Sandra Mendler: Way Out There
It’s hard to imagine the state of green design where it is today without Sandy Mendler, AIA. She’s the recipient of the Environmental Sensitivity Award from the Construction Specifications Institute, and recently the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) and Collins & Aikman selected her as the first professional designer to receive their Sustainable Design Leadership Award. By Penny S. Bonda, FASID
It’s hard to imagine the state of green design where it is today without Sandy Mendler, AIA. Practioners who have been at it awhile readily and gratefully concede the enormous contributions she has made in defining, clarifying and promoting sustainable principles in the design and construction of buildings and their interiors. She’s raised our consciousness while giving us tools with which to tackle this sometimes-difficult discipline. While she works, in a rather unassuming way, the public has begun to take notice. She’s the recipient of the Environmental Sensitivity Award from the Construction Specifications Institute, and recently, in recognition of her "decade-long effort to integrate sustainable design principles through projects, speaking venues and volunteer activities," the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) and Collins & Aikman selected her as the first professional designer to receive their Sustainable Design Leadership Award. Citing her role as a mentor to other professional designers, the jury praised "her contributions toward a greater understanding and appreciation for the importance of environmental issues overall." By Penny S Bonda
Sandra Mendler's contributions cannot be overstated. From the materials database she developed early on while at HOK to the recently-published book she co-authored with William Odell, The HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design, Mendler has amassed a substantial body of knowledge on green design and has liberally shared it with the rest of us. She is, for example, an active volunteer with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and has worked hard over the years to bring the LEED™ Green Building Rating System to market. Citing teamwork as one reason for the USGBC’s success, Mendler believes there’s a lot more to gain than to lose by collaborating.
This belief was clearly shaped by her career experiences. After receiving degrees from Washington University and Pratt Institute, Mendler began working for small firms in New York City--a decision that, she believes, provided her, as an intern architect, with opportunities not found in large organizations. Involved from the very beginning in the process of bringing a project from design through construction, she learned her first lessons in collaboration by working closely with clients, with contractors and with various other members of the design team.
After a while, however, she made a strategic decision to move to larger firms and spent some time at renowned architectural strongholds like Kohn Pederson Fox and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer. It was during this period that she first began exploring the idea of sustainable design and green architecture. It was a time of intense searching for alternative, more appropriate models of development.
’Misusing Our Affluence’
"I traveled extensively during this period in Mexico, India and Nepal. The beauty of the people moved me, and I was changed by the reverse culture shock I experienced upon returning to the United States. I remember feeling very strongly that we are misusing our affluence." Earth Day 1990 was a catalyzing event for Mendler: it motivated her to seek out like-minded colleagues, and it helped her to envision a framework for design based on sustainability.
Mendler also recalls her experiences of growing up in New Jersey and believes that her observations there contributed to her concerns about the environment.
"Every time we’d drive past the oil refineries, and the chaotic jumble of the strip commercial and retail development that lined the highways, I was struck by the disrepair," she says. "I found the contrast between what I was seeing and the idealized suburban world that we lived in very startling as a young person and I was troubled by the abuse of the land."
Leaving New York for family reasons, Mendler carried these early lessons to Washington, DC, where she joined Hellmuth Obata + Kassabaum (HOK). She has remained with the firm for most of the intervening years and today holds the title of sustainable design principal in its San Francisco, CA, office. Her tenure there has obviously benefited both parties. Mendler found colleagues on the same environmental wavelength and, possibly even more important, a climate ready to address this emerging protocol. For its part, HOK gained an up-and-coming champion primed for action by her experiences and her passion.
During the early days of the sustainable design program at HOK, Mendler was assigned to work on a research lab for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that was going to house the largest group of environmental scientists in the world. She viewed this as the perfect opportunity to explore green issues with an ideal client and with the support and camaraderie of HOK’s newly-formed sustainable design committee. She was also able to identify and mine the resources and the experience that already existed in the firm--work that had focused on topics such as energy efficiency, indoor air quality and materials emissions testing.
Figuring out what they already knew and who had the expertise was an early task, Mendler remembers, and it became painfully evident that there were a lot of open-ended questions.
"We realized that if we were going to be successful in addressing these issues, we needed to develop a systematic way of filling in our information gaps, especially in the area of environmentally preferable building materials. The industry was lacking a source that we could turn to that would help us compare one material to the next with very clear criteria. Why is this better? How much better is it? Who makes it?"
