Sustainable Infrastructure E-Book

S. Bry Sarte

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 616

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

As more factors, perspectives, and metrics are incorporated into the planning and building process, the roles of engineers and designers are increasingly being fused together. Sustainable Infrastructure explores this trend with in-depth look at sustainable engineering practices in an urban design as it involves watershed master-planning, green building, optimizing water reuse, reclaiming urban spaces, green streets initiatives, and sustainable master-planning. This complete guide provides guidance on the role creative thinking and collaborative team-building play in meeting solutions needed to affect a sustainable transformation of the built environment.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Foreword

PREFACE

Introduction

PART I - THE PROCESS AND SYSTEMS OF SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

CHAPTER 1 - The Process of Sustainable Engineering Design

CREATING A NEW PARADIGM FOR DESIGN

THE SUSTAINABLE DESIGN TEAM: AN ENGINEER’S PERSPECTIVE

DESIGN DRIVERS FOR SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS

IMPLEMENTING THE PROCESS

CHAPTER 2 - Sustainable Infrastructure Frameworks

ESTABLISHING A FRAMEWORK

USING SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE FRAMEWORKS

PART II - SUSTAINABLE RESOURCE SYSTEMS

CHAPTER 3 - Water Conservation and Supply

WATER MANAGEMENT PLANS

ACHIEVING WATER BALANCE

ANALYZING WATER SOURCES

WATER SUPPLY STRATEGIES

CHAPTER 4 - Integrated Water Management

WATER AS RESOURCE, NOT WASTE PRODUCT

INTEGRATED STORMWATER MANAGEMENT

URBAN STORMWATER TREATMENT STRATEGIES

EXTENSIVE STORMWATER TREATMENT SYSTEMS

ADDRESSING CONSTRAINTS AND BARRIERS TO IMPLEMENTATION

GRAYWATER TREATMENT AND REUSE

INTEGRATING GRAYWATER INTO A WATER RESOURCES MASTER PLAN

BLACKWATER MANAGEMENT APPROACHES

CHAPTER 5 - Energy and Greenhouse Gases

REDUCING DEMAND THROUGH DESIGN

DESIGNING SUSTAINABLE POWER SUPPLIES

ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE AND REDUCING CARBON FOOTPRINT

POLICY MEASURES FOR INCREASING ENERGY SECURITY AND EFFICIENCY

DESIGN GUIDELINES AND PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

CHAPTER 6 - Sustainable Site Planning, Built Systems, and Material Flows

SUSTAINABLE SITE PLANNING

GREEN STREETS AND TRANSPORTATION NETWORKS

WORKING WITH THE LAND

MATERIAL AND WASTE FLOWS

PART III - DESIGN APPLICATIONS

CHAPTER 7 - City-Scale Approaches

SAN FRANCISCO CITY GREENING INITIATIVES

Notes

CHAPTER 8 - Applications for Sustainable Communities

CHAPTER 9 - Building-Scale Sustainable Infrastructure

Notes

Conclusion

Index

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2010 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Sarte, S. Bry, 1972-

The green infrastructure guide : innovative water resource, site design, and land planning strategies for design professionals / S. Bry Sarte. p. cm.

Summary: “As more factors, perspectives, and metrics are incorporated into the planning and building process, the roles of engineers and designers are increasingly being fused together. The Art of Eco-Engineering explores this trend with in-depth look at sustainable engineering practices in an urban design as it involves watershed master-planning, green building, optimizing water reuse, reclaiming urban spaces, green streets initiatives, and sustainable master-planning. This complete guide provides guidance on the role creative thinking and collaborative team-building play in meeting solutions needed to effect a sustainable transformation of the built environment”—Provided by publisher.

Summary: “In-depth look at sustainable engineering practices in an urban design context, this book offers guidance on developing strategies for implementing the complex solutions needed to effect a sustainable transformation of the built environment. With coverage of watershed master-planning, green building, optimizing water reuse, reclaiming urban spaces, green streets initiatives, and sustainable master-planning, the book supplements the core reference material with international examples and case studies”

—Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-45361-2 (hardback); ISBN 978-0-470-91295-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-0-470-91294-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-0-470-91293-5 (ebk)

1. Sustainable engineering. 2. Sustainable design. I. Title.

TA170.S24 2010

710--dc22

2010013928

FOR SIMONE AND SCARLETT SARTÉ AND ALL THE OTHER CHILDREN INHERITING THIS PLANET

FOREWORD

Cliff Garten

Since World War II, questions as to how we build our infrastructure have largely been left to the engineering community. For the most part, engineers have done a remarkable job of answering our needs with buildings, pipes, bridges, and tunnels that maximize service and efficiency. But in the new millennium, the social, economic, and ecological issues surrounding infrastructure are increasingly becoming too complex to be left to the engineering community alone. In a time of exploding urban populations, dwindling natural resources, and the threat of climate change, creating sustainable systems for water and energy is no longer a question solely for engineers. Ecologists, landscape architects, artists, and architects must become involved as well.

By necessity, we are now moving toward an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach to solving these problems. Multidisciplinary design teams are using sustainable infrastructure projects as an opportunity to take a broader view of the intrinsic relationships between humanity and the planet. By celebrating infrastructure itself, we also recognize our dependency on the natural systems that we mediate with our infrastructure.

Infrastructure delivers the resources that feed us and our cities—resources in ever-shorter supply. The professional design community knows that the ways we use water and the systems we depend on to grow our food—to name just two examples—are unsustainable. But if infrastructure is hidden from view, the public is much less likely to contemplate the interrelationships between themselves and the greater ecological world. A new, revitalized approach to environmental engineering is proceeding from the recognition that sustainable infrastructure is as much about shifting the values we hold as a culture as it is about science and design.

The infrastructure projects of the Works Progress Administration are some of the best known and loved public works in American history in part because of the values they reflect and express: a shared belief in progress and a consensus that the works were important. Today we are undergoing a paradigm shift comparable to that of the Great Depression, one also necessitated by financial and environmental crisis. And the excitement and innovation that presently drive sustainable development and green design indicate that there is again a growing consensus that we have important work to do.

