Hot Topics for Green Gurus

Notes from BuildingGreen's breakfast gathering at Greenbuild for partners and Sustainable Design Directors from forward-thinking firms around the U.S.

Overarching IssuesSeveral topics seemed to permeate the conversations among all of the breakfast attendees.
• Expanding the Reach of Green Design: Many attendees discussed how to get green design skills into the hands of more people in their firm, or how to bring these ideas to their interior designers, or even how to how to make relevant green product information available to their Asian-based design teams.
• Understanding Building Performance: This topic came up in several forms throughout breakfast. The contexts ranged from defining what metrics to track to how to share project performance information within each firm and among firms. Everyone was interested in learning how to tell when they'd gotten it right.
• Meeting the Architecture 2030 Challenge: This was the topic that we at BuildingGreen had brought to the breakfast, following pre-breakfast conversations with Charles Brown of sfL+a Architects and Kathy Wardle of Perkins + Will. The topic seemed to resonate on many levels with all of the breakfast attendees.

Specific Topics and Ideas
• The 2030 Challenge and performance measurement: The 2030 Challenge creates the problem of figuring out when you have reached your goals. This will require a big wave of measurement and performance assessment work by firms. Several folks indicated that they were looking to us to help guide this work and/or to help with sophisticated impact calculators.
References:
• Carbon calculator from Mithun and Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
• Article in BuildingGreen Suite on LEED project performance report by New Buildings Institute and USGBC
• The 2030 Challenge and design process: Breakfast discussions centered on the need to bring sophisticated green design skills to every design team in a firm in order to be able to meet the 2030 Challenge goals. The skills discussed included effective integrated design, early and continued energy performance evaluation, getting green intent into contract documents, and institutionalizing post-occupancy evaluations.
References:
• Perkins +Will office management plan
• HOK Sustainable Design Resources (click link on home page)
• Renovation of existing buildings: Architecture firms and clients are focusing more on existing buildings and less on new construction. The topics discussed ranged from tenant and owner incentives to hospital renovations.
References:
• Clinton Climate Initiative announcement of building retrofit program
• BuildingGreen article on renovation of houses
• Stealth Green: This was a term coined by the team from HOK to describe how they are incorporating green design strategies and products into many projects without the clients' knowledge. The discussion focused on how to make these actions more effective and widespread.
References:
• Case study on Oakes Hall at Vermont Law School, considered a classic "stealth green" building
• Truly integrated design: One attendee remarked that "most design firms are talking about integrated design, but they're not really doing it." While this may be an overstatement, many participants described the complexity of engaging in a truly integrated process, especially in renovation projects and interiors projects.
References:
• BuildingGreen article on Integrated Design
• Roadmap to Integrated Design
• Green Interiors: Many attendees commented that they would love to get more resources to help green their interiors work.
References:
• Green Zone at InteriorDesign.com
• Link to Penny Bonda's book Sustainable Commercial Interiors
Final ThoughtsSeveral participants noted that they are ready to read about new ways of thinking about buildings. Our experience at BuildingGreen has led us to the view that buildings are just another manifestation of the natural world, and thus, need to relate directly to existing natural processes and inhabitants. But take a look at some of these other references to follow this final thought.
References:
• "The Mindset Thing," article by Nadav Malin
• "Shifting our Mental Model," a presentation by Bill Reed