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Dr Paul Torcellini is here and Paul you were with the National Renewable Energy Lab. You
were deeply involved in this research support facility project. As kind of the owner of
the building, what did you learn from that project?
Yes! I was on the owner team. So, there was a group of us that really represent the owner
on this project. I think that one of the biggest things that I learned was that as an owner
set the goals, set them to be measurable and let the design team and contractor run with
it. They will rise to the challenge and they will meet it.
Did you have to push them or did you just said that we are giving you the opportunity
here? I think I pushed them a lot less than we have
on other projects that as research group we have been involved with, because we set the
boundaries and they were able to work and have a lot of freedom within those boundaries.
I mean the boundaries were energy goals and price. And they were able to say “Yes! We
can do it!” In fact we did that as a part of the procurement process and so we chose
the team that we thought would provide us the largest value for our fixed price and
that was the hazel nut in our team. And the building itself is essentially an
office building, even though it’s a research campus, it’s an office space? Tell us about
the pricing on it. How did it come out in terms of cost and cost per sq ft?
So the first part is that it’s a normal government procurement process work. Congress
gives us a chunk of money. They give us some guidelines – Mission, for that building.
We added the energy overlay after the fact and so it had to go through the Congressional
budgeting process and all the scrutiny there. When all this was done and we compared it
with other buildings there in Metro area, I went through other information sources on
building data, I looked at the contracts of other buildings they had built, it was right
in the middle, and so its not high-end, it’s not incredibly low-end but it met a fixed
budget and we got energy efficiency out of that. So from our point of view, we got energy
efficiency with really no additional cost. How duplicable do you think this process is?
How much roll out opportunity is there for this kind of building?
I think there’s a lot! I think and from our point of view a lot of it is the process.
Right! In setting those goals, writing a document upfront that really outlines what the expectation
is of the owner, but not having any solutions. I mean when we put out the RFP, it was probably
one of the few RFPs that have been put out there, that didn’t have any drawings, didn’t
have any figures. It was all words that said what we expected performance wise out of this
building and it wasn’t just energy; it was acoustics and space planning and kind of the
expectations. It must have been hard for a bunch of engineers
and very smart people with PHDs like yourself to kind of give that up?
Well! I was just one of the team and we did have some outside expertise come in and help
us right there with our RFP. I actually found it very invigorating because as you can go
to a design meeting and listen to the team come together, listen to them integrate, listen
to them solve their own problems because they were one hook to do it.
That’s a very different model than we have where you kind of, set some loose goals around
energy efficiency or green and then I as an expert have to go in and say, “Well! You
have got to have a deadline. You have got to have always pieces” and people come back
and say, “Oh No! It might break the budget. It might hurt the space planning or something
else!” And you end up kind of fighting with your own design team.
Here everybody was on the same page and everybody was motivated to be on the same page.
Your process wasn’t just on design. You had contractor, you had energy modeling people
in there; I mean there was a big group of professionals pulled together to get it right
from the beginning. Wasn’t that? We issued one fixed price contract to the
contractor to deliver the building that met the qualifications of RFP. He was responsible
then for getting the expertise he needed to the table to do that. So that was the architect;
that was the engineer that included the energy modeling, etc. He brought that engineering
team on, very early in the process and they actually sketched out what kinds of things
they needed to meet that energy goal. Even while they were competing, one of the
questions was “Well! If it’s not possible, why would we even invest in competing for
a project like this?” So the engineer had to convince them upfront and the architect
then, in some ways they may think that it was limiting, but I think if you ask them
it was really very freeing because it gave them some perimeters and then they could work
their architectural magic to get us a beautiful building that people would like and meet the
energy goals. And people are finding the building to service
them well and they are enjoying the experience there?
As near as we can tell! You know, we have done some concrete measurements, we know we
are on target energy-wise; we know we are meeting our daylight qualifications/ specifications
– you know kind of the normal things that you can measure. We know from a space conditioning
point of view that we are well within the Ashley comfort zone for the entire space.
You know, compare that to a traditional office building and we are light years ahead of that.
In general people seem very satisfied with it. Like any new building, you know, we have
a couple of tweaks and there are some issues and some equipment has failed early on, that
has been replaced under warranty, but in general the owner is very satisfied with the project.
Well! You have won an award from the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment
(COTE Award) and you have also won one from us for Building, Design and Construction for
your Building Team Award, so congratulations, you are one of our two Platinum Winners this
year. Thank you! Thanks!