Driven by the need to choose the right products for the EPA project, Mendler and others on the HOK committee created an in-house materials database as a tool that would help them specifically for EPA and that they could continue to build on, project to project. Both the size of this particular project and the size of their firm worked to their advantage.
Systematic, Coherent, Defensible
"The EPA wanted to know which materials we were going to select and why, and if they were the best choices in terms of the environment and life cycle value," she explains. "We began by developing a detailed questionnaire for manufacturers to get the answers that we needed in a systematic, coherent and defensible way."
This was a bit of a bold move. Questionnaires are generally not popular and no product manufacturers had ever before been asked to so extensively detail their materials and practices. But Mendler believed that designers are hired to make judgments and she was unable to adequately do so with incomplete data. Expecting no greater than a 10 percent return, the team was pleased to get a 60 percent response rate from suppliers who were told that their products would not be specified without the requested information.
Another gutsy decision soon followed.
"I advocated very strongly for putting our research on the Internet and our group discussed this at great length. We concluded that it was somewhat cynical to treat this information as a competitive advantage. We realized," Mendler continues, "that by sharing our findings on our Web site, not only would more people have access to it, but we’d also encourage and generate more dialogue and get more feedback. We did it because it helps us be responsible professionals."
Mendler continued to enrich us with the publication of her book, The HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design, which she modestly describes as a glorified design checklist, a method for keeping track of what she and her colleagues were learning and then cataloging as they went along, a kind of expanded definition of what good green design is all about. The book is an outgrowth of an in-house document that Mendler and others from HOK’s sustainable design committee first developed in 1995, literally in their spare time. Circulated throughout the firm, it got some good feedback and soon was being requested by others. Once again the decision was made to make it readily available. She gratefully credits her HOK collaborator and co-author, Bill Odell, with his substantial contributions, especially for the valuable way the book defines the process for doing green projects.
Nineteen-ninety-five, a very prolific year, also saw the start of the HOK Sustainable Design Newsletter, which--and are we seeing a pattern here?--started as an in-house publication and eventually evolved to its current format on the firm’s Web site. Mendler speaks of its development in much the same way as she described the beginnings of the materials database and the guidebook.
"It started as a one-pager and, over the years, it grew and became a longer and more substantive thing. Quite honestly, it helps us share information between offices when we write it down because it motivates people to get the ideas out of their head, onto paper and it helps us capture our learning as we document it." She sees the newsletter as an extension of HOK’s own internal R&D process, something that is difficult for most design firms to sustain. Mendler has obviously been the guiding force behind the newsletter. Its newer and greener version--thanks to its digital format that can be found at www.hoksustainabledesign.com -- debuted in September 2001 and is slated to be issued quarterly. The newsletter is another example of a large firm with vast wherewithal sharing their resources with the rest of us.
Trying to Find Opportunities
Mendler has an impressive array of projects to her credit, and when asked to single out a favorite she doesn’t hesitate: The EPA Campus at Research Triangle Park. It was, she says, an incredible learning opportunity that stretched over a period of four to five years. She served as the sustainable design advocate, as well as a senior designer, working closely with director of design Bill Hellmuth. She views it as a project where there was a comprehensive focus on trying to find opportunities. The client was very clear on wanting to be successful in terms of sustainable design and, simultaneously, very concerned about managing the cost throughout the process. The challenges presented by a "not large budget" and a $30 million reduction in construction funds midway through the project only enhanced Mendler’s experience.
"We did not compromise our sustainable design goals to meet the budget. In fact, this facility conserves resources and reduces environmental impacts while also saving approximately $2 million per year in operating costs. This was one great opportunity in terms of the size, the scope and the commitment of the client--a really great exploration."
The World Resources Institute, as a counterpoint, was the perfect smaller job. Because it was an interiors project, it created an opportunity to be that much more focused and intentional with a client who really wanted to create a model solution. Due to its small size, Mendler was able to do much of the design herself, to personally work through all of the decisions.
Both Mendler and HOK take great pride in a project they did for Monsanto in St. Louis, MO. The Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise has been recognized by the USGBC as one of the first LEED-certified buildings in the U.S. It is also an award winner of the AIA’s Committee on the Environment (COTE) Top 10 Green Projects for 2000. The laboratory and office design-build project was constructed on a fast track schedule and a modest budget. The laboratories are filled with natural daylight and yet the building realizes significant energy savings.
