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Integrated DesignProcess GuideBy Alex Zimmerman, P. Eng.

ObjectivesThe intent of this guide is to explain the numerous advantages ofthe Integrated Design Process (IDP); to provide enough informationto start applying it to your design projects; and, to help you findadditional useful sources of IDP tools and information.

After reading this article you will:

� Understand what IDP is and how it is different from traditionalapproaches;

� Understand the benefits of IDP and why it is critical for achievingsustainable design;

� Understand how to generally structure an IDP process;

� Understand who needs to be involved, when and why;

� Understand key success factors to apply IDP; and

� Be able to find additional tools and resources to apply IDP.

"We need to use a newcollaborative integrated designprocess that can create newapproaches and tools, andbeautiful environments that can restore social, economic,and environmental vitality toour communities."

— Bob Berkebile, BNIM, KansasCity, one of the world’s mostrespected green architects

In tegr ated Des ign Process Guide

2 Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

IDP—What is it?Integrated Design Process (IDP) was usedin the early 1990s, by Canada’s C-20001

program and IDEAS Challenge2

competition to describe a more holisticapproach to building design. This designprocess has been shown to produce moresignificant results than did investment incapital equipment3. There is now no single“right” definition for IDP. Rather, IDPdescribes a different, intentional way ofapproaching sustainable building andcommunity design that offers a muchhigher likelihood of success than any other approach.

There are an increasing number ofpractitioners of IDP. Each has a different,and valid, perspective on how to do it,based on their experiences and practices.Most would agree that there are commonelements to every definition.

� Goal-driven with the primary goalbeing sustainability, but with explicitsubsidiary goals, objectives and targetsset as a means to get there.

� Facilitated by someone whose primaryrole is not to produce the buildingdesign or parts of it, but to beaccountable for the process of design.

� Structured to deal with issues anddecisions in the right order, to avoidlocking in bad performance by makingnon-reversible decisions withincomplete input or information.

� Clear decision-making for a clearlyunderstood methodology for makingdecisions and resolving critical conflicts.

� Inclusive—everyone, from the owner tothe operator, has something critical tocontribute to the design and everyonemust be heard.

� Collaborative so that the architect is notsimply the form-giver, but more theleader of a broader team collaborationwith additional active roles earlier inthe process.

� Holistic or systemic thinking with theintent of producing something wherethe whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and which may even be more economic.

� Whole-building budget setting—allowsfinancial trade-offs, so money is spentwhere it is most beneficial when aholistic solution is found.

� Iterative—to allow for new informationto inform or refine previous decisions.

� Non-traditional expertise—on the team, as needed, or brought in at non-traditional times to contribute to the process.

Sustainability is one of the most importantissues facing human society today. Thechallenges as they relate to buildings arecomplex and the solutions are not simple.Framing the challenge in terms ofmotivation and means is one way ofclarifying our thinking. Motivationproceeds from a source or ground, towardsa goal. The means require some tools and adirection to apply them. The tetrad inFigure 1 illustrates these ideas.

1 NRCan’s C-2000 program supporting advanced, energy-efficient commercial building design.2 IDEAS Challenge design competition for multi-unit residential buildings, CMHC.3 Ibid, C-2000 program

tetrad idea by Pamela MangFigure 1 – Goals and Direction of IDP

GROUND GOAL

INSTRUMENT

DIRECTION

MO TIVA T IO N

(source of motivating force)

(vision)

(means for transformations required to move towards goal)

(compass)

MEA

NS

Why IDP—Getting to What is Important

3

Motivation

The Ground: SustainabilityImperative

A host of ecological impacts resulting fromhuman activity, have produced ecosystemsdegradation that directly threatens oursociety. In the words of the UN’sMillennium Ecosystem Assessment,competed in 2005:

We are spending Earth’s natural capital,putting such strain on the naturalfunctions of Earth that the ability ofthe planet’s ecosystems to sustain futuregenerations can no longer be taken for granted.

At the same time, the assessment showsthat the future really is in our hands.We can reverse the degradation ofmany ecosystem services over the next50 years, but the changes in policy andpractice required are substantial andnot currently underway.4

This is a report worth taking the time toread to understand the scope and scale ofthe global challenge. Closer to home,building design, construction, operation

and demolition account for a significantshare of the problem—about 30 per centof the energy use and 38 per cent of thegreenhouse gases in Canada.5 Buildings arethe source of about 40 per cent of allwaste6 worldwide. As building designers, wehave both an opportunity and aresponsibility to do something about it.

The Goal: A SustainableSociety A sustainable human society has beenimagined in many ways. One of these isthe definition of sustainable developmentin the Bruntland Report, Our CommonFuture (1987) as “development that meetsthe needs of the present withoutcompromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own needs.”

While the Bruntland definition provides ahigh-level vision, more is needed to applythe concept. Basic principles for social andecological sustainability, based on physics,have been articulated by the sciencecommunity and are captured in aframework known as The Natural Step.7

The Natural Step principles are the “systemconditions”8 that society must embrace tobe sustainable.

