Page 037 - collaborate to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of every system.
Source section: Section 2 - Sustainable Thinking PDF page: 37 Guide page: 30 OCR quality: high (501 words)
OCR Text
An integrative process is a comprehensive approach to building systems and equipment. Project team members look for synergies among systems and components, the mutual advantages that can help achieve high levels of building performance, human comfort, and environmental benefits. The process should involve rigorous questioning and coordination and challenge typical project assumptions. Team members collaborate to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of every system. An integrative process goes beyond checklists and encourages integration during early design stages, when clarifying the owner’s aspirations, performance goals, and project needs will be most effective in improving performance. An integrative process comprises three phases. The first—discovery—is also the most important and can be seen as an expansion of what is conventionally called predesign. Actions taken during discovery are essential to achieving a project’s environmental goals cost-effectively. The second phase, design and construction, begins with what is conventionally called schematic design. Unlike its conventional counterpart, however, in the integrative process, design will incorporate all of the collective understandings of system interactions that were found during discovery. The third phase is the period of occupancy, operations, and performance feedback. Here, the integrative process measures performance and sets up feedback mechanisms. Feedback is critical to determining success in achieving performance targets, informing building operations, and taking corrective action when targets are missed. A fully integrative process accounts for the interactions among all building and site systems. By understanding building system interrelationships, project teams will ideally discover unique opportunities for innovative design, increased building performance, and greater environmental benefits. By identifying synergies between systems, teams will save time and money in both the short and the long term while optimizing resource use. Finally, the integrative process can avoid the delays and costs resulting from design changes during the construction documents phase and can reduce change orders during construction. Through the integrative process, project teams can more effectively use LEED as a comprehensive tool for identifying interrelated issues and developing synergistic strategies. When applied properly, the integrative process reveals the degree to which LEED credits are related, rather than individual items on a checklist. As a result, solving for one problem may create other problems elsewhere in the system. For example:
* Separating residential and commercial uses and failing to connect them with alternative transportation
8 means that people will drive cars to reach their destinations, generating air pollution and traffic
Q ¢ Filling a landscape with ornamental plants not appropriate for the local climate means that large
z amounts of water may be required throughout the life of the project
| * Creating air-tight buildings for energy efficiency without providing adequate ventilation results in poor
3 indoor air quality for building occupants
a When an integrated, systems-based approach is used, the solution to one problem can lead to solutions
a to many problems. The process of planning a project’s water use might lead to the design of systems that
zZ capture rainwater and greywater to meet water supply and irrigation needs while reducing runoff and
o protecting water quality. More broadly, by thinking about the system across the entire life-cycle, integrative
5 strategies can be developed synergistically.
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