Two other projects stand out in Mendler’s mind: the Nature Conservancy and the National Wildlife Federation headquarters building. Both were for environmental organizations that wanted to create a green building within a spec builder’s budget. Both were influential to her because she feels that it is important to recognize that it isn’t necessary to spend more to do green buildings. But it is important, she says, for the architect to provide leadership to help clients find the ways to spend their money more intelligently.
"I think I’m becoming less timid about that over time because I know what can be done," she concludes. "There are all kinds of opportunities through design integration to save money in one area and reinvest those funds in another. And I think we’ve gotten really good at knowing where those opportunities are."
It comes as no surprise that Mendler is often asked for advice from young professionals on how to incorporate sustainability into their projects, especially when they find resistance from their supervisors. She advises them to just get started, to take on the issue as their own.
"They can be guided to a certain extent, but eventually it has to become personal. It has to be their goal," she says. "They can’t wait for somebody else to show them what to do. I usually encourage them to make a leap of faith, to choose an ongoing project in the office that they are involved in to be their case study and to work through the issues, to explore and to find the opportunities. I think that through their successes, even if they’re only partial successes, it’s a place to start to build your knowledge base and your confidence."
Learning on the Job
There is a story she likes to tell about learning on the job. On the EPA project, during an informal conversation with EPA scientist James White, he suggested that she may be missing an opportunity by not talking with the scientists there within the EPA’s indoor air branch who are leading the industry in terms of research on these issues. Mendler confesses that it hadn’t occurred to her and, in fact, it felt a little intimidating to call these people out of the blue. However, when she picked up the phone and started calling around, she found that they were very interested in contributing to the project.
"A light bulb went off for me when I realized that there are all kinds of people who have knowledge that’s important to the project that the designer can tap into. I learned a tremendous amount from working through the issues with them, and, quite honestly, I feel like I contributed as well because they didn’t understand the design and construction of buildings the way we do. I think we both added a lot in resolving some of the issues for this project. In fact, one of the solutions we created has become part of our standard specifications at HOK, and has been written into the LEED system as an IAQ credit. For me, this experience really expanded my view of collaboration."
Sandy is looking forward to spending more time collaborating. In addition to the projects she is involved in, she is particularly excited about working with the planning group in the San Francisco office. She believes that, ultimately, to be successful in terms of transforming the built environment, the early-on planning decisions are crucial, beginning with the design of the site--how we work with living systems and how we integrate living systems into the infrastructure requirements, even into our buildings, where appropriate. For example, HOK is working on a number of large-scale planning projects in the Bay Area, including the conversion of a military base that involves improving a very badly contaminated site.
She’s excited to take on these new challenges, especially since she’s concluding two years as head of the AIA’s COTE. A lot of her work there has been focused on expanding the definition of sustainable design, integrating issues that impact the environment into the mainstream of practice and, very consciously, re-centering the discussion around design quality. At the 2000 AIA Convention, her committee’s "Sustainable Design Resolution," unanimously approved by the entire institute, stated, "Sustainable design is fundamental to quality design and responsible practice." The 10 priorities that followed outline a program for integrating sustainable design thinking into the AIA’s fundamental programs and documents, including the annual design awards, the handbook of practice, Masterspec and the owner-architect agreements that are used as templates for contracts.
During her years with COTE, Sandy has worked hard to elevate and expand the "Earth Day Top 10" program, which recognizes the top 10 green buildings in the country each year. What we are looking for, she believes, are great design solutions, ones that are innovative, integrated and succeeding on multiple levels.
"I think there is still a tremendous need for us in our industry to develop metrics to measure and quantify the benefits of green design. We’ve identified themes and topic areas, but not clear, concise and consistently-applied metrics. This year we are rolling out a set of metrics, which the jury will use when evaluating the projects and that we can encourage people to apply to their work. Perhaps then we’ll all learn from the process."
Mendler is characteristically shy when asked if she considers herself a mentor to the rest of us. "I think that the first immediate answer is, ‘No, not really.’ But then it’s, ‘But yes, of course.’ You know, I think that my drive in all of this is wanting to do some really great work. And, I think, in order to do great work, it has to succeed on a number of levels. It’s not enough to build it on budget, on time and beautifully. Those have become the conventional measures. What I’m really trying to do is to realign people’s expectations. We can meet all of those conventional measures and more.
