I have spent many hours this month getting criticized and rejected for trying to get ‘er done. In [...]]]> I am concerned about a terrible Lack of Confidence in our economy and society: We must keep our heads high and continue to strive. The terrible danger is fear. Fear is paralyzing.

I have spent many hours this month getting criticized and rejected for trying to get ‘er done. In times of economic hardship, its clearly sliding backwards to say NO. And these days its happening over and over. The economy declined because of irrational fear.

It is our duty as businesspeople to move past the nattering naysayers. It is our responsibility to thank them for their thoughts, take their garbage to the curb, and find a solution.

Winston Churchill said this well in 1940 when the Nazi Germans were dropping thousands of bombs on the innocent during the blitz.

“I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation.

The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;

we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe,

this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

As a real estate investor, professional engineer, and creator of solutions for energy efficient buildings, this is basically analogous to where I stand today.

Building design and construction requires cooperation between a dozen or more actors.

There is an architect designing the overall [...]]]> A repeat/revisiting of The DEC 16, 2007 Blog entry. This one bears repeating because in this difficult economy, it is important to keep a perspective on the teamwork necessary to execute and implement a building.

Building design and construction requires cooperation between a dozen or more actors.

There is an architect designing the overall building. Another firm may do the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design. Another firm does the civil design and still another firm does the structural.

5 design disciplines by 5 different designers.

Each one working on a separate set of documents.

Theoretically in synch.

We are committed to following and coordinating with the architects. To the nearest half inch, with the owners needs the priority. Nothing new there. Given schedule and productivity demands, it is good and necessary to design aggressively and quickly. Without knowing all the details. AHEAD of the architects design process. It is a designing with the end in mind, a a kind fast track, if you will. Often it seems to put the cart before the horse, but using experience and cooperation, we can and often do anticipate the architecture and the appropriate MEP solution ahead of time. I find this gains better agreement. But it certainly is a challenge.

The building design as a product. It’s a set of plans for a ‘thing’ that one can stand back and look at, an edifice; a concrete and steel object. But design occurs as a sequence of events or milestones, of course.

The architect must design with M/E/P spatial requirements already accounted for, because we tell them ahead of time. The early incorporation of HVAC mechanical and electrical needs are necessary. As the design progresses, all the pieces and details are accumulated and, hopefully, incorporated into the coordinated design. While we know the scale of needs almost from the git go, we must discover the optimal details as we go. Optimal equipment selections, piping and ductwork, so vital to constructability, only occurs AFTER a process of sharing information and coordinating between the disciplines.

This process, which is iterative, (known commonly by their names as schematic design, design development and construction document phases), increases the complexity of the design as it approaches the final state. The various disciplines refine their connections and physical placement more and more. Finally the result is the “construction documents”, a complete design. It must fully describe a biddable, constructable and functioning building. If we have correctly envisioned the product ahead of time we have successfully “designed with the end in mind”. However, we will often find out just how well or badly we did this during the construction phase, but thats a subject for another day.

Communication between the different players, especially when they are in different physical locations or different firms is a challenge. With the power of technology, such as the internet and CAD, we like to think progress has been made. However, in my opinion, nothing has really improved much since drafting pencils, mylar and blueprint machines were de rigeuer. As much as we would like technology to be an answer, its really about the people involved.

Sometimes I feel like MEP design is ignored, relegated to the back of the bus if you will. (Why is that MEP spec sections are the 15th, 16th and 17th sections in the old 18 section specifications book? A subject for another posting)

In the rush of reaching the construction document phase, the various players, architects and engineers, do not always stay in synch. How to make them tighter and resolve this issue?

A THEORETICAL APPROACH and SOLUTION

Commitment reinforced and Win-win results

Stephen R. Coveys book, The 8th Habit (Free Pess, 2004 ), in my opinion, is required reading for the design team. He said that successful team work includes of the following in the left side, with my reaction on the right.

 

Successful team work includes	What we can do to implement the left side
Focus on the wildly important	We do this already, under time demands. Now we just have to promote it.
Create a compelling scoreboard	Milestones come and go, the trick is to maintain it
Translate lofty goals into specific actions	Where leadership says "make it so".
Hold each other accountable all of the time	Need to work in tandem with mutual respect and commitment

Further, Covey says that a win-win agreement consists of several simple things.
In the context of multi-discipline coordination and integrated design, building
design should focus on these as well:

1. Desired results
2. Guidelines
3. Resources
4. Accountability
5. Consequences

(p. 286, ibid)

So what do we apply to the design team? All of the above. How?
Salemanship and persuasion of course. THAT is the challenge.

-H. L. [...]]]> “Imagine the Creator as a stand up comedian – and at once the world becomes explicable.”

-H. L. Mencken

This LEED certified home in Arlington is also an beautiful example of how a lower carbon footprint looks and how utility bills can be lowered to almost nothing.

Is it ironic that the house is listed for $1.175 million but the utilities [...]]]> Here is an exciting example of green design filled with good ideas.

This LEED certified home in Arlington is also an beautiful example of how a lower carbon footprint looks and how utility bills can be lowered to almost nothing.

Is it ironic that the house is listed for $1.175 million but the utilities are supposedly under $400 a year? Hmm.

It’s predictable. This is a prototype, and prototypes tend to be expensive! Custom luxury homes do that to your budget, you know?

Nice ideas in this one. I’d like to take some of these for my designs.