In the sustainable society, nature is notsubject to the systematic increase of:

1. concentrations of substancesextracted from the Earth's crust

2. concentrations of substancesproduced by society

3. degradation by physical means

4. in that society, people are not subjectto conditions that systematicallyundermine their capacity to meettheir needs.

Together, the Bruntland definition and TheNatural Step Framework system conditionsprovide the sustainable development goalthat buildings must strive to reach.

Other decision-making tools forsustainable community developmentinclude “Smart Growth” and the “OnePlanet Living” frameworks.9


Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation

4 UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005, http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx5 Based on direct energy numbers from Energy Use Data Handbook, 1990 and 1995 to 2001 June 2003, NRCan and an estimate of the fraction of energy uses from other sub-sectors that are attributable to buildings6 Lenssen and Roodman, 1995, Worldwatch Paper 124: A Building Revolution: How Ecology and Health Concerns are Transforming Construction,Worldwatch Institute – numbers for Canada not available7 http://www.naturalstep.ca/systemconditions.html8 Ibid.9 http://www.smartgrowth.org and http:///www.oneplanetliving.org



Means

The Direction: Green BuildingsRating Systems

Beyond Bruntland and The Natural Step, astrategy for achieving sustainability goals isstill needed. We can develop strategies byimagining future success and then take theactions needed to get there.

In the building industry, much preparatorystrategy work has been done by the variousgreen building rating systems and energyand environmental assessment methods.These systems categorize and detail theimpacts, actions and indicators required ata building level. LEED® Canada,10 GreenGlobes, Go Green and other rating systemsgive us the compass we need as we steertowards sustainability, and as they arerefined over time, they will become moreeffective. And, as we work to refine ourbuilding practices, our buildings will alsobecome more sustainable.

The Instrument: IntegratedDesign Process as a Tool:

Even with rating systems and energy designtools spelling out the actions needed toproceed, it is still not always clear where tostart and what tools to use. IDP is one ofthe best tools we have to help define themost appropriate design path. It providesthe means to apply the design strategiesand move society towards sustainability,one project at a time.

Benefits of IntegratedDesignProtecting the world is a necessary andlaudable goal, but there other much moreimmediate benefits to making use of IDPon your projects.

Better Designs/Better Buildings

Everyone wants to build better buildingsmore efficiently at less cost, particularly theclient. Intuitively, we know that thegreatest opportunity for making changes toa design at the least cost happens early on.This is illustrated by a curve that lookssomething like Figure 2, where theopportunity to make changes decreasessignificantly and the costs to change designconcepts increase dramatically as theprocesses advance.

IDP provides the biggest payoff at thebeginning of the development curve. TheIDP kickoff session should bring togethereveryone who can make a difference,contributing in a structured way, inresponse to the program and in support of the sustainability goals. Although thismight seem like a blinding flash of theobvious, most projects don’t structure theirdevelopment and design processes toactually take advantage of the IntegratedDesign Process.

10 http://www.cagbc.org

Opportunities for Change and the Design Sequence

Programming SchematicDesign

DesignDevelopment

Construction Occupancy

COST

TIME

C o s t to C h a n g e

P o te n tia l S y n e rg ie s &

S a v in g s

SAVINGS

Figure 2 – BC Hydro, IEA Task 23 and others

5

Institutional Policy

Governments, utilities and many clientswant you to use IDP.

Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan)Commercial Building Incentive Program(CBIP)11 is expressly designed to providemonetary assistance to owners and designteams to enable them to spend the time toimplement integrated design on yourprojects. This program grew out ofexperience that NRCan had in the 1990swith C-2000, a demonstration program.The experience was that some additionaldesign expertise was needed, but that mostbuilding performance gains came from achange in the process, and the mostsuccessful projects employed the IDP.

Several utilities have programs that supportIDP. BC Hydro has its High PerformanceBuilding Program12 that provides co-funding

to perform energy studies and it is about tolaunch a program to promote IDP.

Enbridge Gas Distribution and Union Gasin Ontario jointly offer a Design AssistanceProgram13 that provides a fixed incentivefor design activities that improve yourbuilding’s energy and environmentalperformance. Enbridge also has a NewBuilding Construction Program thatprovides incentives for adding someefficiency measures.

Mountain Equipment Co-op, which hasbuilt some of the most progressive greenbuildings in Canada, seeks to improveperformance with each new store andrequires its design teams to utilize IDP. It was key to achieving the impressiveperformance these buildings havedemonstrated to date (LEED Gold, MECWinnipeg, C2000, MEC Montréal)14.

Green Buildings BC, a program thatprovided tools and resources to help B.C.education and health care agencies buildgreen buildings, recognizes the value ofIDP in its Guide to Value Analysis and theIntegrated Design Process.15

Clients who do not explicitly ask you touse IDP likely would do so if they knewthe value that IDP and green design couldadd to their projects.



