COTE Top Ten / Superspreadsheet

Hi Michelle,  I submitted a project for the Top Ten this year and did face some challenges on how to respond to various sections, so your question about the next gen of Top Ten has been on my mind.   I would describe my submission as a conventional project type with an unconventional design approach that didn’t neatly align with the underlying assumptions of the application.  Without the typical modeling and performance data that the super spreadsheet expected, I had to think carefully how to respond to each section in a way that emphasized actual performance over intent.  Before I get into the specifics about modeling and data . . .   My general recommendation is that the program should evolve to prepare architects for a future environmental state where continuous access to grid power, clean municipal water, and unlimited quantities of energy-intensive buildings materials are not a given.  In the not-so-distant future, demand for resources in the US will outpace supply in various sectors as it already has in other parts of the world.  ‘First-world’ countries can learn from so-called ‘third-world’ countries who are better equipped to adapt to change out of necessity and tradition.   Working in Bangalore and California gives me a unique preview of the challenges US architects might face as population and resource consumption increases.  Today in California, pressures on environmental resources are there but are relatively small when compared to India.  Today in Bangalore, the demand for energy and water already outpaces available supply.  Due to a rapidly increasing urban population and poor management of resources, Bangalore faces a serious shortage of clean water and lengthy power outages are part of daily life (we often go three hours a day without grid power).  This is my design approach when working in Bangalore:

• Design simple, elegant buildings that can be fully operational without power from the grid or water from the municipal supply.  Access to these public utilities is a bonus, not a requirement.
• Install building systems requiring power only as back-up, or for use at night when the sun is not available (plug loads excepted);
• Use a minimum of materials, simple building systems, sourced locally when possible; and
• Make spaces comfortable with passive strategies that also increase wellness and human connection to place.

If I took this approach today in the US, I might be viewed as an outlier with an overly aggressive environmental agenda. But in India it is a very practical response to the reality that clients face every day.  I don’t think the situation in US is too far off from India’s reality today.  An increase in natural disasters in the US have already raised the issues of passive survivability. With carbon, resilience, and wellness in the forefront of our design conscience, especially in our SD Leaders group, the types of strategies that are commonplace in India and other parts of the world can serve as a relevant precedent for addressing the future environmental challenges we will face in the US.  A Top Ten program that prioritizes and rewards this type of approach to energy, resources, and place can help prepare architects in the US for this eventual reality.  However, the metrics and data that would best tell the story of positive environmental impact in this 'future state' will likely be very different than those prioritized in the the current Top Ten program.   Here are four areas where I would like to see evolution or change in Top Ten priorities:

1. Reward simple, passive, low impact buildings over complex, highly-engineered, resource-intense buildings.

See rationale provided above, and . . . I read a statement recently that said architects are often rewarded for clever solutions to problems that they created in the first place (ie. high-tech mechanical solutions to reduce energy consumption and increase comfort in large floor-plate glass, steel and concrete buildings).  Detailed energy and embodied carbon modeling are almost a necessity to get out of the hole that we dug in the first place.   What if we are rewarded architects for intelligent solutions that start on solid ground and not in a hole?    

2. Provide more emphasis in the relevant Top Ten measures on low effort/high impact decisions made early in a project and less on high effort/low impact design optimization tasks that happen later on in a project’s life.  

I’m far more interested in teaching my colleagues how to use rule-of-thumb design strategies and simple early-phase carbon tools (like those being developed by Larry Strain - To Build or Not to Build, and Brad Jacobsen at EHHD - EPIC) than asking them to perform detailed energy or embodied carbon modeling on every project.  The relative impact of good early decisions far outweighs the impact of optimizing the building design with modeling during the later DD, CD, and CA phases. The Top Ten awards appear to prioritize the latter and don’t directly address the early-phase modeling and decisions that have a much more significant environmental impact.  

3. Add more flexibility in the types of metrics that can be used to demonstrate performance.  

I understand the importance of demonstrating actual performance over design intentions, but the metrics emphasized in the application and super spreadsheet may inadvertently limit the type of projects that would be rewarded.  

• Detailed modeling of energy or embodied carbon may not be possible for a small project with a small fee; or
• The typical water efficiency modeling may not accurately represent the water story for a building that makes a bigger move, like capturing all of its rainwater to recharge the aquifer (demonstrating that water efficient toilets will save 50,000 gal/yr is small potatoes compared to recharging the aquifer with 2,000,000 gallons of water); or
• Detailed energy modeling may not be a useful measure of performance for a building designed to be operational without mechanical HVAC systems.

When designing a building to be fully operational without power, the performance modeling that I would want to do would be based on identifying the passive strategies and layouts that achieve maximum comfort and health with use of the fewest resources.  Start with an EUI of ‘zero’, then add just enough ‘special sauce’ to make the space comfortable and functional.   This is a very different modeling exercise than our typical approach today: start with an average EUI for a similar project in our region, target an 80% reduction (per the 2030 challenge), then utilize detailed energy modeling to reduce energy use and make our buildings less bad.   

4. Re-think the relationship between Top Ten measures that demonstrate the impact of a project on the ‘wellness’ of a place.   

The wellness of occupants, community, and ecosystem are interdependent on each other, but Top Ten measures Design for Well-being, Equitable Communities, and Design for Ecosystems are addressed separately without a very strong relationship to each other.   Hope this perspective and feedback is helpful. Brian

Excellent post from Brian. We have had somewhat similar issues, mostly due to the scale of our buildings. The spreadsheet is scale neutral and doesn't do a great job at recogonizing or rewarding small simple buildings and interventions. Savings are bigger for bigger projects, so are impacts. Brian brings up thow the world is changing, something we all need to pay attention to. The other area I would like to see more emphasis on is reusing and upgrading existing buildings, particulalry the upgrade part. On the Energy tab adding a column for current EUI in addtion to predicted and measured EUI would allow people to measure EUI improvement for an existing building which is an important metric. The only place that recognizes  reuse is in the Resources tab. I don't know if the % reused translates to an avoided carbon number, but it should, and to do so you would probably need a liitle more descriptioin of what was reused - % of structure, foundation, envelope, interiors, etc. I am so happy that AIA is collecting this data, which hopefully with continue to influence future version of the spreadsheet and the way we practice architecture. Thanks for this Michelle and thanks for a great post Brian. Larry Larry