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Educated Incapacity: Are We Smart Enough to Save the Planet?
By: Jerry Yudelson, PE, MS, MBA, LEED AP - Friday, October 13, 2006
Source: iGreenBuild.com
Spreading concerns about global warming are creating mammoth new pressures on architects, engineers and builders to deliver buildings that are much more energy efficient than current codes and standards (see related news brief). LEED version 2.2 certified-buildings currently receive all 10 energy-efficiency points by being 42.5% more efficient than the prevailing ASHRAE 90.1-2004 standard.
The previous standard, under LEED version 2.1, gave all 10 points to projects that were 60% more efficient than the old standard, ASHRAE 90.1-1999, a level achieved by only 8% of the first 200 LEED certified projects, according to a 2005 analysis by Paul Shahriari at Green Light Strategies, Atlanta, GA, and only 24% of the LEED Gold projects.
Here’s the problem. In my experience, the average architect and engineering team CAN’T DELIVER a 50% more efficient building without busting the budget. There is very little capacity for doing integrated design in such a way that one could accomplish this. For a description of the approach to building a (pending) LEED Platinum project in Portland, Oregon (to be occupied October 2006) that achieved 60% energy savings (under the LEED 2.1 standard) on 11% less than the original budget for mechanical and electrical systems, go to www.ieice.com and get a copy of a 50-page case study that I edited about a year ago for Interface Engineering, that shows how much creativity goes into such an accomplishment.
I don’t mean to imply that the average architect or engineer theoretically doesn’t have the capability to deliver high-performance projects on conventional budgets, just that they DON’T do that on a regular basis. So while they’re educated (at least to some degree) in energy efficient-building design, they don’t have the capacity in energy-efficiency systems knowledge and in some cases don’t have the technical skills in energy analysis to deliver this level of performance, on conventional budgets. Hence the title of this article: “educated incapacity.”
So while many people call for buildings to be more energy-efficient, and while we certainly know how to do this from building science, the practitioner level is plainly just a weak reed to lean on at this time. There are many reasons for this:
1. Value engineering. This euphemism for "cost cutting," which reduces value and usually involves little engineering, typically happens during construction when everyone realizes that the building is over budget. Anything that can be reduced in cost is fair game. But there are many more valuable energy investments with paybacks of less than five years (read 14% rate of return) that should be included in most buildings than actually get built.
2. Engineers are notoriously risk-averse, so they engage in piling on one safety factor after another, raising the cost and increasing the size of HVAC systems, just to make sure that no one is uncomfortable, ever. The irony of this approach is that the ASHRAE standards recognize that about 20% of the people in a building will be uncomfortable at any given time, because (surprise!) we’re not all alike when it comes to being too hot or too cold. But as the saying goes, "no one ever got fired for over-sizing a system."
3. Unfamiliarity with new technologies and new systems. Everyone likes to pull the old plans off the shelf (so to speak), site-adapt them and ship them off for a new building. It is fast and profitable. Most engineers are reluctant to try new approaches, and most architects are unwilling to push them to do so. Such technologies as natural ventilation, daylighting, radiant heating and cooling, thermal energy storage and evaporative cooling have their place, depending on climate and building occupancies, but often get overlooked, unless a project has explicit high-level LEED requirements.
4. Form triumphs over function, it doesn’t follow function, as the dictum goes. Most architects are still enamored of building form (check most architectural awards programs for what buildings get honors) and don’t evaluate buildings for how well they function for people and the planet. That’s why we have LEED, which the AIA has yet to embrace as a requirement for the profession. As a result, there is very little learning from experience, except by individual practitioners. Go through a place like Phoenix and see how many buildings even have window overhangs and wing walls for shading, essential design ingredients for cutting energy costs in the desert. The fact that most commercial buildings look the same the world over (the so-called International Style), should stand as an indictment of the design professions and a clear indicator that "design with climate" has yet to be put into practice on a widespread basis.
5. Cheap energy for the past 50 years has made designers lazy and incompetent in energy-efficient design. Energy is cheaper today (in "real" dollars) in most places than it was 50 years ago. There has been little economic incentive to change. Times are changing fast, but the business of design, construction and operations has yet to catch up.
6. Understanding and articulating the business case for energy-efficient design. From my own experience, based on sitting in on numerous project meetings, I can attest to how hard it is for designers to make economic and financial arguments with business and institutional clients, but I know how essential it is to convincing "the guys who sign the front of the check" to go with new approaches to energy savings. To bridge this gap, I wrote a book for developers, Developing Green: Strategies for Success, earlier this year, for NAIOP, a national real estate organization with 12,000 members. The book is available at the bookstore online at www.naiop.org and focuses heavily on the business case for green buildings.
So, what can be done? I’ve spoken with senior leaders at the U.S. Green Building Council, and my pitch is simple. We’ve "sold" LEED to more than 40,000 workshop attendees and have accredited more than 25,000 people in the LEED system. But to date, only 5,000 buildings are signed up for the LEED system and less than 500 have actually been certified. As a result, most LEED Accredited Professionals have yet to deliver a LEED project, fewer still at a high level of energy performance. It’s time now to train architects and engineers explicitly in how to deliver far more energy-efficient buildings on a conventional budget, using the power of integrated design and bringing new technologies into the built environment.
In cooperation with ASHRAE and AIA, USGBC is uniquely positioned to take on this monumental undertaking and should integrate it immediately into its strategic planning, conferences, workshops and seminars. The challenge from Architecture 2030 (see related article), to build buildings 50% more efficient, on average, than today by 2010, should be taken seriously. The next version of LEED should be based on moving quickly toward "zero net energy" buildings, within the context of contemporary building and project economics. A new generation of safe, comfortable, healthy, resource-efficient buildings can only benefit everyone.
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