Figure 3 – Standard Process—Buildings as Transformers of Resources into Wastes

Energy,

Material

and Water

Resources

Air Emissions

SolidWastes

WastewaterEffluent

BUILDINGS

Environment as warehouse of resources . . . and a sink for wastes

11 http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/commercial/financial-assistance/new-buildings/index.cfm12 http://www.bchydro.com/business/13 http://www.cgc.enbridge.com/B/B05-11_building_design.asp14 http://www.mec.ca, About Us, Sustainability, Green Building Program15 http://www.greenbuildingsbc.com/new_buildings/pdf_files/value_analysis_dp_guide.pdf

“The key to our success with these projects is whatarchitects and engineers callthe Integrated Design Process”

MEC website, www.mec.ca

Sustainability

Green buildings are characterized byperformance improvements in a wide rangeof areas, such as reduced site disturbance,minimal non-renewable resourceconsumption, minimal emissions to waterand air, and maximal quality of the indoorenvironment, as well as providing buildingflexibility and adaptability, generally at noor minimal cost increase.

Conventional design processes are generallyincapable of delivering all of these goals atonce. Integrated design has a history ofbeing able to do so.

Your Association Suppor ts IDP

In a 2003 study16 carried out for severalarchitectural associations, including RAICand OAA, one of the key findings onsustainable design in Canada17 was:

Integrated Design Process (IDP) isessential for effective management ofthe sustainable design process to ensurethat efficient coordination is maintainedand that overall project and designcosts are minimized. Several sustainabledesign evaluation and assessmentsystems require the use of IDP due tothe benefits derived from working in a collaborative setting at the outset ofthe project.

In the 2005–2006 season (the fifth),Sustainable Design for Canadian Buildings,SDCB 205, RAIC’s cross-country,continuing education course, was entitled“Green to Green: Opportunities for moreEnergy-Efficient Building Retrofits.” Itfocused on integrated design. Similar orrelated courses on sustainable design willlikely continue to be offered.

Competitive Advantage

An advantage of using IDP for designfirms is reputation. Once competent atIDP, architects will be able to deliver betterprojects more consistently than theircompetitors. As a design professional, itwill enhance your reputation, which willnot only bring more business, but higher-end business. An enhanced reputation alsomakes recruiting and retaining new talenteasier. Most of the leading-edgearchitectural and engineering consultanciesthat have gained a reputation for deliveringsustainability using the IDP do very littlerecruiting. The best and the brightest seekthem out.

The future of building design is found inIDP. A recent search of the AmericanInstitute of Architects website for “IDP”turned up 481 hits. AIA’s Design andEnvironment committees sponsored a

three-day sustainable design conference inSheperdstown, W.Va., in 2006, with oneday devoted to process, in which IDPfeatures prominently.

The implication is clear—if you don’tbecome competent at IDP, you will be leftbehind your competitors.

Personally Rewarding

One of the unanticipated benefits that Ihave witnessed in integrated designprocesses is that it is just plain fun. IDPsessions are generally challenging, creativeand personally rewarding. By setting“stretch goals” and finding novel ways toreach them, creativity is unleashed in waysthat conventional design rarely allows for. I have seen battle-weary professionalsbecome enthusiastic at what they can do in this context. People rediscover why theyjoined the profession in the first place.



“Integration is more than justhaving all the designers arounda single table.”

– CANMET Energy TechnologyCentre, Buildings Group website

16 By McGill Business Consulting Group17 Succeeding by Design, A Perspective on Strengthening the Profession of Architecture in Ontario and Canada, November 2003, McGill Business Consulting Group

7

How is IDP Different?There is no single element of integrateddesign that is revolutionary. Rather it is thesum total of all of the elements and whatthe team does with them that differentiatesIDP from conventional design. IDP differsin intention and emphasis fromconventional design.

Let’s look at the objectives in more detail.I’ll follow these with an example of howsome of these come together in practice.

Goal-driven

The big-picture goal is incorporatingsustainability into the project, but it isnecessary to set explicit subsidiary goals,objectives and targets as a means ofbreaking the goal into manageable pieces.These are best framed in performance; notprescriptive, terms and will then form thebasis for strategies to achieve them.

These goals are set with the entire projectteam involved and must include the client.The idea is to get commitment, notcompliance, from everyone involved.People support what they help create.

The first goal is a review of the projectbrief against the list of client needs. Is thisthe best location from an environmentalpoint of view? Is a new building actuallyrequired or would a major renovation bemore appropriate?

Remember, because you started this processreally early on, you get to ask these questions.In some cases, the best answer for yourclient might not result in a new buildingproject this time, but the added value toyour client by doing the right thingenhances the relationship, your reputationand will likely result in repeat business.

From there the team moves on to specificenvironmental goals. These can be derivedfrom rating system categories, but theyshould include fixed targets for:

� Reduced site impacts;

� Reduced off-site impacts, such asstormwater runoff, greenhouse gases orother emissions;

� Reduced energy and waterconsumption;

� Improved indoor environmental qualityand thermal comfort, contributing tohuman health;

� Increased construction waste diversionand recycling, material reuse andrecycled content;

� Improved durability, longevity andmaintainability.