The word sustainable is really one we use to speak about our own survival. And to be sustainable, we must change our intention toward the earth and its resources. If our survival depends on a conscious shift in the ways we use our resources, then what better place to start than the infrastructures that support our cities, towns, and agriculture? And what better way to engage the public in the issues surrounding our most precious resources than by putting a renewed emphasis on the very structures that move and manage these resources?

In the context of these new sensibilities, engineering can function in two innovative ways. The way a bridge looks and its public presence is as important as its physical functionality. We can build water systems that deliver clean water efficiently, but we must also bring the hidden workings of this and other infrastructure above ground. Engineering thus deals with our most precious resources in a way that the public understands and connects with in every encounter with a detention basin, a bridge, or a water system. Although this is seldom discussed, infrastructure must be visually and aesthetically sustainable, so as to solicit long-term cultural support.

This book is addressed to a broad audience of designers, planners, architects, and engineers and advocates for projects that integrate all of these professions. It provides numerous examples from all over the world, from greener streets in San Francisco to greener cities in China, of projects that engage the public in a new relationship with natural systems. It demonstrates how to create more livable communities by blending ecologically functional and reliable design with an artistic sensibility to make infrastructure that is both green and good-looking. It shows designers how to reconnect the public to vital resources like open space, clean energy, running water, and biodiversity by creating infrastructure that is beautiful to look at as well as a source of knowledge and pride about our relationship to where we live.

The way we rebuild infrastructure in the twenty-first century will be a measure of our respect for our Earth and ourselves, and it will surely determine the quality of our existence and our children’s. In the end, it becomes a question of how important to the culture are the infrastructures that mediate our most precious resources. Can we design systems that are as beautiful as they are useful, and that the public can connect with, value, and understand? We think the answer is yes.

In Sustainable Infrastructure: The Guide to Green Engineering and Design, Bry Sarté and his team offer the paradigms, strategies, and technical tools that designers need to understand not only why this work is critical to our survival but also how it is possible for cities and communities around the world.

PREFACE

“Let us go,” we said, “into the Sea of Cortez, realizing that we become forever part of it; that our rubber boots slogging through a flat of eel-grass, that the rocks we turn over in a tide pool, make us truly and permanently a factor in the ecology of the region. We shall take something away from it, but we shall leave something too.” And if we seem a small factor in a huge pattern, nevertheless it is of relative importance. We take a tiny colony of soft corals from a rock in a little water world. And that isn’t terribly important to the tide pool. Fifty miles away the Japanese shrimp boats are dredging with overlapping scoops, bringing up tons of shrimps, rapidly destroying the species so that it may never come back, and with the species destroying the ecological balance of the whole region. That isn’t very important in the world. And thousands of miles away the great bombs are falling and the stars are not moved thereby. None of it is important or all of it is.

—John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez

I read this passage from Steinbeck on my second trip to the Sea of Cortez. We had been hired to put development controls in place for a newly formed marine preserve to protect the very coral colonies and marine ecosystems that Steinbeck mentions. Both an artist and a scientist, Steinbeck expresses in his work the idea that our impacts cannot be disconnected from the natural world, and that it is our responsibility to consider those impacts, whether large or small, immediate or remote, present or future. As an engineer, environmental scientist, and artist, I share this perspective.

Steinbeck reminds us that all of the details of a place are important. Likewise, all of the individuals that comprise our project teams are invaluable because their input and ideas create the larger patterns of our design. Each perspective and design decision builds an interconnected fabric that shapes our project outcome. This deeply collaborative approach allows us to find solutions that protect individual species as well as entire coastlines and to regenerate individual sites as well as communities and whole cities. This book would not have been possible without the dedication to pursuing sustainable design of our clients, collaborators, and design partners on projects around the world.

Writing this book has also been a very collaborative project, and it would not have been possible without the tireless efforts and vision of my lifelong friend and our lead writer, Andy Mannle. Andy’s inspiration, dedication, and expertise were invaluable in championing this project through many drafts, interviews, edits, and late-night meetings to a finished manuscript.

Like every project we work on at Sherwood Design Engineers and at the Sherwood Institute, this book has been shaped by the efforts and input of our remarkable staff. John Leys, thanks for your leadership and tireless nights and weekends dedicated to this project. Colin Piper and Mike Thornton, the project would not have succeeded without your numerous weekends and quick sprints in times of need. I offer my immense gratitude to those who put in personal time from our San Francisco team, including Robert Dusenbury, Eric Zickler, Ken Kortkamp, Drew Norton, Michael Amodeo, Josh Andresen, Cheryl Bailey, Bryce Wilson, Shauna Dunton, Miwa Ng, Marlene Lopez, and Whitney Lee, as well as from our New York staff—Dahlia Thompson, Jason Loiselle, Jim Remlin, and Manon Terrell. Your assistance, advice, and contributions were invaluable. Thanks as well to Adrienne Eberhardt for inspiring this project by helping us with our first self-published book, and to Blake Robin for identifying the opportunity and helping to kick off the project with John Wiley & Sons. Thanks also to Ike Red for the fantastic drawings that stitch the book together.

This book has also been shaped by the many voices of our contributors, and we are grateful to them for their perspectives on architecture, planning, sustainability, green building, and public art. Special thanks to Erin Cubbison at Gensler; Robert Devine, managing director, Great Wall Resort; Jim Heid, founder of UrbanGreen; Rosey Jencks at the Urban Watershed Management Program of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission; Clark Wilson, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Smart Growth Division; Jane Martin, founding director of Plant*SF; Cliff Garten, public artist and founder of Cliff Garten Studio; Chi Hsin from CHS for his contributions to our transportation discussion; David Howerton, Eron Ashley, Jim Tinson, and Paul Milton at Hart Howerton; Mark J. Spalding, president of the Ocean Foundation; Jacob Petersen and Alan Lewis at Hargreaves Associates; Brett Terpeluk of Studio Terpeluk; Douglas Atkins, principal of Chartwell School; Kevin Perry and Ben Ngan of Nevue/Ngan Associates; Brad Jacobson at EHDD Architecture; Gene Schnair, Ellen Lou, and Michael Powell of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-San Francisco; Roger Frechette and Ruth Kurz of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-Chicago; David Bushnell at 450 Architects; Willett Moss at Conger Moss Guillard Landscape Architecture; Matt Fabry from the San Mateo Countywide Water Pollution Prevention Program; and Ben Shepherd from Atelier Ten. Demonstrating the collaborative nature of sustainable design was an important goal of this project, and without these contributions this story would not be complete.