• Up-to-date methods like insulation in board form rather than fiberglass batts (SIPS : structural insulated panels)
• Careful placement and sizing of windows to maximize light, view and ventilation, but minimizing excessive heat and glare.
• Selecting and designing HVAC and lighting systems that are more efficient, healthier and easier to maintain. Geothermal heat pumps are a special favorite.
• Creating design features like overhangs, fins, and screens to reduce direct solar insolation during the cooling season.

1. Mouseover links on the map highlight individual properties on an “active [...]]]> Recently, I have been using a slew of various web sites to research real estate listings. Most real estate web sites sport tools such as active maps that activate displays on a list on same page. There are two kinds of these.

1. Mouseover links on the map highlight individual properties on an “active list” located on the same page .
2. Clickable links on the map make a small popup displaying information about that property.

All these data sites work reasonably well. Only one web site allowed filtering according to when it came on the in market, RealtyTrac.com. RealtyTrac is unique in that it also displays a history of actions such as notice of default (NOD) and trustee sale (NOS)
Here is a summary of what I found as far as the other database search and filtering goes

Zillow
Nice tools including maps with clickable points linked to a list on same page. The Zillow values are consistently much higher than real, their algorithm may be putting too much weight on 2008 comparable prices. On the other hand, it is great for comparable sales, since it simultaneously shows a list and a zoomable map. It is excellent for this purpose. It shows foreclosures, but if you want the address, it wants you to sign up for a separate paid web site to get the full street address.

HomesDatabase.com
Thoroughly designed interface uses the mouseover method. I like the maps and the way you can search by moving or zooming the map to display the properties of interest. This is my favorite, albeit not as deep as Realty Trac.

Trulia.com
Similar maps to Zillow with clickable links. The Active Maps are small but the “active list” is easy to use. The detail pages are ok, they show “Days on Trulia” whatever that means . The comparable sales, maps and a 18 month chart of the zip codes median price is a nice touch. They are do not state a value, rather letting the reader decide.
Seems awkward, but that may be because the user has only 2 weeks experience. The links to get the agents data do not always work.
interesting filters unique to Trulia:
properties listed in the last 7 days on Trulia

Eppraisal.com
If you type in some addresses, the weird search mechanism throws an error instead of showing the nearest address. They have a clickable map. Interesting emphasis on valuation, shows three values for each property.
• The Eppraisal price estimate- based on a plain vanilla average of 5-6 recent sales. Those recent sales are displayed at the same time, so it is documented easily.
• The Zillow price estimate- always hilariously high as mentioned above.
• The Cyberhomes price estimate- also often high
They have a nice chart showing median sales prices as well as local economic and social information.

Cyberhomes.com
I have not used it before today and don’t know much about it yet. They do feed appraisal valuations to RealtyTrac . Otherwise, it appears to have the same information as the others but their estimates are higher, but not as off as Zillow. It’s a nice interface, and clean.

RealtyTrac.com
I started using more recently. It has a deeper dataset compared to the other sites. The searching mechanism not bad, especially since it allows filters by all variables except days on market. I have not decided whether the interface is all that good. It displays a transaction history going back 10 years or so, which no other site does.

Realtor.com -
Attractive site, we are not using as much except to see the market. Nice presentation, not much depth, not up to date.

Foreclosurereporting.com
Supposedly the best foreclosure specialty site. Nice searching tool. Easy to do manual data extraction from the lists. Not much in the way of a map search, I found myself relying on Zillow while using it. We have cancelled this subscription since it is 100% superceded by RealtyTrac.

Some real estate and energy efficiency professionals have called into question the credibility of a study paid for by NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, on the economics of high energy performance in commercial offices. The study focussed on [...]]]> Misinformation again. Its enough to make you want to take up arms.

Some real estate and energy efficiency professionals have called into question the credibility of a study paid for by NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, on the economics of high energy performance in commercial offices. The study focussed on the average 4 story office of 90,000 square feet or so.

This was the reaction,

“…in a biting memo posted Monday on the web site of Architecture 2030, a green building advocacy organization, the group’s founder, Edward Mazria, cast the NAIOP study as a “disinformation campaign” that was meant to “stall, confuse and distort” energy efficiency facts in advance of Senate hearings on improving building code standards.

“This type of activity by NAIOP not only hurts our country, it is also a disservice to their membership and all those in the Building Sector who work hard to deliver a high-quality, energy-efficient building product,” Mazria said.

NAIOP may be obfuscating the issue by funding such a crappy report. They leave out some basic and inexpensive methods for achieving the CODE -30% energy target. They forgot to add in the tiny incremental cost of adding demand control ventilation controls to the RTUs, and they never made any mention of a variable speed motors anywhere, not on any fans, not on the compressors, no where!!!!! Simple stuff that should and can be added relatively easily was ignored by the report.

One more evidence that The greatest ideas have been adopted by the Europeans faster than here where the construction industry has been so resistant to any change American leadership in architectural engineering, if there ever was any, has drifted away. Our levels of understanding of basic science have really fallen down here.

The point is, the NAIOP report itself has lots of holes and is incomplete, as I mentioned above.

I also care deeply about high building performance. I hate poor performance. I have worked all my career to make good designs as energy [...]]]> I like BIM software. I admit it, I think it is very cool to be able to design directly in a virtual 3 dimensional environment.

I also care deeply about high building performance. I hate poor performance. I have worked all my career to make good designs as energy efficient as possible. Recapturing heat and not wasting it is one way to help the efficiency. There are lots of other opportunities to save as well. I have copied a list of the most common energy conserving opportunities on here the ASHRAE Green Tip List page .

So what does BIM software have to do with Good green design? It’s a time saver. If we save time documenting the design , then we can spend more time actually designing. That’s the point.