options.
Process Intent and Benefits of Collaboration: Bringing the project team and their individual expertise together for collaboration early on to ensure a smooth design, building, and certification process. A collaborative partner ethic and sythesis of diverse ideas leads to a synery in outcomes, as well as accurate and updated project costs, ongoing feedback on the impacts of project decisions, broad buy-in on project team decisions, and no surprises…or almost no surprises.
The Project Team:
- When identifying partners, be direct, ask lots of questions, and be sure of expertise
- Team members should be: proponents of sustainability; knowledgeable; creative; collaborative; proactive; flexible; and patient & willing
Setting Green Goals
Goals in General:
- Understand what you already do
- Set realistic goals and wishes
- Learn from other projects
- Manage expectations
- Manage risks
- Evaluation throughout design and construction
Owner Goals:
- Your mission / vision/ culture
- Public perception
- Traditional funding sources, and those looking “green”
- Building operations—lowering costs overall
Consultant Goals:
- Act as a resource
- Identify green funding sources
- Selection of green rating system
Architect Goals:
- Advide owner on appropriate consultant, engineers, contractors
- Establish green benchmarks
- Identify wants and needs of all stakeholders
Contractor Goals: Construction analysis: Will it work? How will it be built? Has this been done before? What are the alternatives? How will this affect quality? How could this be improved?
Understanding Design & Cost Impacts
Design Impacts
- Green Choices: developing strategies, bundling your green package
- Green Impact Areas:
- Aesthetics
- Sustainable sites
- Water efficiency
- Energy and atmosphere
- Materials and resources
- Indoor environmental quality
- Innovation
Cost Impacts
- Design time
- Design and re-design
- Engineering and modeling
- Documenting for third party certification (LEED)
- Staff and consultant coordination
- Construction features and learning curves
- Testing and commissioning services
- Certification/documentation
Green Consultant: We strongly recommend working with a consultant. Though it came with the costs of consultant time, commissioning, and design & engineering, their experience was well worth it, they were able to help us make useful changes to our original design, and they helped us keep up with evolving certification standards
Creating a Balance among initial costs, life cycle costs, durability, aesthetics, and sustainability was most important.
Implementation During Construction
They found they needed to establish their own best practices. Education was important for all team members, and those doing the building. Specification compliance during the building process and monitoring of construction were also key, and helped along by project-specific training for those working on the site and very clear intents and expectations up front. We also really benefited from recycling construction materials on the job site.
Wrapping up & Lessons Learned
Post-Construction Projects include:
- Third party certification
- Owner training process and owner operating manuals
- Building occupant orientation
- Education and marketing opportunities
- Debriefing
- Cost analysis
- Accomplishments
- Setbacks
Lessons learned by all participants:
- Owner:
- Importance of team selection
- Focus on costs
- Consultant:
- Communication is key
- Timing the documentation
- Architect:
- Good green design process
- Early modeling facilitates better informed decisions later
- Limits and compromises are essential
- Contractor:
- Pre-construction cost analysis is key for decision-making
- Sub-contractor buy-in is key
