Gone are the days of green building being a niche market. Ecofriendly construction or Building green no longer focuses only on environmental factors and considerations, but it also takes into account how the environment integrates with other factors such as cost, schedule, operations, maintenance, tenant/employee, and other considerations. Furthermore, it is important to understand that no matter how good building green may be for the environment, not many developers would be willing to jump on the “green” bandwagon if the alternative is cheaper. This is particularly true in the construction industry where, for commercial buildings, traditional methods could prove to be significantly cheaper. Research clearly shows that people in contemporary societies such as the United States and Europe generally spend most of their time inside buildings and we apparently take for granted the shelter, protection, and comfort that our buildings provide. Unfortunately, we rarely give sufficient thought to the systems that allow us to enjoy these services unless we are faced with an unfortunate power interruption or some other problem. Furthermore, not many people fully comprehend the full extent of the environmental consequences that allow us to maintain indoor comfort levels. This may be partly because modern buildings continue to increase in complexity. Likewise, buildings’ functions continue to change and become increasingly costly to build and maintain, as well as requiring constant adjustment to function effectively over their life cycle. And while sustainable design strategies may normally cost no more than conventional building techniques, the real goal of interdependence between strategies, known as holistic design, makes determining the true cost often difficult to assess. Furthermore, it is frequently found that the returns on sustainable design are generally measured by numerous intangibles, such as worker productivity, health, and resource economy. But for many building owners, developers, and designers it is more likely that determinations on sustainable design strategies will be made based on initial construction costs or by a quick return on investment rather than on the positive returns based on a building’s lifecycle and the many positive attributes of a green building.

The best approach to sustainable design that is both environmentally sensitive and reduces energy use over the life of the building is to adopt a program or programs that are designed to meet all sought objectives. And while the clear intent of green building is to be sited, designed, constructed, and operated to enhance the well-being of its occupants and to support a healthy community and natural environment with minimal adverse impact on the ecosystem (Fig. 3.2), this is not always easy to achieve.

Although it is difficult to find a definition of a high-performance building that everyone agrees upon, perhaps the one characteristic that most will agree upon is that high performance buildings reflect design excellence. This may be partly because they are typically designed in a holistic, integrative fashion that allows them to offer benefits such as minimize environmental impact (significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions), save energy and natural resources, provide optimized healthy interiors, and produce cost savings over their life cycle. Yet the real value of high performance buildings can be easily be underestimated when using traditional accounting methods that fail to recognize “external” municipal and regional costs and benefits. A much greater accuracy can be achieved when high performance building cost evaluations effectively address the economic, social, and environmental benefits that typically accompany green buildings.

Today we are witnessing a rapidly changing world in which building construction practices and advances in architectural modeling technologies have reached a unique crossroad in history with changing needs and expectations. And with many successful new building projects taking shape globally, it calls into question the performance level of many of our more typical construction endeavors, forcing us to reevaluate just how far our conventional buildings are falling short of the mark and what needs to be done to meet these new challenges. High performance outcomes necessitates a far more integrated team approach to the design process and marks a departure from traditional practices, where emerging designs are handed sequentially from architect to engineer to sub-consultant (Fig. 3.6 a,b). As mentioned above, an integrated holistic approach results in a typically more unified, more team-driven design and construction process that encompasses different experts early in the design setting process. This process increases the likelihood of creating high performance buildings that achieve significantly higher targets for energy efficiency and environmental performance than traditionally designed buildings.

Selecting the most appropriate project delivery system will typically be determined by the owner during the concept design phase. Each delivery system has its characteristic advantages and disadvantages depending on the type and size of the project under consideration. Indeed, selection of the right project delivery system is one of the most significant factors that impact a construction project’s ability to succeed. But before making a final determination on the delivery system to be employed, the owner will need to have a proper understanding of the attributes and challenges of the different systems. Project delivery is simply a process by which all of the processes, procedures and components of designing and building a facility are organized and incorporated into an agreement that results in a completed project. The process begins by fully stating the needs and requirements of the owner in the architectural program from concept design to final contract documents. There are a wide range of construction project delivery systems. In this respect, Barbara Jackson, author of Construction Management Jump Start, says “there are basically three project delivery methods: design-bid-build, construction management, and design-build.” Jackson goes on to say, “These three project delivery methods differ in five fundamental ways:

In most countries around the world, the traditional Design/Bid/Build (DBB) delivery method has been the approach of choice in both public and private construction projects. It remains the project delivery system that is most widely used today and which is still required by some states. And because of its long history, the design-bid-build method is well understood by the majority of owners, contractors and industry professionals. With this delivery system, risk is minimized through the owner’s control and oversight of both the design and construction phases of the project. The design-bid-build process usually provides the lowest first costs based on submitted tenders, but takes the longest time to execute. However, this method has been somewhat modified in addition to increasing complexity by the inclusion of green/sustainability features into the equation.

The ASHRAE Green Guide states that, “The construction manager method is the process undertaken by public and private owners in which a firm with extensive experience in construction management and general contracting is hired during the design phase of the project to assess project capital costs and constructability issues.” This project delivery system is a process by which a “construction manager” is added to the construction team to oversee some or the whole project independent of the construction work itself. The CM’s role and responsibilities should be clearly defined. For example, it can be to oversee aspects of the project such as scheduling, cost control, the construction process, safety, the CxA, bidding, or oversee all aspects of the project until final completion.

There are several definitions of the design-build process. The Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) describes this method as “an integrated delivery process that has been embraced by the world’s great civilizations. In ancient Mesopotamia, the Code of Hammurabi (1800 BC) fixed absolute accountability upon master builders for both design and construction. In the succeeding millennia, projects ranging from cathedrals to cable-stayed bridges, from cloisters to corporate headquarters, have been conceived and constructed using the paradigm of design-build.”