IDP, because of its inclusionary nature, isalso a useful way to develop goals for socialvalues, although there is little consensus inthe building industry generally on how todeal with social issues at a project level, unlessthey are an explicit part of the program.

These goals and targets need to be clearlyarticulated, written down and kept frontand centre as the design progresses. Theyserve as reference points as the detailed designdevelops or if conflict arises between goals.

Facilitated

The primary role of the facilitator is not toproduce the building design or parts of it,but to be accountable for the process ofintegrated design. This is of course the keyto good facilitation of any kind. Thefacilitator allows the team participants themental space to do what they do best—in this case green design. The degree ofprocess intervention or direction willdepend on the skill of the group, with aninexperienced group typically needingmore direction than a practiced group.

Can you, as design architect, act asfacilitator? First, a facilitator requirescertain communication abilities andattitudes for exploring ideas with the teamand draw out ideas. Therefore, althoughthe lead design architect can act as thefacilitator, it is generally not a good idea, asyou are wearing two hats—and probablyneither very comfortably. Why make theprocess more difficult than it needs to be?

The facilitator can be someone else in thelead architect’s office or it can be someonebrought in from the outside, whospecializes in green building facilitation.The key is the difference in primary roles.



Structured

There is a generally recognized order todealing with design and sustainabilityissues in IDP. The reason that we need todeal with issues and decisions in the rightorder is to avoid locking in bad performanceby making non-reversible decisions withincomplete input or information.

For instance, mechanical engineers maycome up with very sophisticated airconditioning designs to deal with coolingloads, but if those cooling loads are threetimes what they need to be, due to hugeamounts of unshaded, low-performanceglazing in the wrong orientation, theimprovement in energy performance willbe marginal and the cost will be higher. By contrast, if architects quantitativelyunderstand at the concept phase theimpact of that glazing on performance and cost, they are in a better position tocome up with alternatives.

Also, in most IDP, the design time isdistributed differently. More time is spentupfront, but because the quality andcompleteness of decisions taken are better,less time is required later, especially by theengineers on the design team, to re-designand to correct for mistaken assumptions.

For example, on one conventionallydesigned project I am aware of, the ownerswitched glass types during construction,based on an offer from the contractor, inthe belief that the new glass would savemoney. Unfortunately the cheaper glassalso had lower thermal performance inboth heating and cooling seasons, whichnecessitated re-design and upsizing of themechanical systems at a premium after

tenders closed. In the end, there werenegligible cost savings and the operatingcost was also higher for the tenants. HadIDP been employed, the owner would haveunderstood that the system was optimizedfor the lowest total cost.

Inclusive

Everyone, from the owner to the operator,has something critical to contribute to theimproved function or performance of thedesign and everyone must be heard.Having said that, there are about twodozen actors involved in the design andconstruction of every building, fromgleam-in-the-eye through to operations,and it sometimes is just not practical tohave everyone in the room at all times onevery issue.

In addition to the usual design team, thecore team that needs to be engaged at alltimes should include, at a minimum, thebuilding owner or owner’s agent, thedesign facilitator, a cost consultant, anenergy simulator and, if the procurementprocess allows it, a general contractor orcontract manager. Representatives of usergroups and the facility managers are criticalto improved design and should also beinvited. Other specialists in particulartechnologies or relevant issues can be

brought in as needed. Energy modellers arealso important in showing the energy costsrelated to particular design scenarioscompared to others.

Non-traditional exper tise

Technical aspects of the design may requireexpertise that the core team does notpossess. A daylighting modeller canquantify daylight contribution that canlead to changes in switching design. Anappraiser can calculate improveddevelopment residuals resulting from greendesign. A site ecologist can be included forconstructed wetland design.

Other non-buildings-related expertise maybe helpful. For example, one successfulrecent green building project designed foran inner city brought in a universitystudent working on a thesis about socialinteractions in the city’s core, which helpedrespond to the organization’s intention tohave the building support local communitylife. Another example of new expertisehelping the design team to explorealternative design issues is demonstrated bythe Seville Theatre Redevelopment Project:Integrated Design Process.

h t t p s : / / w w w 0 3 . c m h c - s c h l . g c . c a /b2c/b2c/init.do?language=en&shop=Z01EN&areaID=0000000037&productID=00000000370000000063



“IDP is everyone, every issue,early on”

– Bill Reed, Integrative DesignCollaborative

“It is not possible to do creative,progressive sustainable designwithout a strong, like-minded,integrated design team.”

– Peter Busby, Busby, Perkins + Wills

9

Collaborative

One of the principal differences of theprocess is that the architect is not simplythe form-giver, but an active participant inexploring alternative ideas within a broaderteam of experts who play active roles earlierin the process.

In particular, there is joint problem-solvingand joint decision-making rather than teammembers simply taking their assignmentsaway to work on and bringing them backto be re-integrated. It has been proposed bysome that IDP could be equally calledintegrated decision-making.