Composing the pieces of a book into a coherent whole is like creating a complex piece of artwork, and in a very real sense my approach to engineering has grown out of my work as a sculptor and artist. I can only begin to thank my mentors in both art and design, TomX Johnson, Fred Hunnicutt, Jack Zajack, David Howerton and Richard Shaw, for their guidance and encouragement over the years. Engineering would have been a brief exploration if it had not been for the encouragements of Jack Van Zander, who showed me how the tools of engineering could be used to create large-scale artistic installations.

Many thanks to our editors at Wiley, Margaret Cummins and David Sassian, and their staff, for the invitation to write this book and the support and guidance needed to make it happen. Special thanks to Marilyn Levine and her colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Writing and Communication Center for their edits and key insights as we wrapped up the manuscript. Thanks as well to Sandy Mendler, Dan Parolek, Doug Farr, and the other Wiley-published authors who reviewed and provided feedback over the course of the manuscript’s development.

Lastly, I offer heartfelt thanks for the love and support of my family. To my brothers Max and Jesse, who gave me the courage and support to pioneer this new field; to my parents for their enduring support of new ideas; to my daughters, Simone and Scarlett, who inspire my vision of the future; and above all to my wife, Ciela, who inspires me every day.

It is an honor to author this book in the company of so many fine individuals and inspirations.

INTRODUCTION

This book offers an in-depth look at sustainable engineering practices in an urban design context.

The global challenge of meeting expanding human needs in the face of dwindling resources and a changing world climate are major drivers of both design and engineering. But as more issues, perspectives, and metrics are incorporated into the planning and building process, the roles of engineers and designers are increasingly being fused. Designers are being asked to account for and incorporate systems thinking, material flows, and environmental performance into their work. Engineers are being asked to apply their technical and infrastructural expertise earlier and more comprehensively as an integral part of a holistic design process. Together, we are all trying to address critical questions: how can we plan, design, and build healthy cities, homes, and communities for a burgeoning population? How can we provide food, energy, and transportation in ecologically sustainable ways?

This book addresses these challenges by first exploring the need for creative, integrated engineering approaches to redesigning the built environment. It then elucidates the engineer’s role in the collaborative design process necessary for developing effective, integrated solutions.

Why is this kind of exploration so timely? Today’s integrated design teams are incorporating ecological infrastructure into buildings by using stormwater to create more beautiful communities and by designing urban environments that respect and engage natural systems. On every project, our infrastructure solutions emerge from a process of on- and off-site collaborative thinking involving a wide array of stakeholders.

Through this collaborative thinking process, we move beyond the engineer’s traditional domain toward achieving a truly sustainable transformation of our infrastructure systems. More than a technical challenge, this kind of transformation requires a softer approach that continually seeks opportunities to celebrate the human experience of making greener, healthier, more beautiful and more efficient communities. This in turn calls for a new, more inventive approach to engineering—one that responds to the ideas of ecologists, architects, planners, and community groups while also respecting the requirements of clients, developers, and regulators.

With this challenge in mind, this book is offered as a way to shed more light on the technical solutions that have emerged as a direct result of an ongoing, rich dialogue, demonstrating how creative design teams can weave together the different priorities and approaches of their collaborators to achieve design synergies and cost savings.

Implicit in this multidimensional approach is the recognition that, over the past forty years, public pressure on environmental issues has strengthened the argument for environmental remediation, water treatment, alternative energy, and green building. Not only is there greater public awareness of the need to protect our planet, but in the same way many in the professional communities of architects, planners, and builders have adopted this challenge as their own. Organizations like Architecture for Humanity, Architecture 2030, the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment, and the U.S. Green Building Council have all been enormously influential in promoting green design. While engineers may have been slower to take up these challenges, many more engineers are now coming to the field.

It is in this light that a unique manual of solutions is offered, bringing together three diverse components:

1. The technical requirements of site design and civil engineering

2. The sustainability priorities of ecologists, biologists, urban planners, landscape architects, and regulators

3. The aesthetic and human aspects of a project central to the work of architects, landscape architects, designers, community members, and artists

The book is divided into three sections. Part I: The Process and Systems of Sustainable Design introduces the integrative design process that is essential to truly green design. Part II: Sustainable Resource Systems offers a technical guide to our work in a common language that all design professionals share—a systematic discussion of approaches and strategies to working with water, wastewater, energy, and site design. Finally, Part III: Design Applications shows how to combine these systems on projects at the city, community, and site scale.

Part I is devoted to process, and chapter 1 outlines the collaborative design process from an engineer’s perspective, showing readers what we bring to the design team and how we participate in the process of finding collaborative solutions. Chapter 2 discusses four sustainable infrastructure frameworks used to develop clear design goals and criteria, understand the ecological context of a project, and identify opportunities for better design.

Part II offers a system-by-system analysis of the major infrastructure resources society depends on and the strategies we’re using to sustainably manage them. Chapter 3 begins with water supply systems, which are fundamental to the growth, health, and survival of societies around the world. The engineer’s role in improving the stewardship of existing water supplies, optimizing water use, and harvesting new sources of water is discussed in detail. But water supply is only half of the water equation: the other half is the wastewater produced by millions of municipal users, industrial and agricultural pollution, and storm runoff in urban areas. Chapter 4 discusses how integrated water management is allowing engineers to reclaim and reuse that water, harvest stormwater to turn our streets green, treat and reuse graywater, and combine natural technologies with advanced design to improve our blackwater treatment systems.

