Building Green: An Integrated Design Process is a MUST

To make sure you optimize the design for any project you need time. We didn’t have much. By the time we’d thought, “hey, we might build a house” it was mid October and our lease would be up in 10 months.  I thought my experience with sustainable design and USGBC’s LEED programs would allow me to quick start the process for a new design, incorporating as many of the best practices that I knew. I was both right, and wrong. You need specifics about every single component part of your home and I certainly am not an expert in all of them. For instance, while I knew exactly what low flow toilets and faucets would work for the family, I was less sure about the composition of our walls and attic that would be best for our climate. Additionally, we had the sticky issue of a budget: building a sustainable house within the limits of our budget, and understanding that certain sustainable features such as increased insulation can impact the price tag. But by how much? Fortunately, some good advice from team members early on helped provide some clarity on whether or not we could design a home to meet our needs, and to be as efficient and sustainable as our budget could afford. 

The initial members of our design team included:

The Builder: Paul Fowler (see previous post) who had a wealth of experience to bring to the discussion about what building practices work best in our climate, as well as costs associated with these practices. Again, he owned the property that we wanted to build on, so he was, by default, our builder. For more information on the work Paul is engaged in visit http://fowlergreenhomes.com/

The Architect: In our case, Leslie Moore, my father-in-law. You are lucky if you have such an asset in the family to bounce ideas off of. We trusted him to know what it was that we needed, even if we didn’t have absolute clarity on how to get there. He produced more than three versions of his most efficient design, all the while knowing that we might not build one of them. He even visited the site one afternoon while in town to make sure he’d situated the house correctly for solar, views and privacy. Few have the luxury to work with architects in this manner. The one drawback to his involvement: because he’s not living near us we’ve had to do a lot of stuff over the net and the phone, which when working on plans, can be a bit of a drag if you are one-dimensionally challenged, as I am. But he built us a nifty model to make up for my handicap, which is a great thing to have! 

A graduate of RISD, Les served in the Navy Reserves for four years before commencing his work as an architect. He had the unique experience of working on the “Expo ’67," a 240 ft dome that was the U.S. Information Agency Exhibit for the Montreal World’s Fair. Most of his work (as a partner in various firms) focused on public and private (college/university) buildings and spaces, including some of Boston’s metro stops. His fascination with boats, particularly fast sailing boats, has been a lifelong “hobby.”  He’s built numerous craft, including a 40-foot trimaran sailboat that won a good number of local and ocean races. His love of sailing, and newfound passion for residential architecture, sustain him to this day. 

The Engineer: Ellis Guiles, Vice President of TAG Mechanical Systems and Principal of EG2 Engineering, P.C., was indispensible from the get go. I hired Ellis even before we’d signed a contract so that he could run some preliminary models to see if our design assumptions translated to real energy savings before we agreed on a price with the builder. Because of my professional experience working with mechanical engineers I’m a big fan of modeling, as it can tell you a lot about a design’s potential energy performance BEFORE you actually spend money on building. For instance, Ellis was able to inform us that our initial plan for 4 inches of exterior rigid foam plus additional insulation in the studs wouldn’t net us the savings (in heating and cooling costs) that we expected such practices would garner. His models were also able to demonstrate what appreciable differences would result from choosing one window option vs. another. As a result, what we saved in buying the less expensive, and only slightly less efficient windows, we then could spend on a solar hot water system to offset our use of fossil fuels.

Ellis is a Professional Engineer and a Mechanical Contractor, and in addition to his modeling, he’s been informing our decisions on HVAC design as well as other ventilation issues that arise when you create a “tight” house. He is also my GREEN RATER http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=2093#overview and HOME ENERGY RATER http://www.resnet.us/home-energy-ratings, and in these capacities will guide us through both LEED© Homes ™ Certification and the Energy Star V2.5 Certification.  

And of course, the owners: We had experience renovating our old house and knew our programmatic needs really well. We even reviewed these with the architect before he put pen to paper. Once we agreed to build, we have been intimately involved in the decisions because we have very specific sustainable goals (e.g. LEED Silver) and a builder who is new to these programs. 

So, after about five weeks of research, drawings, and discussions with this group, we came to an agreement, but only once we had designed the house, written the sustainable specifications, and discussed all of the goals pertaining to Energy Star and LEED© Homes ™ Certification.  It was an intense design process, and I’d obviously advise anyone undertaking a similar home building project to allow for another month or two to review ideas. For instance, with more time, we might have figured out an alternative to a traditional HVAC system that we’ll be installing for heating/cooling/ventilating the house. Initally, we thought we could do without one, but discussions with the engineer showed us this wasn’t feasible because when you create a tight envelope you need to ventilate it correctly (the phrase in the industry is “Build tight. Ventilate Right.”

An integrated design process also allows you to address all the specific sustainable details, including certification goals, so that you can include them in the specifications that are a critical part of your Construction and Purchase Agreement (even if you are NOT pursuing certifications, you need to ensure your sustainable goals are articulated and agreed to in specifications). Once the construction process gets going, things are going to unfold too quickly to ensure that you have everything from wall construction to finishing materials covered. In fact, based on my experience with this project and others, you can save yourself many headaches, change orders, and money, if you take the time to ensure for an integrated design.