Architect as Sustainable DevelopmentLeader

This paper describes how architects who take a leadership role in sustainable development projects, including the involvement of real property appraisers in the Integrated Delivery Process, advance the uptake of sustainable development, which in turn will generate more sustainability projects and more revenue for these architects.

Because of what Sim van der Ryn terms “dumb design,” our cities, buildings, landscapes, and products:

· Harm human and environmental health

· Destroy our means of survival (the life support system)

· Reduce secure access to food and water

· Reduce public space and natural amenity

· Chain us to the fossil fuel economy

· Transfer wealth from the many to the few

· Generate conflict over land and resources

· Cut off basic life choices for future generations

We have now exceeded the Earth’s carrying capacity. According to the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, we have already degraded 60 percent of the Earth’s ecosystems services – including farms, fisheries, forests, and significant biodiversity. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report, the primary driver of climate change is global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with the most important anthropogenic GHG being carbon dioxide (C02). With current climate change mitigation policies and related sustainable development practices, GHG emissions will cause further warming during the 21st century (differing models project temperature increases between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius). Such temperature increases are anticipated to induce many changes in our global climate system including, to name only a few, significant extinctions of species (up to 70%), loss of ice sheets with major changes in coastlines and inundation of low-lying areas, decreases in global food production, the death of coral reefs and the loss of most marine life, desertification of major portions of continents, growing areas of the globe no longer suitable for large-scale human habitation, and massive population transfers with the shrinking of habitable areas toward the poles.

What does this have to do with architects? Architects have designed the buildings that consume 40% of the world’s energy and 65% of total U.S. electrical consumption. Buildings are a major source of demand for materials that produce greenhouse gases, contribute 40% of the carbon emissions to the atmosphere, and generate 20% of the material waste in landfills. Additionally, buildings impact the environment at several levels, including the region, city, and neighborhood, and in relation to its life-cycle, there are consequences following building material choices such as the extraction processing, manufacturing impacts, emissions associated with certain materials, maintenance, demolition, recycling, and disposal of construction products.

What is the relevance of the COTE Mission? According to AIA, it is the mission of the Committee on the Environment (COTE) to “promote the role of the architect as a leader in preserving and protecting the planet and its living systems.” At the root of COTE’s mission statement is the fact that architects have the ability to generate healthy ecological conditions, reverse the impacts of current systems of development with their detrimental resource transfers and design failures, and improve human ecological health, resilience and viability.

How can “sustainable design” achieve “sustainable development”? In isolation it cannot. The greater goal of sustainable development will require more than achieving COTE’s “Ten measures of Sustainable Design.”In part, it will require the leadership of architects to facilitate the integration of a variety of stakeholders in the built environment life-cycle.

Why should architects take a leadership role in sustainable development?

(1) Architects currently have significantly greater opportunities for professional education (e.g., AIA courses) about environmental and energy-related issues than related professions such as land-use planning, landscape architecture, engineering, appraisal, and law; (2) While only a small portion of facility life-cycle costs occur during the architect’s design process, it is this phase that has the greatest impact on life-cycle costs; (3) Despite the current barriers to the widespread adoption of building information modeling (BIM),architects have been the first to recognize the productivity and economic benefits of BIM. Three-quarters of BIM users are involved in green projects where the design is heavily dependent on analysis, simulation of alternatives, and detailed quantitative evaluation of building materials, components and performance. Architects are the heaviest users of BIM with 43% using it on more than 60% of their projects; (4) Architects are the stakeholders most educated, and encouraged to take a proactive involvement, in Integrated Project Delivery (IPD). IPD is defined as “a project delivery approach that integrates people, systems, business structures and practices into a process that collaboratively harnesses the talents and insights of all participants to reduce waste and optimize efficiency through all phases of design, fabrication and construction.”AIA recognizes that IPD can be achieved without BIM, however, it is their recommendation that “Building Information Modeling is essential to efficiently achieve the collaboration required for Integrated Project Delivery.”

Therefore, architects are in a leadership role and a primary driver of sustainability with their design driving lifecycle costs, their superior sustainability knowledge, implementation of BIM, and their IPD approach.

Why architects should pay special attention to the integration of appraisers in BIM and IPD? There is a special focus on real property appraisers because many appraisers have yet to integrate sustainability issues/characteristics and value impacts into appraisals. The failure to consider sustainability characteristics and value impacts has resulted in underwriting resistance and even financing failures for green development. This directly impacts architects, and the world, because financing resistance/failure results in less new sustainable investment, less sustainable construction, less demand for sustainable buildings because it is an unfamiliar entity, which results in less consumer knowledge and acceptance, and overall less uptake of all sustainable development.

It is beneficial for architects to integrate appraisers in the BIM/IPD process because:

Integration of all stakeholders is a principal characteristic of a successful BIM/IPD processes, and

Appraisers can provide input, especially in the conceptual and design phases, that will impact the project’s level of sustainability (e.g., LEED rating) and overall degree to which the project achieves characteristics of “positive development”

In addition to the appraiser’s potential contributions in a project’s early phases, architects have more pressing, more virtuous, and more future-oriented reasons to immediately and proactively integrate appraisers into the BIM and IPD process, as follows:

The uptake of sustainable buildings will be hindered until market participants are convinced of the link between sustainability and economic benefits, or higher market value. The valuation process has a key role in achieving a broader market penetration of sustainable development.

There is a huge untapped market potential for all aspects of sustainable development such as construction, facilities management, sales, and investment, and especially for architects.

Sustainable buildings clearly outperform their conventional competitors in all relevant areas – environmentally, socially, and financially.

More sustainable behavior is urgently needed to sustain the viability of the Earth’s ecosystems.

Conclusions

Architects are in a leadership role and a primary driver of sustainable development. In this leadership role architects have the ability to integrate real property appraisers in the BIM/IPD process. The integration of appraisers in the process will positively impact the project’s level of sustainability and will assist in the appraiser’s ability to link sustainability with economic benefits, thus leading to achieving broader uptake of financing projects with sustainability characteristics, and therefore more sustainability projects for architects.