Chapter 5 covers the energy needed to power all our infrastructure systems and cities. The need to remove carbon from our energy cycle is driving the whole design profession to rethink what we build, the way we operate, and how we move, and this chapter provides a strategic design process for finding better sources of power and a design approach that will reduce a project’s energy demand and carbon footprint. Chapter 6 deals with sustainable site design, the art of creating, expanding, and connecting the places we inhabit. It explores how to understand a site as a living system, methods for conducting baseline analyses of local ecosystems, better ways to integrate development into the landscape, tips for improving the materials we use to build, and how good site design is the key to building greener streets and better transportation systems.

Part III brings all these resource systems together and shows how to integrate them into sustainable project designs. Because both design processes and solutions are scale specific, designers must consider solutions in the context of their scale. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 cover design applications at the three scales most commonly used to define our projects: city, community, and building. Yet scale alone is not a primary driver of design decisions. For example, as the density of a project increases, we exchange passive systems that require time and space to operate for active systems that rely on technology or energy. Finding a mix of strategies that strikes the appropriate balance for a particular project and its environment is what makes it sustainable. Green roofs may work better in Chicago than Los Angeles; bioswales may be better in Portland, Oregon, than in Manhattan; a solar thermal farm may be more cost-effective for a community than adding individual solar panels to every home.

Every project is unique, and this book is not intended as a cookbook with precise recipes for sustainability. On the contrary, it is conceived as a way to help engineers work more creatively and to help others work more creatively with engineers.

To coincide with the release of this book, the Sherwood Institute has created a new section on its Web site at www.sherwoodinstitute.org to support and enhance the written material using online resources. Throughout the text are notes with URLs that look like this:

For more information on this subject please see www.sherwoodinstitute.org

Follow these links to find more in-depth information, original source material, and additional resources regarding many of the topics touched on in the book. The online content will be updated frequently, staying current with many of the ever-changing issues involved in sustainable engineering.

Hopefully, Sustainable Infrastructure: The Guide to Green Engineering and Design will encourage more conversations between design professionals of different backgrounds on the common ground of sustainability. As a resource guide to sustainable site engineering, the book is designed to help architects, landscape architects, and planners better communicate with engineers. As a book about the practice and possibility of green design, it provides engineers with the tools to collaborate more effectively with other disciplines, integrating the kind of green design work that is in such high demand all over the world.

We stand at the threshold of a very exciting time of renewal and recovery, and yet the challenge to identify ecologically sound, affordable, inventive, aesthetic, socially responsible solutions is enormous. Many of the strategies described in this book are built on the creative reapplication of similar methods used or tried in the past. In a very real sense, we are bringing together ecology, creativity, and engineering—drawing on existing designs and concepts for inspiration and integrating them in new ways. Readers are invited to do the same: to take what we are doing and build on it.

As a society, we have only just begun to understand how to create sustainable communities, and our work designing them is now in full swing. Similarly, this book serves as both a valuable reference tool for approaching projects with a new way of thinking, and as a guide to working with others toward our shared goal of positive change for future generations.

PART I

THE PROCESS AND SYSTEMS OF SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

As designers of sustainable infrastructure, we are concerned with both bringing an ecological awareness to engineering technology and fostering an integrative design process that addresses evolving global challenges. From aging infrastructure and failing ecosystems to drought, pollution, and rising sea levels, designers can have a meaningful impact on some of the world’s most significant environmental problems, and this is indeed a primary responsibility of our work.

The ecological imperatives are clear: we need to bring natural systems back into balance. Equally clear are the human requirements for healthy food, water, shelter, and energy. Our primary design challenge is to knit together gray infrastructure and green infrastructure; our goal is to design systems that harness natural technologies and meet human needs by working with nature, instead of solving our problems at nature’s expense. Creating green infrastructure is about designing regenerative systems and establishing new ecologies that thrive in their own right.

Ours is not a new field; it is, however, rapidly evolving. In fact, the primary challenges for green design have shifted over the years. The obstacles used to be technical: discovering better ways to treat water and provide clean power. As technologies are developed, the challenges shift toward changing social and regulatory environments. Now that green design has become more common, clients are demanding sustainability. Support for these projects is coming by way of governmental policy, green building codes, and climate action plans around the world. The initiative is now with implementing solutions in an integrated way and applying them globally.

Every building retrofit, urban master plan, and streetscape redesign can be implemented more sustainably. There is more work than could possibly be done by one company—or even one country. And this is precisely the point: we face a global challenge. While this book does not have an answer for every sustainable design challenge, it does offer the tools and strategies to get you started. It is not a blueprint for changing the world as much as an approach: a way of thinking to address the most pressing challenges. We are on the verge of a paradigm shift—engineering that moves beyond ameliorating the negatives of conventional design and instead seeks to create a host of new positive outcomes. This book offers a method for implementing new tools and integrating existing ones into a holistic approach to sustainable design.

In chapter 1 we present an engineer’s perspective on the integrated design process, and a detailed look at the role engineers play on integrated design teams. We cover the various drivers of project design, and the expanded criteria for sustainability on design projects. We also discuss how to define project goals and metrics with examples from San Francisco, Brazil, China, and Florida, to give readers a concrete sense of how systems are applied.

Chapter 2 provides an overview of four sustainable infrastructure frameworks used in integrative design. Establishing an overarching framework is critical to understanding the interrelationships between the different systems including energy, water, land use, and waste products. Accounting for system overlaps is critical for understanding the full potential of these systems, while system synergies can be powerful levers for transformative design. In this chapter we discuss the “5 Pillars” framework for integrating and prioritizing different systems on a project. We discuss the scale-density framework, used to understand the intersection of these two critical variables of development; and the transect system developed by New Urbanists to understand different land use patterns on a project. Finally, we cover the built form-ecology framework to address the intersection of natural ecologies and the built environment, and how sustainable design works to integrate the two.