Holistic or systemic thinking

The old Zen saying that everything isconnected to everything else is never truerthan when designing for sustainability. The goal is to optimize the building’sperformance by considering all of the

building components and subsystemstogether and their interactions, to achieve

synergies. When this is done right, you getsomething where the whole is greater thanthe sum of the parts, and it may even becheaper. The example at the end of thissection illustrates a common way this is achieved.

Whole-building budget setting

As design professionals, we are pretty goodat knowing what our piece of the design“should” cost. We carry these rules ofthumb around but they are usually notbased on whole building optimization.

They also tend to be the basis for value-engineering individual components.

This is not the best way to get the leastcost building overall. As Amory Lovins haspointed out, “Optimizing components inisolation tends to pessimize the wholesystem—and hence the bottom line”.18

A green building design based on holisticthinking will not likely cost more overall,but the costs may be distributed differentlythan costs based on a traditional designapproach. Costs get transferred from somecomponents to others. Budgeting must bedone in a way that allows the movement ofmoney to where it does the most goodwhen a holistic solution is found. Thisflexibility should also extend to thedetermination of the professional’s feestructure, which will be discussed later.

Iterative

The traditional phases of the buildingdesign process, pre-design, schematicdesign and development, don’t disappear inIDP. What does change however is how thework gets done in each phase and howteam moves from one phase to the next.The IEA Task 23 guideline document19

describes these intermediate workflows as“iterative loops,” shown in Figure 4.

The team repeatedly reviews and refinesideas to resolve problems at whatever scaleis appropriate, at each phase of design. Akey aspect is to allow new information toinform or refine previous decisions.



“Everyone is a co-learner inthe process”

– Bill Reed, SEFC IDP Workshop,April 2006

18 Natural Capitalism, Hawken, A. Lovins, H. Lovins, 1999, Little, Brown & Company19 “Integrated Design Process — A Guideline for Sustainable and Solar-Optimised Design,” 2003, International Energy Agency, Task 23, Optimization ofSolar Energy use in Large Buildings, Subtask B, Design Process Guidelines

“Optimizing components inisolation tends to pessimizethe whole system—and hencethe bottom line.You canactually make a system lessefficient, simply by not properlylinking up those components. Ifthey’re not designed to workwith one another, they’ll tendto work against one another.”

– Hawken, A. Lovins, H. Lovins,Natural Capitalism

It is also important to follow through on the iterations in the IDP process byexplicitly identifying subsequent IDP tasksand group meetings, interwoven with theoverall project schedule. If this is not doneupfront, it is too easy for the design team torevert to familiar, business-as-usual, lineardesign processes after the excitement andenergy of the initial kickoff charrette beginsto wane. An explicit IDP process scheduleis a key tool to managing the IDP process.

An Example of Oppor tunity for Synergies—“TunnellingThrough the Cost Barrier”

How do these elements come together on a project? We often hear talk about“capturing synergies” with integrateddesign but what do we really mean? Let’slook at a common example.

Typically, high-performance glazing costsmore than standard glazing that satisfiesthe Code requirements, and so it is rarelyspecified. What happens if that high-performance, solar-control glazing reducesthe air-conditioning load enough that themechanical system duct size can be reducedsignificantly? Now the structural beams canbe reduced in depth, and floor-to-floorheight can be reduced. Mechanical,structural and cladding costs have comedown—perhaps enough to pay for thehigh-performance glazing. If the building is tall enough, perhaps an extra floor can be added while still fitting underheight restrictions.

What happens if the better glazing andinsulation improve wall and window thermalproperties enough that perimeter radiant

heating is not required to maintain coldweather comfort or the window propertiesare able to reduce overheating in summer?Now you have gained back at least an extrasix inches of leasable space around thebuilding perimeter, saved energy costs andhave more satisfied occupants. Thesemeasures can increase the client’s rate of return—again paying for theimprovements in envelope performance.

Any one of these improvements, if lookedat in isolation, would not be consideredaffordable. Savings like this will not berealized unless there is an integrated processwhere the mechanical and structuralengineers, energy modeller and likely thecost consultant and property management,are all sitting down very early on with thearchitect and talking about buildingenvelope and its impacts on other systems.Without the dialogue at an early stage, nosystem will be supportive of any othersystem and the synergies won’t be captured.

These are some examples of synergies, butnearly every project will reveal otheropportunities. Improvements like this aremore affordable if done together than ifdone separately. Amory Lovins of theRocky Mountain Institute, first identifiedthis possibility which he calls “TunnellingThrough the Cost Barrier,” as shown inFigure 5.



Iteration

Iteration

Tasks

Specialists Input

Results

Influences

Figure 4 – Iterative Loop

© sol idar, Dr. G Löhnert

11

What does an IDPprocess look like?At the beginning of this article, it waspointed out that there are a number ofdifferent practitioners of IDP, each with adifferent perspective on how to carry itout. A number of people and organizationshave identified the steps involved inapplying IDP to a design. It may be usefulto summarize three different approaches.Links are provided to explore the details ofeach of these.

The 3 are

1. The approach by Nils Larsson ofInternational Initiative for SustainableBuilt Environment (iiSBE).

2. The Integrative Design Collaborative20

approach by Bill Reed.