"The market doesn’t necessarily ask for buildings to be any different because it doesn’t know that it’s possible, and the best way to shift this industry is through built projects," she continues. "Talking about the idea only gets you so far. Ultimately, it’s the successful built projects that are convincing for people. In order to get there, we all need to work together and build off of each other’s teachings and experiences, be generous about sharing what we’ve learned so that we can push the industry forward. I do see it as a collective effort."
No kidding!
----------------------------------------
By Penny S. Bonda, FASID. Green@Work is a GreenBiz News Affiliate. This story appears by permission. Story copyright 2002 Green@Work magazine, all rights reserved.
Sandra Mendler's contributions cannot be overstated. From the materials database she developed early on while at HOK to the recently-published book she co-authored with William Odell, The HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design, Mendler has amassed a substantial body of knowledge on green design and has liberally shared it with the rest of us. She is, for example, an active volunteer with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and has worked hard over the years to bring the LEED™ Green Building Rating System to market. Citing teamwork as one reason for the USGBC’s success, Mendler believes there’s a lot more to gain than to lose by collaborating.
This belief was clearly shaped by her career experiences. After receiving degrees from Washington University and Pratt Institute, Mendler began working for small firms in New York City--a decision that, she believes, provided her, as an intern architect, with opportunities not found in large organizations. Involved from the very beginning in the process of bringing a project from design through construction, she learned her first lessons in collaboration by working closely with clients, with contractors and with various other members of the design team.
After a while, however, she made a strategic decision to move to larger firms and spent some time at renowned architectural strongholds like Kohn Pederson Fox and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer. It was during this period that she first began exploring the idea of sustainable design and green architecture. It was a time of intense searching for alternative, more appropriate models of development.
’Misusing Our Affluence’
"I traveled extensively during this period in Mexico, India and Nepal. The beauty of the people moved me, and I was changed by the reverse culture shock I experienced upon returning to the United States. I remember feeling very strongly that we are misusing our affluence." Earth Day 1990 was a catalyzing event for Mendler: it motivated her to seek out like-minded colleagues, and it helped her to envision a framework for design based on sustainability.
Mendler also recalls her experiences of growing up in New Jersey and believes that her observations there contributed to her concerns about the environment.
"Every time we’d drive past the oil refineries, and the chaotic jumble of the strip commercial and retail development that lined the highways, I was struck by the disrepair," she says. "I found the contrast between what I was seeing and the idealized suburban world that we lived in very startling as a young person and I was troubled by the abuse of the land."
Leaving New York for family reasons, Mendler carried these early lessons to Washington, DC, where she joined Hellmuth Obata + Kassabaum (HOK). She has remained with the firm for most of the intervening years and today holds the title of sustainable design principal in its San Francisco, CA, office. Her tenure there has obviously benefited both parties. Mendler found colleagues on the same environmental wavelength and, possibly even more important, a climate ready to address this emerging protocol. For its part, HOK gained an up-and-coming champion primed for action by her experiences and her passion.
During the early days of the sustainable design program at HOK, Mendler was assigned to work on a research lab for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that was going to house the largest group of environmental scientists in the world. She viewed this as the perfect opportunity to explore green issues with an ideal client and with the support and camaraderie of HOK’s newly-formed sustainable design committee. She was also able to identify and mine the resources and the experience that already existed in the firm--work that had focused on topics such as energy efficiency, indoor air quality and materials emissions testing.
Figuring out what they already knew and who had the expertise was an early task, Mendler remembers, and it became painfully evident that there were a lot of open-ended questions.
"We realized that if we were going to be successful in addressing these issues, we needed to develop a systematic way of filling in our information gaps, especially in the area of environmentally preferable building materials. The industry was lacking a source that we could turn to that would help us compare one material to the next with very clear criteria. Why is this better? How much better is it? Who makes it?"
Driven by the need to choose the right products for the EPA project, Mendler and others on the HOK committee created an in-house materials database as a tool that would help them specifically for EPA and that they could continue to build on, project to project. Both the size of this particular project and the size of their firm worked to their advantage.
Systematic, Coherent, Defensible
"The EPA wanted to know which materials we were going to select and why, and if they were the best choices in terms of the environment and life cycle value," she explains. "We began by developing a detailed questionnaire for manufacturers to get the answers that we needed in a systematic, coherent and defensible way."
