The Whole Building Approach
The Hickory Consortium
Mark E. Kelley, III, PE
The interaction between the components of the building, equipment, the HVAC systems, and the environment is especially important for reduced energy and resource use. Climate, in fact, offers resources that can be applied to some of the important needs of the building and its occupants. Climate is more than an obstacle to be overcome, and more than a resource to exploit, it is the context for sustainable design.
Typically, the architect designs the building without an understanding of the mechanical equipment or its interaction with the building. On the other hand, consulting engineers seldom have input to the design features that may have a great impact on their heating and cooling loads. Generally, the engineer designs the system to more than adequately cover the needed energy and then adds an additional safety margin to cover unanticipated occupant needs. The mechanical system is oversized by far more than required for prudence in eliminating the risk of discomfort. This oversizing results in inefficient operation under typical conditions, higher operating costs, and higher maintenance costs, since maintenance costs are often determined by the size of the equipment.
The whole building approach involves looking at all parts of the building and the building process to reveal opportunities to improve the building at the lowest possible cost. The first step is to include owners, designers and builders in the process of discovering the sustainability goals that we are willing to embrace. With these priorities explicitly delineated, local resources are evaluated, including opportunities presented by the site itself, and recyclable materials and components that are locally available. Next, the functional requirements of the building are reviewed to see if it is possible to reduce the demand from that standpoint. Then building loads are reduced, first through efficient envelope design, solar and efficient lighting integration and then through energy distribution system design. The consideration of health impacts of materials choices, daylight and energy efficient lighting and fresh air systems. Next, high efficiency equipment is selected with understanding of the reduced end loads. Throughout the process and during future use of the building, continuous efforts must be made to reduce waste, improve health, use economical recycled and environmentally benign materials, and reduce the generation of pollutants.
The USGBC LEED certification system provides a good framework for considering all the important energy and environmental aspects of a project. The Hickory Consortium uses several types of energy analysis in design, planning and certification of buildings such as Erie-Ellington low income homes (Energy Star), The Maine Audubon Headquarters, Artists For Humanity Epicenter (LEED Platinum), the Nantucket Small Friends School(LEED Gold), Primex (LEED Gold) and the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Sanctuary (LEED Platinum).
