Presentation given at the Sept. 18th/19th, 2008 Climate Change and the Physical Environment Seminar, College of Architecture, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Title: Keeping "Green" Buildings From Turning "Brown"

1. Keeping “Green” Buildings
From Turning “Brown”
Marcel Harmon, Ph.D., P.E., LEED-AP

2. M.E. Group, Inc.
Building Systems Design Division
 Mechanical/Electrical/Plumbing/Lighting Design
 High-Performance Building Design
 Commissioning
 Feasibility Studies
Green Services Division
 LEED Documentation & Consulting
 Green Building Planning
 Existing Building Evaluations/Retro-Commissioning
 Commissioning
 Energy Audits
 Energy Modeling

3. Built Environment’s Impact
U.S. Energy Consumption By Sector
Source: US Green Building Council (USGBC)

4. Built Environment’s Impact
Buildings in the U.S.,
• Consume 71% of the electricity produced.
• Consume 12% of the total water used.
• Produce 65% of the waste generated.
Buildings worldwide,
• Consume 40% of the total materials & energy used.
• Consume 17% of the total water used.
• Consume 25% of the total wood harvested.
Source: US Green Building Council (USGBC)

5. Built Environment’s Impact
U.S. CO2 Emissions by Sector
Source: US Energy Information Administration
statistics and www.architecture2030.org

6. The Potential Repercussions
Honolulu, HI: 1.75-meter sea level rise
Source: www.architecture2030.org

7. LEED Building Performance
National Average Comparison
• On average, LEED facilities are performing 25-30%
better than non-LEED facilities.
• But individual facility performances were widely
scattered.
• Some even using more energy than the predicted
code baseline modeling.
• Why?
Source: Turner, C. and M. Frankel 2008. Energy
Performance of LEED for New Construction Buildings. New
Buildings Institute.

8. Green to Brown
“Buildings have a poor track record for performing as
predicted during design.”
 inaccurate or improperly used analysis tools;
 lack of integration of complex inter-connected systems;
 value engineering after design;
 poor construction practices;
 no building commissioning;
 and incomplete or improper understanding of operations and
maintenance practices.
“A National Green Building Research Agenda” (revised February
2008), USGBC Research Committee.

9. Sustainability
Human Factors Sustainable Solution
•Systematic
•Contextual
Technology Environment

10. Human Factors
 Physiological Factors - Factors that deal with the
mechanical, physical, and biochemical functioning
of the body itself.
 Psychological Factors - The mental or behavioral
characteristics of individuals or groups, centered
on the structure of the mind.
 Cultural Factors - Factors derived from a shared set
of organized ideas, information habits, patterned
behavior, and conditioned emotional responses,
consisting of knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,
and custom.

11. Mental Mapping: East vs. West
Image by Trey Hedden, McGovern Institute for Brain
Research at MIT

12. Cultural Scripts
 By providing a lens
through which to view
and interpret the world,
it helps generate the
specific experience.
 Its what help me tell the
difference between
being comfortable and
uncomfortable.

13. Thermal Comfort In Interior Environments

14. Baca/Dlo'ay azhi Community School
Various Navajo cultural
elements incorporated:
• Entrance facing east (Mt. Taylor)
• Layout on the four cardinal
directions.
• Placing the media center (and the
story pit) at the very center –
emphasizes the importance of
knowledge.
• Navajo color schemes.
• Cultural Conflict w/ LEED N

15. Baca/Dlo'ay azhi Community School

16. Stone-Age Minds & Bodies
We are designing 21st
century facilities for our
stone-age minds and
bodies, with physiologies
and psychologies adapted
to operating within a much
different physical
environment, and in a socio/
cultural environment of low
variability.

17. Sustainability
Human Factors Sustainable Solution
• Systematic
• Contextual
• Three levels of human
factors
• Human factors
evolved under
different conditions
Technology Environment

18. Model Baselines
A
Local Average (Peer Group)
B
+∆
National/Regional Average
-∆
C
Local Average (Peer Group)
D

19. Edward Gonzales Elementary
School - Electrical
700000
600000 250 285
Total Kilowatt Hours
262
350
234
363
275
500000 295
317
265 365
333
360
291 216 203
400000
221 231
330 206
351
252
288 219
282 328
332 215 225 356
339
244 321
370
210230 273
279 310
329
300000 297
214
270 305
388
312 385
309
255
229 307
324
204 300 345 260 236
213 315
373 207 379 228
336
240 241
200000 267 303
258
357
222
276
100000
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
00
0 00 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
3 40 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Total Square Footage
School KWH by Square Footage. (Edward Gonzales = 262).

20. Edward Gonzales Elementary
School - Gas
60000 262
50000
339
307
40000 288
221
216 234 285
Therms
351
228 315 295
310 258 312 206 275
297 203
215 360 273
240 303270 363 255
30000 373
207 291 300 357 370
324
282 213
345 210
305 388
230 231
236
385
225 309 265
365 252
356
241 333
214 317
250
260 350
279
336 276
20000
229
244 328
204 321
267 330
332 329
10000
222
0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
00 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
30 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Total Square Footage
Therms by Square Footage. (Edward Gonzales = 262).

