News


June 15, 2010

Canadian Journal of Green Building & Design magazine features Integrated Design project: Richardson College for the Environment

Expanding the Sustainable Campus: A great article by Greg Hasiuk from Number Ten Architect on the project which Integrated Designs introduced the Integrated Project Delivery methodology to successfully represent the owners and integrate the entire project team.

Download and Read the Article (PDF)

 

May 31, 2010

"The Art of Commissioning" at the National Conference Construction Specifications Canada Conference
Murray Guy presented the latest on "The Art of Commissioning" at the National Conference Construction Specifications Canada Conference. Murray shared lessons leaned from the Saskatchewan Center for Disease Control, Manitoba Hydro Corporate Office Building and from the U of W Richardson College for the Environment. Murray's message to CSC that commissioning is vital for the successful delivery of projects, is not currently understood or specified in contract document and that the call for action is to work on properly integrating commissioning into the project delivery process.

Download Presentation Summary (2.1Mb)

 


Apr 23, 2010

University of Winnipeg aims for LEED Gold certification
Kindly reprinted from Reed Construction Data's 'Journal of Commerce', Western Canada's Construction Newspaper, March 8, 2010 by Peter Caulfield, correspondent.

The University of Winnipeg's Science Complex and Richardson College for the Environment will ensure that the school practices what it teaches. It is not only shooting for LEED Gold certification, but doing so within tight capital and operating budgets.

When Richardson College is completed a year from now, it will be North America's most energy-efficient laboratory building, with classrooms, offices and labs sporting the latest in green technology, the university claims. Richardson College is the third and last building in a construction project on Portage Avenue, just west of the downtown campus.

The lab building will be just less than 160,000 square feet in area and four stories in height. Already completed are the 80,000 square-foot, six-storey, McFeetors Hall student residence and a 10,000-square-foot daycare centre.

Total project costs are $66.5 million for Richardson College, $18 million for the student residence and $2.5 million for the daycare centre. The University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corporation (UWCRC) is overseeing the project.

The construction manager is Winnipeg-based Man-Shield Group of Companies and the owner’s representative in charge of LEED commissioning is Integrated Designs of Saskatoon. Man-Shield president Bill Sharpe said Richardson College's structural elements are all in place. "We've started work on the exterior cladding – our main focus now – and we expect to be closed in by the end of June," he said. "In addition, we've poured the concrete slabs in the basement and started work on the interior infrastructure. Interior finishing on other levels will begin this summer."

In mid-February, there were about 60 workers on site, representing 10 different sub-contractors. Sharpe said one of the biggest challenges Man-Shield faces on the project is working within a limited budget for an extensive programmed requirement. "It's taken a lot of creativity to do the work that needs to be done with the limited dollars at our disposal," he said.

Integrated Designs joined the project in mid-2008 to help direct the project's design and construction. The company uses an Integrated Project Delivery process. "(Integrated Project Delivery) will optimize the project, achieve LEED Gold and hit the maximum 10 LEED energy points," said ID principal Murray Guy. "We expect to achieve at least 65 percent less energy use for very little, if any additional, capital cost compared to a project delivered using a more traditional design-tender-bid process."

Guy said there can be as much as 10-percent waste in traditional project delivery methods. IPD, on the other hand, uses an integrated approach that combines the talents of a design, construction and ownership team to eliminate waste, enabling it to buy the technology required to make Richardson College what is hoped will be the most energy-efficient laboratory in North America. "With IPD, the mechanical, electrical, controls, curtain wall and glazing sub-trades were selected and brought in to work with the project delivery team," Guy explained.

Guy added that IPD will be submitted to the Canadian Green Building Council for Innovation in Design LEED points. The company is using IPD, or versions of it, on four other projects.

Sharpe said this is the first project on which he's used IPD. "It's a progression from traditional project management," he said. "The advantage is that it's more structured and involves trade contractors at early-stage. There's more of a partner-feel."

But there's a downside, too. "It requires a high degree of trust in an industry where it doesn't always exist," he said. "You need to work to gain trust from the others. And you need to think about the project as a whole, not just your own agenda."

Guy said the biggest energy use in lab buildings is moving large amounts of air for air changes and for making up air exhausted through fume hoods. To reduce the amount of air required and minimize energy use, a three-stage red-yellow-green light system was developed. The exhausts will operate at one air change per hour (ACPH) in unoccupied red-mode; four ACPH in utility yellow-mode; and eight ACPH in full-lab green-mode. "We expect this will reduce energy use by approximately 40 percent," Guy said.

