Industrialised, Integrated, Intelligent sustainable Construction - I3con

SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION HANDBOOK 2
of waste waters from potable water. The main team players are the owner, the architect and the
engineer or specialty consultant as well. However, the role of the facility manager takes more
importance because the final user opinion is very important on defining water efficiency strategies.
For the energy and atmosphere sustainability criteria and conceptualization stage the participation
distribution of team members based on the matrix is: owner 29%, architect 18%, engineer or specialty
consultant 27%, general contractor 11%, trade contractor 0%, and facility manager 14%. The main
objectives of these sustainability criteria are to optimize the energy efficiency of the different systems
installed on the project and to reduce the atmospheric emissions generated either by the project or by
the generation of energy used by the project. The key project participants are the owner and the
engineers or specialty consultants, because they must make the most important definitions; however
participation of the architect and facility manager is important as well. Within these sustainability
criteria input from the engineers and specialty consultants is higher compared with previous criteria,
because they should make the major definitions. The architect acts as a support for engineers and
specialty consultants. The owner receives important feedback from the facility manager; however
he/she remains the major decision maker. The participation of the general contractor at this point is
very similar to his/her participation on previous sustainability criteria, and deals especially with
preliminary programming and estimating.
On the other hand, the participation of team members on the intersection of the materials and
resources sustainability criteria and the conceptualization stage activities is different from the
participation presented on previous sustainability criteria. Their participation distribution according to
the matrix is owner 27%, architect 30%, engineer or specialty consultant 6%, general contractor 29%,
trade contractor 0%, and facility manager 8%. The main objectives of these sustainability criteria are
to reduce the consumption of raw material, especially non-renewable material and to minimize the
generation of construction wastes and project waste during operation. The main decision makers are
the general contractor, the architect and the owner. The participation of the general contractor
becomes crucial; because of his/her knowledge in terms of materials availability. The role of the
engineer and specialty consultants is reduced, because the lead designer on these matters will be the
architect. The main input from the facility manager is in regard to the operation requirements of the
collection of recyclables facilities.
In terms of the participation of team members on the interaction between environmental quality
sustainability criteria and the conceptualization stage, the distribution is owner 23%, architect 22%,
engineer or specialty consultant 19%, general contractor 18%, trade contractor 0%, and facility
manager 17%. These sustainability criteria seek to guarantee a healthy and comfortable environment
for the final users of the facility and deals with three main components: design of building systems
that provide adequate ventilation and comfort, provide the final users with clean air, and provide the
final users with the possibility to control their own environment. The owner’s and the facility
manager’s input deals with the requirements from the final users in terms of environmental quality.
The architect and the general contractor are involved in the decision making process for selecting lowemission
materials, and the engineers and specialty consultants are involved in the definition of
building lighting and HVAC systems.
During the conceptualization stage major decisions have to be taken in terms of the innovation criteria
that the project will have. All project team members play a crucial role in these definitions.
On a traditional delivery system process project, during the planning or conceptualization stage, the
only project participants who are part of the team are the owner and sometimes the architect. Similar
to the engineers and specialty consultants, the general contractor and the facility manager are not yet
part of the team, so an important portion of the knowledge and experience required in order to make
decisions that optimize the synergies between the building systems and components, is lost in the
process. In addition, if the facility manager is not part of the team, many decisions will not be made
with the final user and operator of the project in mind and several changes will have to be made, when
the facility starts operation.
70