21. Comparison to Energy Star
88.8 kBtu/sq. ft./yr; Energy Star Baseline
14% Reduction
76.4 kBtu/sq. ft./yr; Actual 2004-2005 Energy Usage
-∆
62.7 kBtu/sq. ft./yr; Energy Star 30% Savings
58.2 kBtu/sq. ft./yr; Peer Group Baseline
44.4 kBtu/sq. ft./yr; Energy Star 50% Savings

22. Edward Gonzales Elementary School
Classroom
Daylighting
Light Sweep

23. Edward Gonzales Elementary School
Edward Gonzales Light Sweep Rating
35.0%
30.0%
Percent of Responses
25.0%
20.0%
Light Sweep
15.0%
10.0%
5.0%
0.0%
Excellent Good Fair Poor NA ?
Rating

24. Edward Gonzales Elementary School
Edward All School
Gonzales Seven Bar Chelwood Average
Comfortable
Average 1.13 2.07 2.20 1.80
Too Cold Average 1.15 0.27 0.20 0.54
Too Hot Average 1.42 0.62 0.30 0.78
Stale Average 1.27 0.20 0.00 0.49
Stuffy Average 1.58 0.32 0.10 0.67
Permanent building teacher/staff/administrator rating scores of
their perception of their students’ thermal comfort level
conditions. Values range from 0 to 3, with the larger values
indicating a greater degree of that particular condition present.

25. Edward Gonzales Elementary School
Edward Gonzales Edward Gonzales
Portable Permanent
Comfortable Average 1.87 1.13
Too Cold Average 0.24 1.15
Too Hot Average 0.43 1.42
Stale Average 0.22 1.27
Stuffy Average 0.10 1.58
Portable vs. Permanent Building

26. Edward Gonzales Elementary School
Rest Room:
Water Use
Issues,
Performance, &
Self Image

27. KEEPING GREEN BUILDINGS
GREEN

28. How?
 More affectively account for
human factors
 Build better energy models that
more accurately reflect local
conditions
 EVALUATE, EVALUATE,
EVALUATE

29. Evidence Based Design
Built Environments are Experiments

30. Evidence Based Design
Built Environments are experiments in:
 the performance of materials and systems

31. Evidence Based Design
Built Environments are experiments
in:
 the organization of space

32. Evidence Based Design
Built Environments are experiments in:
 facilitation of specific human behaviors/tasks

33. Evidence Based Design
Built Environments are experiments in:
 the process of design

34. Evidence Based Design
Built Environments are experiments
in:
 construction methodologies, etc.

35. Evidence Based Design
 If we do not evaluate the experiments, we do
not learn what works, what doesn’t work, and
why.
 We repeat mistakes, waste resources and
money, and minimize the quality of the human
experience within the built environment.

36. Evidence Based Design
We must “… better relate design strategies to
actual performance and benefit ... [and build] a
more thorough dataset as well as more robust
metrics ...”
- “A National Green Building Research
Agenda” (revised February 2008), USGBC
Research Committee.

37. Evidence Based Design
But when conducting these evaluations, we also need
an human inquiry of the reciprocal relationships
between people and the built environment.

38. Human Inquiry Process
 Goal: Correlate behavior, productivity/
performance metrics, health metrics, etc., with
specific building elements (technologies, layouts,
materials, etc.), for a specific social/cultural and
physical environmental context.
 Results: Informative knowledge for a specific
project/facility; Knowledge added to a continually
expanding database of information.

39. Human Inquiry Process
Planning Investigation Implementation Hand off

40. Evaluation/Human Inquiry Benefits
 Further assurance for clients and the design/build team
that the green/sustainable design goals will be
successfully implemented.
 Verification for clients that they are getting what they
paid for, as well as assistance in keeping their “green”
facility from turning brown.
 Increase in productivity, performance, and health.
 Decrease in employee turnover.
 Decrease in tenant turnover & increased occupancy
rates.

41. Performance/Productivity
IAQ Improvements:
 save up to $58 billion in lost sick time
 save additional $200 billion in worker
performance.
- Fisk, W. G. 2000, Health and Productivity Gains
from Better Indoor Environments and Their
Relationship with Building Energy Efficiency.
Annual Review of Energy and Environment
25(1):537-566. Later updated for 2002 dollars.

42. Performance/Productivity
Increased tenant environmental control
have been found to provide average
measured workforce productivity gains of:
 7.1% with lighting control,
 1.8% with ventilation control, and
 1.2% with thermal control.
- Kats, G., L. Alevantis, A. Berman, E. Mills, and J. Perlman,
2003. The Costs and Financial Benefits of Green Building: A
Report to California’s Sustainable Building Task Force.

43. Performance/Productivity
Compared to little or no daylighting,
classrooms with large amounts of
daylighting, have been found to increase
the rate of student learning by:
 20% in math
 26% in reading
- Heschong Mahone Group. 1999.
Daylighting in Schools: An Investigation into
the Relationship Between Daylight and
Human Performance. Report submitted to
Pacific Gas and Electric.
http://www.h-m-g.com. Reanalysis of
report conducted in 2001 –
www.newbuildings.org/pier.

44. Evaluation/Human Inquiry Benefits
Over 20 – 25 years, for a 16
typical service business: 14
Ratio of amortized 12
construction cost to 10
building operating costs to 8
6
staff salaries/business 4
operating costs = 2
1:1.5:15 0
Construction Bldg Business
Operations Operations
- Commission for Architecture and the Built Relative Cost
Environment and the British Council for
Offices, London, UK, 2005.

45. Concluding Thoughts
 Brown facilities can result when human factors,
technology, and/or the environment are not adequately
accounted for initially, or change after the fact.
 Green buildings (and all buildings in general) are
experiments that require evaluation to verify they’re
performing as designed.
 Brown facilities will negatively impact the spread and
success of green design, with negative global
consequences.

46. "We have not inherited the world from our
forefathers -- we have borrowed it from
our children."
- Kashmiri proverb