3. The process definition developed atnational workshop held in Torontoin 2001.21

In addition, IEA Task 23 has published quitea detailed guideline and accompanyingsoftware22 that are also useful tools. TheTask 23 web link is http://www.iea-shc.org/task23/



Figure 5 – Tunnelling Through the Cost Barrier

Nils Larsson, iiSBE ApproachFigure 6 is a graphical representation of the applied iiSBE process.

courtesy of Nils Larsson, iiSBEFigure 6 — Graphic Showing the IDP Process

IntegratedDesign Process

20 Managing the Integrative Design Process; PDF of Presentation Graphics - PowerPoint images from the Workshop,http://www.integrativedesign.net/our_process/home.htm21 The Integrated Design Process: Report on a National Workshop held in Toronto in October 2001, search the documents section of the database ofhttp://www.sbis.info, for Integrated Design22 ibid , IEA Task 23

Synergy!

IncrementalOptions

Dim

inis

hing

Ret

urns

“Tunnelling through the Cost Barrier” A. Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

Capturing Synergies with Integrated Design

Net TotalCost Reduced

IncrementalCosts

Conventional Cost-effectiveness Limit

-$

+$

The IDP Overview23 details the steps foreach of the elements in the illustration.This approach begins by defining the workthat needs to be done before the team isassembled and the first major workshop isheld. A kickoff workshop is the first all-inclusive, collaborative decision-makingmeeting and major performance targets are set then. Subsequent workshops willdepend on the scale and scope of theproject, with larger and more complexprojects requiring more workshops to dealwith the issues.

The next phase is the first of the iterativeloops. Developing the concept designrequires the interactive consideration of structure, envelope, lighting andmechanical systems. Once these aredetermined, more consideration is given tomaterials and how to properly convey thesedecisions in contract documents. Qualityassurance activities throughout theconstruction phase and into operations arecritical to ensure that what is designedactually gets built.

The iiSBE link is http://iisbe.org

Bill Reed, IntegrativeDesign CollaborativeApproachBill Reed of the Integrative DesignCollaborative24 identifies the basic IDPelements as:

PREDESIGN 1 – STAGING THEPROJECT (The Foundation)

� Client involvement in the designdecision process

� Team Selection

� Design Problem Setting

� Identifying Base Conditions

PREDESIGN 2 – MANAGEMENTMAPPING AND GOALS

The Foundation Dialogue

� Includes all participants—includingmain decision maker

� Charrette Design

� Alignment of Expectations and CorePurposes

� Addressing the Mindset

� Goal Setting of Environmental Metricsand Benchmarks

� Creating a Project Specific SystemsMap and Schedule

DESIGN PROCESS – SYSTEMOPTIMIZATION

� Schematic Design

� Contractor or Cost EstimatorEngagement

� Design Development

CONSTRUCTION ANDOPERATIONS – REALIZING THE OBJECTIVES

� Follow Through in ConstructionProcess

� Commissioning

� Maintenance and Monitoring

The link to the Integrative DesignCollaborative website ishttp://www.integrativedesign.net/

As you can see, there are similarities withthe diagram and process laid out by theother descriptions. A presentation of thisprocess is available on the IntegrativeDesign Collaborative website, which addsdetail for each of these elements.

The approach proposed at the TorontoIDP workshop25 has similarities to theother two approaches. Figures 7 and 8illustrate the process in a more linearfashion. The key elements, including earlyclient involvement in decision-making,careful team selection, kick-off meetings,goal setting and iterative design loops, areall there. This approach does not detail theneed for follow-through in constructionphase, but it has become recognized as arequirement.



23 IDP Overview24 Ibid.25 Ibid.

13

KickoffMeeting/CharretteA key feature of all IDP is the kickoff meetingor charrette. This launch is crucial for:

� getting the project off to a good start

� getting agreement on goals

� team building

� getting the big issues and concerns out in the open early on to avoid re-design later.

A key objective for the charrette team is to come to a common vision orunderstanding of what it is trying toaccomplish. This is such a truism that itsimportance tends to get overlooked. Allgreat teams in any endeavour have acommon vision of the goal. A goodcharrette will establish that common visionand will unleash the creativity inherent inall teams and focus their efforts onreaching it.