In the standard design process, sustainable frameworks are not used. This has resulted in fragmented infrastructure that is highly unsustainable and vulnerable. Centralized power systems are prone to rolling brownouts, peaking failures, and power losses during transmission. Channelized rivers and extensive stormwater systems are characterized by complex, expensive infrastructure systems that are prone to dangerous, unhygienic failures. Sustainable design, on the other hand, seeks to work in accordance with nature’s flows and cycles, using natural materials when possible to establish localized, resilient, diverse infrastructure systems modeled on natural principles.

CHAPTER 1

The Process of Sustainable Engineering Design

CREATING A NEW PARADIGM FOR DESIGN

Traditional site engineering design concentrated solely on building infrastructure. Today, engineers are an integral part of complex design teams. Our role has expanded to include the strategies that help determine a project’s design concepts at the outset. Such strategies include adopting and adapting the ideas and priorities of others during the design process as well as developing maintenance guidelines for keeping an integrated, “living” design operating properly throughout its life span.

INTEGRATING DISCIPLINES : ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEERS

ERIN CUBBISON, GENSLER

In the last several years, architects and planners have increasingly delved into topics outside their typical skill sets. Now that design projects must meet specific energy reductions or water savings, for example, there is greater collaboration between designers and other disciplines—especially engineering. As engineers move upstream in the design process, they can offer more design options at lower costs.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has solidified this shift toward performance-based design and the increased integration of disciplines early in the design process through its proposal for integrated design and delivery (see Figure 1-1). Integrated design and delivery typically refers to the collaborative, information-sharing process of project design and delivery carried out by a team of owners, designers, consultants, builders, fabricators, and users. Figure 1-1 shows how current practices place the emphasis (time, effort, and fee) on the construction phase but should instead emphasize the design phase in order for collaboration to take place. In addition to improving the project’s level of sustainability, this can also increase overall project quality and value, while reducing risk.

The architects and planners at Gensler have taken the idea a step further by adding two phases for consideration by the project team: a strategy phase and a use phase. This addresses the entire real estate life cycle, from business and real estate strategy through the occupancy and use of completed buildings and facilities. Strategy and use involve activities such as portfolio analysis, commissioning, and post-occupancy evaluation. By extending the focus of integrated delivery, the teams responsible for dispatching specific projects understand the need to ensure that the knowledge gained at each stage is captured for the future, not only for individual projects but also for the broader initiatives of the organization whose strategic goals and plans they serve. The strategy phase is particularly important because it allows for critical evaluations and decisions to be fully integrated with design work. As illustrated by Figure 1-2, if the project team can begin the design process in the strategy phase, then it can reduce risk even further. This provides the opportunity for even deeper sustainability efforts and a higher quality of work.

Figure 1-1AIA integrated design model. Gensler.

For more information on this subject please see www.sherwoodinstitute.org/resources.

Figure 1-2Gensler integrated design model. The Gensler integrated design model includes the use of a strategy phase and a use phase within the AIA integrated design model. This diagram shows how the ability to have the largest impact on value for the lowest cost (a) is in the strategy and design phases of a project. Once a project is under construction, the situation is reversed, and the cost of design changes (b) is much higher relative to their potential impacts. InFigure 1-1, (c) represents traditional project delivery while (d) demonstrates how integrated project delivery improves by moving the bulk of the work upstream into the design phase of the project. The Gensler integrated design model (e) shows a gentler curve that reduces risk and improves benefits by beginning in the strategy phase and continuing through occupancy. This allows critical decisions to be fully integrated with design, bridging the gap between strategy and implementation while ensuring that those strategies are put successfully to use by a site’s occupants. Gensler.

An engineer’s ability to make the biggest impact on a project comes at its beginning, when assumptions are laid out, goals are established, and limitations are imposed. Working within an integrative design process is the most effective way to meet a project’s many (often competing) objectives while helping to ensure the most sustainable project possible. Engineers are much better equipped to succeed in their areas of specialty when they have the opportunity to help shape such factors, be they increased water savings, decreased materials usage, or earthwork balancing. Without the chance to create integrated solutions, engineers are essentially left to solve technical problems created by the design.

A successful design process has a much greater chance of yielding an integrated design that creates synergies between the various elements and design disciplines. This synergy—creating a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts—is a cornerstone of sustainable design. Without a site engineer at the table from the outset to coordinate with the architect, landscape architect, and engineers from other disciplines, many of the sustainable elements that engineers help realize become more difficult to achieve.

The environmental and energy performance of our buildings and built environment is of increasing concern in the design process; it is therefore critical that engineers offer their technical expertise in the early phases. While this occasionally creates a longer, more complex design process, it reduces a project’s overall costs by providing significant improvements in design. In a successful integrative design process, the higher up-front costs of design will be offset by savings on construction, reduced maintenance, and improved operations and performance over the lifetime of the project. However, such benefits must be clearly demonstrated to the client from the outset. Throughout this book, successful engineering strategies are described in order to show how incorporating engineers early on—and throughout the design process—can make a project more successful.

THE SUSTAINABLE DESIGN TEAM: AN ENGINEER’S PERSPECTIVE

As a project advances, different professionals contribute their expertise in different ways and at different times. Effectively integrating the members of a design team is essential for a successful process. It also creates an atmosphere of familiarity that allows for more collaboration and higher levels of achievement in design each time professional teams reconvene. Figure 1-3 illustrates the consultant team’s structure on a master planning project in Brazil and how its members interacted throughout the process.

Each of these design team members interfaces in unique ways. A list of the typical team members and how each interacts with the site engineer follows:

Sustainability consultant: Often in-house at one of the design team members. Helps design clear priorities for the whole project and encourages synergies to engender success in reaching sustainability metrics. Works with engineers to reduce demand for water, energy, and source materials; integrate green space; and reduce carbon footprint.

Ecologist: Conducts baseline surveys of existing ecosystems and partners with site engineer and design team members to determine areas of constraints and opportunities for development. Helps establish development priorities that promote ecological benefits and diminish environmental impact.

Figure 1-3The design team through the life of a sustainable planning project in northeast Brazil. For this project, Sherwood Design Engineers acted as both sustainability consultant and site engineer. © Sherwood Design Engineers.