This was a bit of a bold move. Questionnaires are generally not popular and no product manufacturers had ever before been asked to so extensively detail their materials and practices. But Mendler believed that designers are hired to make judgments and she was unable to adequately do so with incomplete data. Expecting no greater than a 10 percent return, the team was pleased to get a 60 percent response rate from suppliers who were told that their products would not be specified without the requested information.
Another gutsy decision soon followed.
"I advocated very strongly for putting our research on the Internet and our group discussed this at great length. We concluded that it was somewhat cynical to treat this information as a competitive advantage. We realized," Mendler continues, "that by sharing our findings on our Web site, not only would more people have access to it, but we’d also encourage and generate more dialogue and get more feedback. We did it because it helps us be responsible professionals."
Mendler continued to enrich us with the publication of her book, The HOK Guidebook to Sustainable Design, which she modestly describes as a glorified design checklist, a method for keeping track of what she and her colleagues were learning and then cataloging as they went along, a kind of expanded definition of what good green design is all about. The book is an outgrowth of an in-house document that Mendler and others from HOK’s sustainable design committee first developed in 1995, literally in their spare time. Circulated throughout the firm, it got some good feedback and soon was being requested by others. Once again the decision was made to make it readily available. She gratefully credits her HOK collaborator and co-author, Bill Odell, with his substantial contributions, especially for the valuable way the book defines the process for doing green projects.
Nineteen-ninety-five, a very prolific year, also saw the start of the HOK Sustainable Design Newsletter, which--and are we seeing a pattern here?--started as an in-house publication and eventually evolved to its current format on the firm’s Web site. Mendler speaks of its development in much the same way as she described the beginnings of the materials database and the guidebook.
"It started as a one-pager and, over the years, it grew and became a longer and more substantive thing. Quite honestly, it helps us share information between offices when we write it down because it motivates people to get the ideas out of their head, onto paper and it helps us capture our learning as we document it." She sees the newsletter as an extension of HOK’s own internal R&D process, something that is difficult for most design firms to sustain. Mendler has obviously been the guiding force behind the newsletter. Its newer and greener version--thanks to its digital format that can be found at www.hoksustainabledesign.com -- debuted in September 2001 and is slated to be issued quarterly. The newsletter is another example of a large firm with vast wherewithal sharing their resources with the rest of us.
Trying to Find Opportunities
Mendler has an impressive array of projects to her credit, and when asked to single out a favorite she doesn’t hesitate: The EPA Campus at Research Triangle Park. It was, she says, an incredible learning opportunity that stretched over a period of four to five years. She served as the sustainable design advocate, as well as a senior designer, working closely with director of design Bill Hellmuth. She views it as a project where there was a comprehensive focus on trying to find opportunities. The client was very clear on wanting to be successful in terms of sustainable design and, simultaneously, very concerned about managing the cost throughout the process. The challenges presented by a "not large budget" and a $30 million reduction in construction funds midway through the project only enhanced Mendler’s experience.
"We did not compromise our sustainable design goals to meet the budget. In fact, this facility conserves resources and reduces environmental impacts while also saving approximately $2 million per year in operating costs. This was one great opportunity in terms of the size, the scope and the commitment of the client--a really great exploration."
The World Resources Institute, as a counterpoint, was the perfect smaller job. Because it was an interiors project, it created an opportunity to be that much more focused and intentional with a client who really wanted to create a model solution. Due to its small size, Mendler was able to do much of the design herself, to personally work through all of the decisions.
Both Mendler and HOK take great pride in a project they did for Monsanto in St. Louis, MO. The Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise has been recognized by the USGBC as one of the first LEED-certified buildings in the U.S. It is also an award winner of the AIA’s Committee on the Environment (COTE) Top 10 Green Projects for 2000. The laboratory and office design-build project was constructed on a fast track schedule and a modest budget. The laboratories are filled with natural daylight and yet the building realizes significant energy savings.
Two other projects stand out in Mendler’s mind: the Nature Conservancy and the National Wildlife Federation headquarters building. Both were for environmental organizations that wanted to create a green building within a spec builder’s budget. Both were influential to her because she feels that it is important to recognize that it isn’t necessary to spend more to do green buildings. But it is important, she says, for the architect to provide leadership to help clients find the ways to spend their money more intelligently.
"I think I’m becoming less timid about that over time because I know what can be done," she concludes. "There are all kinds of opportunities through design integration to save money in one area and reinvest those funds in another. And I think we’ve gotten really good at knowing where those opportunities are."