IDP Flow Chart Phase 1

Client Decisionon IDP

Incorporate IDPinto Procurement

Team Assembly

K ickoff/Launch Team Building M eeting

IDP Review/ Clarification

Context/ Precedents Review Client Goals/ Program

TeamProblem

Definit ion

U sers

Client Relationship to Process

Team Composition

Demonstration of

Competencies

Introduce & Explain Process

Very Inclusive

Figure 7 – Toronto IDP Workshop Approach – Phase 1

IDP Flow Chart Phase 2

Visioning:Whole Team

Feedback on Visioning from

Community of Interest

Design TeamVisioning O ptions

Design Cycle M eetings

Design Cycle M eetings

O ngoingofflinework

Consider wide range of

Creativity Tools

Expansive,Creative,

Loose

Test Against Community of

Interest

“Homework ” forBetter Definition

Figure 8 – Toronto IDP Workshop Approach – Phase 1

IncreasingResolution / Clarity

IncreasingResolution / Clarity

Problem Definition Phase

Solutions Phase



The scope of the charette will vary, but itshould be facilitated and carefully planned.You don’t need to invent how to do this.There is an excellent resource that wasdeveloped expressly for IDP charrettes: A Handbook for Planning and ConductingCharrettes for High Performance Buildings,free from the U.S. Department of Energywebsite.26 This handbook provideseverything from the rationale, how to getstarted, how to plan and develop thecharrette, how to conduct it and what thefollow-up and next steps should be. It alsoprovides checklists, sample agendas, reportsand every other sample document youmight need.

Another free resource is the SustainableCommunity Planning and DevelopmentDesign Charrette Planning Guide, availablefrom Canada Mortgage and HousingCorporation.27

What Else is Needed forSuccessful IDP?Earlier, some of the elements thatcharacterize IDP were presented, but it isalso worthwhile considering a fewoverarching factors that need to be presentfor a successful integrated design process.

Client Buy-in

The client has to be fully aware of howIDP is better and has to be fullycommitted to it.

This commitment includes an understandingthat while the potential rewards frompursuing integrated design are great, theprocess will distribute the design teams

time differently and most likely producedesigns that are different than what theyhave been used to seeing.

IDP should be a net time saver but upfronttime will take longer and late stages willtake less. Specified equipment and systemsare likely to be different, and the mostsuccessful projects are those the clientunderstands and shares potential risksarising from new approaches.

The client needs to make it clear who thedecision-maker(s) are and commit tohaving decision-makers present at all thekey meetings.

The client has to change the way the teamgets paid. IDP is not commodity-baseddesign, by which I mean, design where theteam gets paid by the pound (or apercentage of building cost, whichamounts to the same thing). This form ofcompensation assumes that all design ispretty much the same, with the effortexpended being directly related to buildingcost. Instead, the team should becompensated for brains, not stuff.

If compensation is not changed, workingharder or smarter only to see your feereduced, limits the enthusiasm andcreativity of even the most dedicatedprofessional. There are several ways ofchanging compensation. One approachthat some IDP practitioners have found tobe successful is to negotiate a separate feefor the early, creative phase, where theeffort involved is relatively independent ofproject size. The later phases, which allowto complete the design and drawings, aremore closely related to project size and thefees can be more properly linked to size.

Clients also need to be prepared to share atleast some of the potential risks when theydemand extremely high performance ortechnologies that do not have a long trackrecord. In these cases the client should notexpect the designers or contractors toassume the risk and expect the building tocost the same as a regular building withlower risk. This is not a common IDPsituation, but it has happened.

Mindset

The importance of the right mindset orattitude for all team members is hard toexaggerate. Some key attributes of therequired mindset are as follows:

� Commitment to the process andownership for your part in it.

� Thinking in whole system terms tooptimize the project as a whole, notvalue-engineer individual components.

� Willingness to measure, benchmarkand quantify performance.

� Active listening and openness tolearning from other team member.

� Asking the right questions, in an open-ended way, that will lead to newanswers, rather than arriving withpreconceived answers.

� Awareness and respect for team roles anddynamics, valuing all contributions.

26 A Handbook for Planning and Conducting Charrettes for High Performance Projects, 2003, U.S. Department of Energy,http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/highperformance/pdfs/charrette_handbook/33425rep.pdf27 CMHC (http://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/b2c/b2c/init.do?language=en&shop=Z01EN&areaID=0000000037&productID=00000000370000000063)

We cannot solve our problemswith the same kind of thinkingwe used when we created them.

– Albert Einstein

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Goal Setting

Critical to success are clear and measurablegoals based on a shared understanding and vision of what is to be achieved. Notevery goal need be a BHAG (Big HairyAudacious Goal) but they should beSMART; Specific, Measurable, Achievable,Realistic, Time-bounded.

President Kennedy’s “man on the moon”speech in the early 1960s is often cited as an example, for good reason. It wasinspirational because it had all the rightcharacteristics. It was specific and measurable(put a man on the moon and bring himback safely) and time-bounded (by the endof the decade). No one was completely sureat the beginning whether it was achievableor realistic, but as a stretch goal that wasnot too far ahead of what was thoughtpossible, it created its own momentum.Goals like these are motivational.

In green building terms, the goals shouldbe set at a whole building level, such as aLEED Gold standard, but also for specificperformance attributes that make sense fora project. Some real-world examples ofgoals that have been set (and met) onCanadian green building projects include:

� 60 per cent better energy performancethan MNECB – EMS Fleet Centre,Cambridge, ON

� 95 per cent diversion of constructionwaste from landfill – Vancouver IslandTechnology Park

� Zero discharge of sewage waste water –MEC Winnipeg Store

� 50 per cent of all materials suppliedfrom within 800 km – BC CancerResearch Institute

� 75 per cent of the new buildingconstructed from materials from the oldbuilding on site – MEC Winnipeg Store

� Elimination of mechanical air-conditioningsystem, while retaining occupantcomfort – Liu Centre, Vancouver

Objections to IDPIt is worth discussing some of the standardobjections that are raised to the IntegratedDesign Process. The objections usually arephrased as the following:

“We’ve always done IDP” – That may betrue, and if so, keep doing it. Usually thepeople who say this, however, haveremarkably few green buildings to show as evidence.