Planner/architect: Designs site master plan and/or buildings. Works with engineer on site design to determine optimal placement, sizing, and integration of buildings at the site. Works with engineers on water and energy balance models to develop appropriate strategies for meeting project demands. Coordinates design between disciplines among all designers and ensures that built infrastructure will perform as designed. Oversees the development of a sustainability plan to ensure the project meets ongoing goals of energy savings, water reuse, sustainable waste practices, and so on.

Landscape architect: Helps engineers improve site aesthetics by incorporating an overarching design philosophy into the site that manifests in physical form through hardscape and softscape organization, vegetation management, stormwater facility placement, and so on. Assists engineers in minimizing damage to soils, trees, and native plants during construction. Chooses appropriate site plantings and landscaping. Works with engineers to integrate landscaping with on-site water systems. Coordinates landscaping maintenance of green infrastructure on-site (swales, green parking lots, rain gardens, wetlands, etc.).

Geotechnical engineer: Analyzes underground rock and/or soil characteristics to provide recommendations for subsurface engineering related to planned roads, buildings, and site infrastructure. Determines soil types that will support infiltration and various types of landscaping. Consults with engineers on land-forming strategies.

Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems specialist: Designs energy and electrical systems, including heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC). Works with engineer and architect to integrate energy systems into the building design and perform accurate energy modeling to ensure systems are sized and placed correctly. Coordinates with site designer and engineer to minimize infrastructure, including piping, trenching, and wiring, when placing utility corridors on-site.

Hydrologist: Often a part of the site engineering team, works with engineers to determine local groundwater levels and qualities, determine potential stormwater runoff and stream flow, develop watershed master plans, establish water balance models, and review strategies for capture and reuse of water on-site. Helps engineer develop water treatment and delivery strategies that minimize piping, culverts, and other hardscape in favor of swales, rain gardens, infiltration basins, and/or wetlands.

DESIGN DRIVERS FOR SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS

Although the specifics of the design process Sherwood Design Engineers employs vary from project to project, there are a number of components that tend to remain central to our work. Typically, this process includes some, if not all, of the following elements:

• Identifying and understanding the project drivers

• Setting goals

• Establishing desired outcomes and metrics for success

• Creating frameworks and action plans that organize the approach

• Identifying concrete, measurable design strategies to achieve the above items

For more information on related topics please see www.sherwoodinstitute.org/ideas.

Project Drivers

Project drivers define the fundamental requirements of a project (such as budget or timeline) that in turn help to establish the design criteria. Conventional project drivers continue to be supplemented or replaced by additional, more integrated drivers, often defined by environmental and infrastructure constraints, increased regulatory controls, or the desire to conform to a green rating system.

For the development project mentioned above located in a very dry part of Brazil, this included a detailed look at the interrelationship between the site’s hydrology and vegetation to inform an ecological succession strategy that phased with the project’s horizontal infrastructure development. The project driver in this case was its role in a larger reforestation and protection strategy of the much deteriorated Atlantic Forest.

Another common set of drivers include those related to increased regulatory controls. From water and energy efficiency requirements to stormwater quantity and quality requirements, we have seen much stricter controls placed on our design solutions. “Business as usual” for designers is changing rapidly. In recent years there have been shifts in the planning process to account for new requirements from municipalities. Building codes, water policies, emissions standards, labor laws, material use, and carbon accounting are all being revised—and designers must keep pace.

An increasingly important set of drivers involve meeting the requirements of rating systems. Whether these are green rating systems such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) or the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), goal-based systems such as One Planet Living and the Living Building Challenge, performance-based systems such as SmartCode and the benchmarks established by the American Society of Landscape Architects’ (ASLA) Sustainable Sites Initiative, or education-based systems such as the Energy Star program, designers are being called upon to integrate them into their design solutions. This has led many design firms to either bring this additional expertise in-house or add sustainability consultants or other specialists to their team.

Often, decisions must be made that improve one aspect of a project but impact another negatively; for such situations, a clear understanding of a project’s key values is important so the decisions will favor the project’s highest priorities. Developing a framework for sustainable design can help designers prioritize a project’s core values in order to make the hard choices so often required.

Establishing Project Values and Setting Goals

Every project starts with a vision and a set of objectives. It is the design team’s responsibility, in coordination with the client, to establish project values that can be used to define clear goals for the design effort. These values are sometimes lofty and hard to interpret. At the headquarters of a nonprofit, Sherwood was recently asked to create a “replicable” project—one that had elements that could be re-created on green buildings throughout the world. The project value established was the creation of a model coming from a desire to contribute to the advancement of green building.

Project values get translated into goals that are more tangible and can be used to drive the design process. Quantitative goals are advantageous because they allow a project to measure its success in various ways. This is not always easy to do and, if these goals are not clearly formulated, a design team can be left scrambling, trying to figure out the best way to then measure progress. (A goal of “conservation of biodiversity,” for example, might prove elusive and difficult to measure.) Projects often implement a variety of goals, some of which are qualitative and others that are quantitative. For quantitative goals, it is important to define the metric that will be used to determine achievement.

Project goals can be met in different ways. For instance, on an urban project, the goal of reducing vehicle trips may be met by increasing the number of residential units in the urban core so fewer people have to commute, or by expanding access to public transportation so fewer commuters have to drive. Project goals can be as detailed as the achievement of a certain LEED credit, or as general as a positive impact on global warming. For a recent green streets project in Florida, the project stakeholders identified the following goals to support the widely held triple bottom-line values related to project achievement:

• Community

• Improve site aesthetics.

• Increase pedestrian connectivity.

• Expand multiuse functionality.

• Environment

• Improve energy efficiency.

• Reduce carbon emissions.

• Increase water efficiency.

• Reduce stormwater runoff.

• Improve stormwater quality.

• Expand local material use.

• Economics

• Increase marketability.

• Stay within budget limits.

• Optimize maintenance requirements.

• Increase systems durability.

