Workshop High Performance Buildings: Present and Future |
The Department of Architectural Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University was pleased to present a one-day workshop on 'High Performance Buildings: Present and Future.' The workshop took place on January 9, 2009 at The Penn Stater Conference Center at the University Park campus. OBJECTIVE High Performance Building (HPB) Systems are currently topical and are high on the agenda of the incoming Obama Administration, industry leaders and academics. It is the focal point of the Department of Architectural Engineering’s 5-year Strategic Plan (2008/9 – 2012/13). Despite the growing recognition of its importance, there is limited understanding of, and hence no consensus on, what constitutes a HPB or how it can best be delivered. The objective of this workshop is to identify and explore the issues involved in the design and construction of High Performance Buildings from a variety of perspectives – designers, manufacturers, owners, researchers, contractors, etc. It is intended that it will produce a coherent set of issues that can be addressed by collaborative research and development initiatives between the participating organizations. THE NEED FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE BUILDING SYSTEMS The AE Department’s pragmatic definition of a HPB is ‘a building that is energy efficient, healthy, productive, and safe, and which reduces the environmental impact of the built environment through the use of integrated design and construction systems and appropriate materials. As such, it goes beyond the traditional focus on energy efficiency to include aspects of high performance in structural systems, building envelope systems, construction methods and processes, information systems, and other systems. It is within this wider context that this workshop was conceptualized. Buildings utilize 40% of all primary energy utilized in the United States and therefore account for proportional fractions of carbon dioxide and other emissions related to fossil fuel powering and heating of building operations. The life cycle energy expenditures and emissions productions related to building operations greatly exceed the embedded energy and emissions related to construction or renovation of the structures. In terms of numbers of units, new building construction represents a small fraction of the total building stock relative to building retrofit and renovation. Relative to specific fuel consumption (energy use per passenger mile) efficiency advances in the transportation (commercial jet engines, locomotive engine systems, automobile systems) sector, the energy utilization index (EUI) factors (BTU/ft2-hr) for the operation of buildings of different functionality have remained nearly constant for the last 40 years. A handful of efficient (low EUI) buildings can be identified relative to the millions of commercial buildings in operation. A similar case can be made for residential systems. These specific, high performance buildings tend to be achieved by singular solution, design approaches, and are communicated to the industry as anecdotal examples, relative to the “mass production,” conventional, serial design processes utilized for most building renovation and new building projects. The building industry differs from the aerospace and land transport industries in that the final product often represents a “compromise” design reflecting a serial, value engineering interaction process among industry sector players. In the traditional design process, trade-offs are made on the basis of materials, components, and subsystems costs relative to performance and for a determined, conventionally designed façade, and space layout configuration. A significant change in building EUI performance can only be achieved by systemic change to a formalized integrated design and development process. Such a process must be driven by the key building industry players: building material, HVAC equipment, lighting fixture and control, automated controls, construction, architects, architectural engineers and on-site combined heat and power suppliers. This needs to be embedded in systems engineering principles and seek to engender solutions that encompass mechanical, electrical, lighting, structural, building envelope, construction, materials, information modeling, and the human systems that are essential for efficient delivery. It is the goal of this workshop to tease out the critical issues that need to be addressed and to formulate a plan for bringing this about. THE WORKSHOP AND BEYOND… This workshop involved representatives from different sectors of the building industry who could help to identify the major, specific design and industry sector interaction challenges that need to be addressed. It is intended to be the first in a series that will seek to move forward the HPB agenda and, in due course, transform the HPB design and construction process from the anecdotal, point solution state to a formalized design and construction process. The workshop included the following key aspects:
All participants will be included in a mailing list/discussion forum that will take forward the ideas and plans generated at the workshop. SUMMARIES FROM THE WORKSHOP BREAKOUT SESSIONS
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