“If you want me to do somethingdifferent, that implies I’ve been doing itwrong all these years” – Well no, itdoesn’t. This is the 21st century, with anentirely new situation for human society, and new problems and demands for theprofession to respond to. Think of IDP asa new tool to add to the toolbox to addressthis new situation.

“The client won’t pay for it” – Possiblynot, especially the first time when the valuehas not been demonstrated to the client, butthat’s exactly what is the intent of NRCan’sCommercial Building Incentive Program.



“If you don't know where youare going, any road will takeyou there.”

– Lewis Carroll



“It affects the schedule and budget” – Itmay do, but the benefits should more thanoutweigh the impacts. Experienced teamsare finding that the time spent is merelyshifted from the latter stages of the designprocess to the earlier stages. Design costsmay or may not be greater. It depends onhow well the team manages the project andcaptures inherent synergies. It is not as iftraditional projects always come in on timeand under budget. The BC Cancer Agency’snew laboratory in Vancouver, a LEED Goldbuilding, was designed with an IDP processand came in on time, and $10 millionunder the $100 million budget.

“It means a loss of creative control as anarchitect” – Not from what I haveobserved. After all, what generates morecreativity—a blank sheet of paper or fittingthe program to a tricky site? An integrateddesign process often generates morecreative ideas and solutions. A goodanalogy is that the architect goes frombeing a soloist to being the conductor. Inany performance the conductor is alwaysvisible, and wears a different suit and oftenhis name is in the spotlight.

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Additional IDPResourcesCanada Mortgage and HousingCorporationHealthy Highrise – a design guide toinnovation in multi-unit residentialbuildings http://www.cmhc.ca/en/inpr/bude/himu/hehi/index.cfm

Sustainable Community Planning andDevelopment Design Charrette PlanningGuide.

Full document can be ordered online atwww.cmhc.ca

Natural Resources CanadaBuildings Group, Integrated DesignProcess Page:http://www.buildingsgroup.nrcan.gc.ca/projects/idp_e.html

Buildings Group, C2000/IDP Case studyPublications:http://www.buildingsgroup.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/publications_e.html#commercial

Paying for IDP: Commercial BuildingsIncentive Programhttp://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/commercial/financial-assistance/new-buildings/index.cfm

SBIS IDP Documentshttp://www.sbis.info, search underDocuments section of database forIntegrated Design:

1. IDP Overview, Nils Larsson, ExecutiveDirector, iiSBE

2. The Integrated Design Process: Reporton a National Workshop held inToronto in October 2001

IEA Task 23 DocumentsIDP Guidelines and other supportingdocumentshttp://www.iea-shc.org/task23/

U.S. Department Of Energy:A Handbook for Planning and ConductingCharrettes for High-Performance Projectshttp://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/highperformance/pdfs/charrette_handbook/33425rep.pdf

High Performance CommercialBuildings: A Technology Roadmaphttp://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/tech/roadmaps.html

Royal Architectural Institute of CanadaSustainable Design for Canadian Buildings(SDCB) courses – 2006 series is titled“Green to Green: Opportunities for moreEnergy Efficient Building Retrofits” andwas focused on integrated designhttp://www.raic.org/index_e.htm

Green Buildings BCGuide to Value Analysis and the IntegratedGreen Design Processhttp://www.greenbuildingsbc.com/new_buildings/resources_guide/2.0_general_resources.html

Greater Vancouver Regional District“Why Build Green – LEED BC“Roadmap” Workshop Summary”

Page with further links:http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/Buildsmart/integrated-design.htm

Whole Building Design Guide:http://test.wbdg.org/newsevents/news_wbdg_approach.php

BC HydroPaying for it: Design Assistancehttp://www.bchydro.com/business/facilities/facilities1005.html

BuildingGreen.comPaid subscription service: articles on greendesign and IDP: Green Topics, Process http://www.buildinggreen.com/



Questions

1. What are 6 of the 10 commonelements of most integrated designprocesses that differentiate IDPfrom traditional design?

2. What are buildings’ contributionto primary energy consumption andgreenhouse gas production in Canada?

3. List at least three benefits toemploying an integrated designprocess.

4. What is the role of thefacilitator in IDP?

5. What other expertise is criticalto include on the core IDP team?

6. Although there is not acommon definition of all theprocess steps in an IDP process,what are three of the key processsteps from your perspective?

7. What is one of the keyobjectives of the kick-off charrette?

8. What are the three key successfactors in an Integrated DesignProcess?

9. How would you structure anIDP for your next project? Whowould participate? How could the meetings be facilitated toencourage everyone’s participation?