Defining Desired Outcomes and Metrics

Various industry standards have been developed to help designers reach measurable outcomes for all scales of projects. Some systems use predefined, widely accepted metrics. Others are narrow in focus and are not all-encompassing when it comes to analyzing a project’s commitment to sustainability. These systems often provide a defined format for projects to compare to a baseline to determine how they measure up against other projects. One of the most widely used standards in the United States is the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED rating system. There are many other standards in use internationally.

The benefits of pursuing LEED (or another similar rating system) are that it provides third-party verification, brand recognition, marketing cachet, and even investment opportunity. Whether utilizing a rating system or not, resource-efficiency analysis is a great way to measure progress and show results. For many projects, this may mean analyzing the key site resources in the following ways:

• Water: Compare the site’s expected water demands with a baseline case and strive for a water balance that focuses on low-use and renewable sources.

Figure 1-4Design drivers for the Baietan master plan in Guangzhou, China. In this project, the major goals of environmental, social, and economic improvement to the city were connected to a variety of outcomes. The anticipated outcomes exist on a scale from the more quantitative, like water and energy use, to others that are more qualitative in nature, like health and prosperity or celebrating local culture. Each of these outcomes is then supported by a variety of action plans. These action plans usually support several of the desired project outcomes. © Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP 2009 with Sherwood Design Engineers.

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• Energy: Compare the project’s final energy requirements with a baseline case and strive for net zero energy use.

• Carbon: Compare the project’s carbon footprint through the design, construction, and occupancy phases with a baseline case and strive to be carbon negative.

• Materials: Complete a life-cycle analysis for the project and specify materials with long life cycles. Local resources should also be evaluated.

While working on the sustainability plan for a recent park project, Sherwood developed the following sustainable infrastructure systems metrics:

• Ecology

• Annual aquifer recharge of 55 acre-feet

• Water quality treatment of all runoff

• 25 acres of habitat restoration

• Water

• 75 percent water reuse for irrigation

• 95 percent recycled water for fountains

• 35 percent water reuse for restrooms

• Energy

• Carbon neutrality for park operations

• 75 percent on-site renewable power generation

• 50 percent energy reduction from baseline for parking garage

Every project will have specific needs and require a customized approach to establishing the proper metrics for evaluating the progress and success of the project goals.

Creating Frameworks and Action Plans

Frameworks and action plans are methods by which the designer can organize the various strategies and means of achievement. These systems are not requirements of most projects but can be imperative when trying to tackle complex objectives with many interwoven parts and integrated strategies.

For the project mentioned in Brazil, Sherwood developed a comprehensive sustainability plan using the pillars of sustainability framework, which is explained more fully in chapter 2. Briefly, the five pillars of water, energy, community, ecology, and materials are all important to a project’s success. But it may not be possible to address all of them equally. For this project, “community” was given a high priority because the analysis, which used the United Nations Human Development Index, revealed that the local community scored below some of the poorest and most war-torn countries in Africa. It became clear to the client that investments in renewable energy or decreasing carbon would not be sustainable without first improving conditions in the local community.

As part of the sustainability plan, Sherwood coordinated with local leaders to develop programs that would offer immediate educational and job-training opportunities to the community in order to lay a foundation for future community development. It was decided that additional money spent up front in this sector was a better investment in sustainability than alternative options, such as expanding wind power generation capacity to decrease the carbon footprint.

Design Strategies

Once the structure driving a project has been defined and agreed upon, the next step is to establish appropriate design strategies to meet those goals.

In order to establish design strategies, it is important to respond to a project’s context. The same goal will be met in different ways depending on whether the project is in a dense urban area, a rural development, or a delicate ecosystem. Managing stormwater through passive means in an urban area might involve developing a network of rain gardens above underground cisterns. In a rural development, the same goal might be met with bioswales and wetlands, while a reforestation program might be called for in an undeveloped area.

Design strategies become integrated when the entire design team is aware of the criteria and works toward a complementary set of solutions. On the LEED Platinum Chartwell School in Monterey, California, one desired outcome was a reduction in embodied energy for the materials involved. This resulted in a variety of strategies: the use of salvaged materials from nearby sites, the specification of materials with recycled content throughout the project, and a building system that allows for the planned deconstruction of the buildings many years in the future. From the architect to the structural engineer and site designer, the consultant team worked to incorporate strategies in support of the desired outcome.

IMPLEMENTING THE PROCESS

The collaborative process is rooted in a belief in teamwork, in developing a solid understanding of project goals, and in all parties doing their best to realize those goals. Meeting with the other design team members as often as is practical and staying coordinated through regular communication allows the team to achieve these goals while staying on schedule and on budget. Sherwood’s process, of course, varies slightly from project to project; below are two detailed examples (see pages 16-18) of that process, including a green streets project in San Francisco, California, and a green community project on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Figure 1-5Vertical bars in this process diagram indicate where the sustainability drivers are introduced during a specific project. In this case, most critical is the introduction and calibration of metrics. © Sherwood Design Engineers.

The overall process that design teams go through during the course of a project is standard across the industry. It begins with defining the concept, developing designs, and preparing construction documents. What makes the collaborative process unique are the design steps taken within each of these phases.

As part of the sustainability plan for the project in Brazil mentioned earlier, Sherwood laid out the following project schedule and key milestones for the client. Determining the market position and the framework was critical to establishing our goals. Once goals were set, they were tracked using metrics through the life of the project. Below is an outline of some of the steps of the engineering process:

1. Project planning

• Perform initial research to identify climate conditions; energy source and costs; water source and costs; and environmental constraints and opportunities.

Figure 1-6This concept sketch from a charrette for a sustainable technology park captures a combination of design strategies and shows their integration through graphic expression. EHDD Architecture.

• Identify key components (at a charrette) of sustainable opportunities specific to site and region.

• Provide case studies relevant to the site.

2. Concept design

• Establish a framework.

• Conduct a design/client team sustainable systems workshop, including all designers and client representatives, to present opportunities, understand site-specific limitations and opportunities, and gain consensus on project goals and design criteria.

• Provide and quantify comprehensive strategies for achieving established goals.

• Develop metrics and benchmarks to determine whether goals are being met.