It comes as no surprise that Mendler is often asked for advice from young professionals on how to incorporate sustainability into their projects, especially when they find resistance from their supervisors. She advises them to just get started, to take on the issue as their own.
"They can be guided to a certain extent, but eventually it has to become personal. It has to be their goal," she says. "They can’t wait for somebody else to show them what to do. I usually encourage them to make a leap of faith, to choose an ongoing project in the office that they are involved in to be their case study and to work through the issues, to explore and to find the opportunities. I think that through their successes, even if they’re only partial successes, it’s a place to start to build your knowledge base and your confidence."
Learning on the Job
There is a story she likes to tell about learning on the job. On the EPA project, during an informal conversation with EPA scientist James White, he suggested that she may be missing an opportunity by not talking with the scientists there within the EPA’s indoor air branch who are leading the industry in terms of research on these issues. Mendler confesses that it hadn’t occurred to her and, in fact, it felt a little intimidating to call these people out of the blue. However, when she picked up the phone and started calling around, she found that they were very interested in contributing to the project.
"A light bulb went off for me when I realized that there are all kinds of people who have knowledge that’s important to the project that the designer can tap into. I learned a tremendous amount from working through the issues with them, and, quite honestly, I feel like I contributed as well because they didn’t understand the design and construction of buildings the way we do. I think we both added a lot in resolving some of the issues for this project. In fact, one of the solutions we created has become part of our standard specifications at HOK, and has been written into the LEED system as an IAQ credit. For me, this experience really expanded my view of collaboration."
Sandy is looking forward to spending more time collaborating. In addition to the projects she is involved in, she is particularly excited about working with the planning group in the San Francisco office. She believes that, ultimately, to be successful in terms of transforming the built environment, the early-on planning decisions are crucial, beginning with the design of the site--how we work with living systems and how we integrate living systems into the infrastructure requirements, even into our buildings, where appropriate. For example, HOK is working on a number of large-scale planning projects in the Bay Area, including the conversion of a military base that involves improving a very badly contaminated site.
She’s excited to take on these new challenges, especially since she’s concluding two years as head of the AIA’s COTE. A lot of her work there has been focused on expanding the definition of sustainable design, integrating issues that impact the environment into the mainstream of practice and, very consciously, re-centering the discussion around design quality. At the 2000 AIA Convention, her committee’s "Sustainable Design Resolution," unanimously approved by the entire institute, stated, "Sustainable design is fundamental to quality design and responsible practice." The 10 priorities that followed outline a program for integrating sustainable design thinking into the AIA’s fundamental programs and documents, including the annual design awards, the handbook of practice, Masterspec and the owner-architect agreements that are used as templates for contracts.
During her years with COTE, Sandy has worked hard to elevate and expand the "Earth Day Top 10" program, which recognizes the top 10 green buildings in the country each year. What we are looking for, she believes, are great design solutions, ones that are innovative, integrated and succeeding on multiple levels.
"I think there is still a tremendous need for us in our industry to develop metrics to measure and quantify the benefits of green design. We’ve identified themes and topic areas, but not clear, concise and consistently-applied metrics. This year we are rolling out a set of metrics, which the jury will use when evaluating the projects and that we can encourage people to apply to their work. Perhaps then we’ll all learn from the process."
Mendler is characteristically shy when asked if she considers herself a mentor to the rest of us. "I think that the first immediate answer is, ‘No, not really.’ But then it’s, ‘But yes, of course.’ You know, I think that my drive in all of this is wanting to do some really great work. And, I think, in order to do great work, it has to succeed on a number of levels. It’s not enough to build it on budget, on time and beautifully. Those have become the conventional measures. What I’m really trying to do is to realign people’s expectations. We can meet all of those conventional measures and more.
"The market doesn’t necessarily ask for buildings to be any different because it doesn’t know that it’s possible, and the best way to shift this industry is through built projects," she continues. "Talking about the idea only gets you so far. Ultimately, it’s the successful built projects that are convincing for people. In order to get there, we all need to work together and build off of each other’s teachings and experiences, be generous about sharing what we’ve learned so that we can push the industry forward. I do see it as a collective effort."
No kidding!
----------------------------------------
By Penny S. Bonda, FASID. Green@Work is a GreenBiz News Affiliate. This story appears by permission. Story copyright 2002 Green@Work magazine, all rights reserved.