The project will also implement a heat recovery wheel developed by Semco Inc. in the U.S. Guy said that the wheel will enable 80 percent heat recovery, including fume hood exhaust. Two features enable the lab exhaust heat recovery by minimizing the risk of cross-contamination between supply and exhaust air streams: A purge section clears contaminated air from the heat recovery wheel passages and a three-angstrom sieve prevents chemicals from sticking to the wheel.

Standard operating procedures will include regular testing of supply air to ensure there is no measurable exhaust carry-over to supply air. Construction of Richardson College began in mid-2009 and is scheduled to be completed by March 2011.

 


Feb 12, 2009

New Website
Integrated Designs is proud to roll out its shiny new website.  We believe we have created a world-class site that reflects the sustainable advantage our services provide to our clients.  It also attests to our philosophy of working to a higher purpose and our passion for a sustainable future. 

The site has been designed with an intuitive approach to navigating, with straightforward primary and secondary messaging regarding the work that we do, examples of that work and the way we approach it.  Please visit often, as we will be keeping things interesting and adding new information.

Integrated Project Delivery (IPD)
Integrated Designs is not just talking about IPD as the preferred process for delivering sustainable building projects, we are doing it.  As 2009 unfolds, we have a number of very interesting projects underway where we are utilizing all or most IPD principles.  These include Saskatoon’s River Green Eco-Village and the Meewasin Valley Centre; the University of Winnipeg’s Richardson College for the Environment, the Student Housing/Daycare and the Plug In project; the NORTEP residential project in La Ronge, SK and the Northern Studies Centre in Churchill, MB.  Further information on these projects can be found within this website.

 

May 9, 2008

Integrated Project Delivery (IPD)

In our project management experience, it took two bailouts by the same general contractor to wake up to the fact that contractors are not the bad guys; and that change notices, delay claims and confrontational relationships are the result of the traditional design-bid-build game that we force contractors to play.

How can it make sense to spend 5% to 10% of a project budget on designing a building without input from knowledgeable contractors that have better cost control, value engineering and knowledge of building construction than most design teams?

In his recent book “Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets” Barry LePatner describes an industry that is inefficient, has perverse incentives and is delivering poor product at a 10% cost premium. A project delivery team that adopts high performance project delivery processes should be able to deliver LEED Platinum facilities that are currently a 6% premium for no additional capital cost.

The separation of the design and build functions are not standard in other industries and do not appear to make any sense for building construction projects. According to a recent paper, “Integrated Project Delivery” by the American Institute of Architects, an optimized vertically integrated project delivery process will enable Better Building for Less Cost. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is a project delivery approach that integrates people, systems, business structures and practices into a process that collaboratively harnesses the talents and insights of all participants to reduce waste and optimize efficiency through all phases of design and construction.

The added VALUE created by Integration, includes lower life cycle costs, lower project delivery costs, increased asset value that will provide a much improved indoor environmental quality.
In an age of value added partnerships, the design and construction industry seems to be glued to ineffective project delivery systems that are not taking full advantage of the skills and capabilities of the contracting industry. The alternative, the Integrated Project Delivery process, respects the expertise of all players in the design and construction industry in a more ethical manner and produces a better product at less cost.

An open-book accounting system is used with the IPD model so that project delivery fees and the capital cost of construction are completely transparent to stake holders. Also, compared to traditional linear or top-down approaches such as design-tender-build, fees will be lower because of the IPD process efficiencies.
As defined by the American Institute of Architects, Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is a project delivery approach that integrates people, systems, business structures and practices into a process that collaboratively harnesses the talents and insights of all participants to optimize project results, increase value to the owner, reduce waste, and maximize efficiency through all phases of design, fabrication, and construction. Integrated projects are uniquely distinguished by highly effective collaboration among the owner, the prime designer, and the prime constructor, commencing at early design and continuing through to project handover.

IPD leverages early contributions of knowledge and expertise through utilization of new technologies, allowing all team members to better realize their highest potentials while expanding the value they provide throughout the project life-cycle. At the core of an integrated project are collaborative, integrated and productive teams composed of key project participants. Building upon early contributions of individual expertise, these teams are guided by the following principles:

  • trust
  • transparent processes
  • effective collaboration
  • open information sharing
  • team success tied to project success
  • shared risk and reward
  • value-based decision making
  • utilization of full technological capabilities and support

The outcome is the opportunity to design, build, and operate as efficiently as possible. Integrated Designs strongly supports and promotes this collaborative project delivery approach. For further information, please contact us at 306-934-6818 or visit our website at www.i-designs.ca.

Partnering for a Sustainable Advantage