|
7 Habits of Highly Effective Buildings
Sougata Nandi
B. Tech., M. Tech., LEEDŽ Accredited Professional
Sustainable Development Manager, TECOM Investments
At the time of writing this article, I was attending the Signature Program on "7 Habits of Highly Effective PeopleŽ". I must admit that the 7 Habits can be a life changing experience and while attending this workshop, my mind was continuously drifting towards green buildings. A cynic would argue that a building is not animate and hence cannot have "habits"! Point taken. However, for the sake of a hypothetical exercise, if one were to
- Define a building as being effective only when it is Green and Resource Efficient, and
- Make "living" buildings
What 7 Habits would you like your building to have?
In this article, I list below my own set of 7 Habits for a Highly Effective Building.
HABIT 1: ONE MUST SEEK TO DEVELOP A GREEN BUILDING
The biggest challenge for today's sustainability proponents is "find me a developer who wants a Green Building", not only in the UAE/ Middle East but everywhere in the World. Yes, paradigms are changing and more and more developers are looking to develop Green Buildings with some organizations even instilling "Sustainable Development Policy" that commits them to build Green. However, such initiatives and organizations are few and far between. While expertise on Green Buildings can be made available by way of the right Architect, Consultant, Contractor, Commissioning Agent, Facility Manager etc., unless the building owner insists on a Green Building, he is not going to get one.
Therefore, the first Habit for a highly effective building is to be pro-active; the building owner/ developer must seek to develop a Green Building. Once this decision is cast in stone, all elements of the design-development process and Operation and Maintenance would fall in place.
HABIT 2: DEFINE YOUR SUSTAINABILITY GOALS
While one could technically utilize any one of the several Green Building rating system available around the World, the most popular rating system appears to be the LEEDŽ Rating system of the US Green Building Council. Several countries outside of USA have adopted the LEED Rating system either in totality or in slightly modified versions (LEEDŽ Canada and LEEDŽ India are cases in point). Right here, the Emirates Green Building Council (EGBC) is working hard to develop a LEEDŽ UAE Rating system.
Under the LEEDŽ framework, one could develop a Green Building ranging in quality from the very basic LEEDŽ Certified to the very high end (full-option in local lingo) LEEDŽ Platinum . At the very outset, the project developer should, and after having sought to develop a Green Building, decide the level of Certification that he/ she would like to have for the building in question.
Please refer to www.usgbc.org for full details.
Therefore, the second habit for a highly effective building is to define its sustainability goals, before the actual design process is initiated.
HABIT 3: KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO AT EVERY STAGE, IN A SEQUENTIAL MANNER
As per the LEEDŽ Rating system, different Credit requirements need to be met at different stages. For example, locating your building is a very conceptual stage item whereas, ensuring that the paints that you apply in your building would follow the VOC limits required by LEEDŽ is a construction stage activity.
Following from Habit 2 which defines the sustainability goals for the building, Habit 3 will define the required activities at various stages of the project and will also help assign relevant and required responsibilities to different members of the project development team, including the building owner.
Therefore, the third habit for a highly effective building is to define the activities required to make it "effective" at various stages of the development process.
HABIT 4: THINK BENEFITS FOR EVERYONE - THE BUILDING, THE OCCUPANTS, THE COMMUNITY/ ENVIRONMENT.
A Green building is a responsible building, not only to its occupants, but also to the developer, the visitors, the community, the Government and to the environment at large. An effective building would address the requirements of:-
- Occupants through its Indoor Environmental Quality features;
- Government through its features of Sustainable Sites which lead to reduced burden on infrastructure requirements;
- Environment through Credits like Light Pollution Reduction, Ozone Depletion, Certified Wood etc.
- Developers through several Credits like Resource Re-use, etc.
Therefore, the fourth habit for a highly effective building is to ensure that it benefits all stakeholders.
HABIT 5: UNDERSTAND FIRST
An effective building would be designed based on occupant's needs and requirements. How many of us live in buildings where we have a small water fountain in the building foyer but no mechanism for sorting recyclable waste like cans and bottles? Or an even better example, particularly here in the UAE, how many of us have offices in buildings that were designed to be residential apartments?
Therefore, the fifth habit for a highly effective building is to seek to understand the requirements of its eventual occupants and designing and constructing a building based on these requirements.
HABIT 6: ESTABLISH SYNERGIES BETWEEN THE DEVELOPMENT AND INFRASTRUCTURE SERVICE PROVIDER
All of us, who have been living here for the past several years, have witnessed the exponential growth of the local economy. Multitudes of projects have been launched and are being launched even today, putting an ever increasing strain on the existing infrastructure, whether it be roads, flyovers, electric lines, fresh water supply, waste management necessities etc. In certain cases, the utility service provider comes to hear of a new mega-project through the newspapers and it is expected to provide electricity, water and roads within a certain date without thought to its future capacities.
Therefore, the sixth habit for a highly effective building is to have a synergy between itself and the infrastructure service provider so that undue burden is not put on the latter.
HABIT 7: AWARENESS AND TRAINING
An effective building would bear in mind that without the active participation of its occupants and its operators & facility managers, it would not be possible for it to remain sustainable.
- Therefore, the seventh habit for a highly effective building would be to ensure that
- Sample awareness generating posters are put up throughout the building,
- that its occupants are regularly reminded of Green building programmes like recycling etc.
- that its operators and facility managers are continuously trained on Green building elements.
8 CONCLUSION
While the 7 Habits listed above are a product of my own imagination, each sustainable advocate could develop his/ her own number of Habits/ features for their buildings to be effective and in fact also have their own diverse set of Habits.
References/ Sources
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Signature Program, Franklin Covey, Version 3.0.
- LEEDŽ Reference Guide for New Construction & Major Renovations (LEED-NC), Version 2.2, 1st Edition, Oct 2005.
|
Home