3. Design development

• Integrate and track goals with the master plan program; as the plan changes, identify when goals are being compromised and recommend alternatives to preserve them.

• Revise design to meet priorities through collaborative iteration with other stakeholders.

• Recalibrate metrics, if necessary, to accommodate any design changes as the project develops.

• Create sustainability guidelines that fully integrate with the project design guidelines, moving from design to operations.

4. Construction documentation

• Recalibrate metrics, if necessary, to accommodate design changes associated with value engineering.

• Collaborate with the project team on the detailing of unique elements critical to project goals and/or integrated systems.

5. Construction and commissioning

• Develop a sustainable systems construction manual.

• Use project specifications as a means to require sustainable construction practices.

• Develop a materials use plan to minimize construction waste.

• Commission site infrastructure, including drainage systems.

6. Operations

• Develop an operations and maintenance manual for new or innovative design solutions.

• Develop a plan for ongoing carbon management and greening project operations.

APPLYING INTEGRATIVE DESIGN ON OLD MINT PLAZA

Our work on San Francisco streetscapes ranges from residential streets to thoroughfares to urban plazas. Though each of our projects varies slightly, they all have consistent components: overarching goals, design strategies, and targeted outcomes. As part of an interdisciplinary team led by CMG Landscape Architecture, Sherwood was responsible for the reconstruction of an existing streetscape adjacent to the historic Old Mint building in downtown San Francisco. Conversion of the 19,000-square-foot block into a flagship stormwater park and public plaza has set future development standards for urban stormwater management techniques, infiltration best management practices (BMPs), and green street design on projects throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Central to the project were the goals of creating a community amenity and having a net positive impact on San Francisco’s combined sewer overflows. Figure 1-7 summarizes the results of this process for the Old Mint Plaza and outlines the project’s key design goals, the strategies chosen, and the resulting benefits.

Figure 1-7Applying integrative design at Old Mint Plaza, San Francisco. The Old Mint Plaza was able to achieve the city’s overarching design goals and their associated synergistic benefits through the implementation of design strategies that were integrated within the consultant team’s final design. © Sherwood Design Engineers.

GOAL SETTING AT AQUATERA, FLORIDA

This large residential housing development on Florida’s Gulf Coast was the area’s first ecologically sensitive development of its size and nature. With the goal of meeting the county’s requirements for improving the hydrological function of the site, the project’s landscape architect came to Sherwood to explore landscape-based approaches to stormwater as part of its green streets initiative for the project.

On this type of development, the developer, home builder, and design team typically require buy-off over a multiple-year process that lends itself to value engineering and shortcuts in the field. Understanding the complexities of getting innovative ideas integrated into the project framework and actually built on this type of development, Sherwood proposed a unique method of applying a values inventory that had been developed with AECOM Design + Planning for a previous application in order to generate selection criteria and help prioritize design decisions. This process is detailed below and includes prioritizing project goals, scoring green strategies, and ranking these strategies based on the weighted goals. Because the proposed community center was slated to be a green building, the stakeholders rated the goals for it and for the overall development separately.

Figure 1-8Stakeholder response: rating averages. A stakeholder survey for a project allows the design team to prioritize and weight the client’s goals. © Sherwood Design Engineers.

Prioritizing Project Goals

As per Figure 1-8, the stakeholders listed across the top were asked to rate each of the project goals listed down the left side for both the community center and the overall development. Each goal could be scored from 1 to 10, but the total points had to add up to a specific number, thereby requiring the stakeholders to prioritize goals. (One individual, at the far right, didn’t follow these instructions and ranked virtually every goal a 10, for a total score of 262; his numbers had to be recalibrated.)

After everybody ranked the project goals, they were given a combined weighting factor, which indicated their overall importance to the team. In this case, the highest priority for the community center was to adopt the LEED for New Construction Rating System (LEED-NC), while the winning priority for the overall development was “heighten development’s sense of uniqueness.”

Scoring Green Strategies

In the next phase of the exercise, the design team scored a list of green strategies in terms of their impact—positive, negative, or neutral—on each of the project goals from the survey results. For instance, a materials strategy like “reusing local aggregate for landscaping” has no impact on the project aesthetics, because it is buried and invisible. But reusing that heavy material on-site does reduce the embodied energy of the project.

Ranking the Winners

The green strategies’ scores were then multiplied by the weighted ranking given to each goal by the stakeholders. In this way, each of the green strategies was given a final ranking based on its overall impact on the project goals that were of high priority to the stakeholders.

For the Aquatera Project, the top five goals were as follows:

Community Center Goals Overall Development Goals

1. Cisterns for rainwater collection on rooftops Stormwater capture parks/Outdoor event parks

2. Landscape irrigation via harvested rainwater Sustainable living maintenance manual

3. Sustainable living maintenance manual Visible stormwater feature/Art installation

4. Stormwater capture parks/Outdoor event parks Community nursery/Greenhouse

5. Locally appropriate plantings Locally appropriate plantings

This process yields a wealth of data about the project and clarifies why some strategies are getting prioritized. For instance, the second-ranked goal for the community center was “landscape irrigation via harvested rainwater.” This strategy scored high for its positive impact on important goals like “increase water efficiency” (weighted 6.3) and “increase marketability to potential buyers” (weighted 7.4), while having no negative scores, even on economic goals (including “stay within budget limits”). The second-ranked goal for the overall development was “sustainable living maintenance manual,” which scored high on two important goals—“heighten development’s sense of uniqueness” (7.8) and “improve energy efficiency” (7.6)—while having only one negative: “stay within budget limits.” The number one goal for the overall development, “stormwater capture parks,” was a mixed bag. Despite slight negatives on energy and economic goals, it ranked positively for a large number of community, environmental, and contextual goals, and received the highest ranking.

This type of sophisticated analysis integrates values, goals, and strategies in a transparent, participatory way that allows a group of stakeholders to gain clear consensus on their programming priorities. As the landscape design moved forward, it focused on xeriscaping strategies wherever possible to minimize water use and lend a unique flavor not found within other projects of this scale in the area.

CHAPTER 2

Sustainable Infrastructure Frameworks