Executive Order 13423 Technical Guidance - Integrated Design

General Principles and Commitments

Use a collaborative, integrated planning and design process that:

• Initiates and maintains an integrated project team in all stages of a project's planning and delivery;
• Establishes performance goals for siting, energy, water, materials, and indoor environmental quality along with other comprehensive design goals; and, ensures incorporation of these goals throughout the design and lifecycle of the building; and,
• Considers all stages of the building's lifecycle, including deconstruction.

Technical Guidance

Related Mandates

• OMB Circular A-11. In 2002, OMB revised Circular A-11, Section 55—Energy and Transportation Efficiency Management—to encourage Federal agencies to incorporate ENERGY STAR® and/or the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ into up-front design concepts for new construction and/or building renovations. Agencies must report if they incur or anticipate incurring additional costs for incorporating these standards.
• Executive Order 13423, "Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management"

Additional Considerations

Space optimization and material optimization are the most often-overlooked keys to green building. A building that minimizes construction of space will cut materials, water, and energy impacts for the life of the building (while cutting costs). For example, consider a building that is already 30% more energy efficient than a typical code-compliant building. If that building is "right-sized" to 90% of its original concept size (cut by 10% through thoughtful design), it will then use 33% less energy than the comparable code-compliant building—a gain of another 3%. Apply that same logic to materials, and the same thing happens. Often, we celebrate "green" material like linoleum, but fail to notice the "green" value of sealed concrete that required no flooring cover at all.

In almost all building projects, there is an opportunity to minimize space. For example, EPA has:

• required programs to share conference rooms,
• double-loaded hallways,
• used lines of sight versus extra doors in restrooms, and
• eliminated other unnecessary doors among other strategies.

We should first optimize space and minimize material, and then take the next step of applying "green" materials and building efficient systems.

Major Resources

WBDG

The 'Whole Building' Design Approach

Design Objectives

Facility Performance Evaluation, Functional / Operational—Meet Performance Objectives, Sustainability of the Building Envelope

Model Contract and Specification Language

• Model Green Bid Spec (PDF)
• Solicitation For Offers: Environmental Provisions by the General Services Administration for the Environmental Protection Agency in Denver, Colorado
  1. Qualifying (PDF)
  2. Building (PDF)

Training

• Design Strategies for Low-Energy, Sustainable, Secure Buildings
• Planning and Conducting Green Design Charrettes—A charrette is an intensive workshop where stakeholders and experts address a particular design issue, from a single building to an entire community. Charrettes use a collaborative approach to create realistic and achievable environmental goals and design strategies. This course offers guidelines for planning and conducting a green design charrette as well as practical tips for coordinating logistics.