Involving facilities staff in the design process can further inform key design decisions, helping ensure successful operation and low maintenance costs.
Load reduction requires coordinated efforts by all design members including the architect, lighting designer, interior designer, information-technology manager, and owner.
Use envelope design and passive strategies to reduce the heating and cooling loads prior to detailed design of HVAC systems. Passive strategies can reduce heating and cooling loads, giving the engineer more options, including smaller or innovative systems.
To avoid costly, last-minute decisions, develop a comprehensive, component-based cost model as a decision matrix for your project. The model will help establish additional cost requirements for each energy conservation measure. It will also illustrate cost reductions from decreased equipment size, construction rendered unnecessary by energy conservation measures, and reduced architectural provisions for space and equipment access. (See the Documentation Toolkit for an example.)
If there is no minimum parking requirement for zoning (and only a maximum or no limits at all), refer to the 2003 Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) study entitled “Parking Generation” (see Resources). Determine the type of education facility, the recommended parking capacity based on education facility type (either per student or per employee), and provide 25% less parking spaces than recommended in the study.
If your project is a major renovation of an existing site with parking, you can revamp the parking spaces (and even rearrange the layout) and still earn this credit as long as the number of new parking spaces does not exceed the number of previously existing parking spaces.
By simply providing no additional parking, you can earn this credit. However, the building owner will have to sign off on the LEED Online credit form verifying that this is accurate.
