Sustainable Urban Environments – Challenge & Opportunity for AEC Industry Change
Written by Erin Rae Hoffer, Terry D. Bennett and Geoff Zeiss
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Our
understanding of the critical nature of climate change is converging
with the migration of the world’s population to urban environments.
As a result, concern with sustainable urban environments, or “green
cities”, has come to the forefront. Serious challenges face our
world’s infrastructure and motivate new approaches and technologies
to improve how we design, build, operate, and maintain our
constructed physical environment – both buildings and
infrastructure. How can we face these challenges and succeed in
developing sustainable and economically efficient urban environments
for our growing communities? Fortuitously, a rethinking of digital
data which underlie infrastructure and building design approaches is
underway.
New technologies and processes are being created to
address challenges in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction
(AEC) industries today. The vision of an aligned data structure will
enable us to understand the impact of design and policy decisions on
sustainability and bring us closer to the green cities of the future.
Fig.
1 – Independent disciplines using similar geospatial information.
Sustainable
Cities and AEC Industry Challenges
The AEC industry is one of
the most important markets in the world. AEC companies are
responsible for generating close to $2.3 trillion (Euro 1.5 trillion)
of which $1.2 trillion (Euro 0.8 trillion) was spent in the US alone
in 2006/2007 US Annual Construction Spend. This effort drives many
other industries and is often a gauge of the health of world
economies. Along with the imperative of climate change, the AEC
industry faces many challenges, including the need to contribute
design and construction solutions to effectively replace aging
infrastructure, to increase productivity with a dynamic and
increasingly global and diverse workforce, and to leverage the data
generated across the design and construction process by eliminating
silos of information.
All of these challenges relate to the
opportunities for success in tackling climate change through green
cities, and all are motivating the adoption of new technologies such
as building information modeling (BIM), 3D visualization, simulation
and analysis, model-driven design including standards for
interoperability for example LandXML.org, International Alliance for
Interoperability (IAI), BuildingSMART Alliance, and Open Geospatial
Consortium (OGC) standards.
Global Climate Change
The
number of Americans who believe that global warming is the most
important environmental issue rose from 11 percent in 2003 to 35
percent in 2006 Global Warming Survey. The US Green Building Council
and similar organizations calculate that buildings account for 39% of
total energy use, 68% of total electricity consumption, and 38% of
total carbon dioxide emissions. The AEC industry is faced with the
challenge to replace or renovate buildings and infrastructure - road,
bridges, waterlines, sanitary and storm sewers, dams, and levees - to
minimize environmental impact. This means striving for carbon
neutrality, water neutrality, or other the achievement of local
community goals associated with specific environmental impacts. Of
course projects must perform financially at the same time as they
perform environmentally.
Along
with the imperative of climate change, the AEC industry faces many
challenges, including the need to contribute design and construction
solutions to effectively replace aging infrastructure, to increase
productivity with a dynamic and increasingly global and diverse
workforce, and to leverage the data generated across the design and
construction process by eliminating silos of information.
The
movement to innovate alternative sources of energy for our world has
a direct impact on the form of our built environment. Some
environmentalists state that we must reduce fossil fuel consumption
of buildings by 50 percent by the year 2010 as a crucial goal to
prevent climate disaster. Climate groups, such as Architecture2030,
state that buildings must reach goals of carbon-neutrality by 2030.
This will require designers to incorporate the understanding of a
range of potential design strategies and alternative energy sources –
such as solar, wind, “clean” nuclear.
New approaches will
be needed to design for new structures and renovations. Roads,
services and site specific objectives must be reached for
sustainability. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Green Building Rating System LEED, developed by the U.S. Green
Building Council (USGBC), provides a suite of standards for
environmentally sustainable design & construction. Since its
inception in 1998, LEED practices have been incorporated in over
12000 projects in 30 countries covering 2.060 billion square feet of
development area. The standard was recently selected for the leading
edge design and construction projects being developed in the city of
Dubai by Sheikh Mohammed, Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of
Dubai.
Sustainable
infrastructure
Aging infrastructure is a prominent issue in
many parts of the world. Infrastructure repair and replacement will
be a particular concern in urban environments and will impact the
realization of green cities. Every two years the American Society of
Civil Engineers (ASCE) prepares a Report Card for American
Infrastructure 2003 2005. One of the sectors the ACSE evaluates is
roads, highways, and transit. In 2003 the ACSE awarded this sector a
grade of D+ and in 2005 a grade of D - just barely passing.
To put
this in context, the ASCE estimates that traffic congestion costs the
US economy $67.5 billion (Euro 42 billion) annually in lost
productivity and wasted fuel. Even more seriously, the Federal
Highway Administration (FHwA) reports that outdated and substandard
road and bridge design, pavement conditions, and safety features are
factors in 30% of all fatal highway accidents. In the US on average,
there are more than 43,000 fatalities every year. The ASCE also
reports that motor vehicle crashes cost U.S. citizens $230 billion
(Euro 144 billion) per year, or $819 (Euro 512) for each resident
for medical costs; lost productivity; travel delay; and workplace,
insurance and legal costs. The ASCE estimates that an investment of
$1.6 trillion (Euro 1 trillion) over five years is required to bring
US infrastructure to good condition. The replacement and repair of
infrastructure represents opportunities to integrate sustainable
practices.
Workforce
capability
The shortage of skills in sustainable design and
construction is exacerbated by demographic shifts in the workforce. A
Conference Board study Managing the Mature Workforce predicts that,
by 2010, the number of US workers aged 35 to 44 will decline by 19%;
aged 45 to 54 will increase 21%; and aged 55 to 64 will increase 52%.
This is a world-wide phenomenon.
Fig.
2 – Common data work flows in the sustainable AEC industry.
The number of workers aged
35 to 44 is expected to decline by 27% in Germany, 19% in the U.K.,
9% in Italy, 10% in Japan, and by 8% in China. A recent study from
the American Public Power Association (APPA) Work Force Planning for
the Public Power Utilities: Ensuring Resources to Meet Projected
Needs reports that the loss of critical knowledge and the inability
to find replacements with utility-specific skills are the two biggest
challenges facing the industry. In the utility industry the average
age of utility workers is close to 50 and by 2010, as many as 60
percent of today’s experienced utility workers will retire. A
survey conducted in 2005 by the Carnegie Mellon University
Electricity Industry Center found that human resources executives in
the utility sector overwhelmingly listed the aging work force as
their number one concern.
A
report prepared in 2004 by the U.S. Department of Labor Employment
and Training Administration (ETA) entitled America’s Construction
Industry:Identifying and Addressing Workforce Challenges Report of
Findings and Recommendations For The President’s High Growth Job
Training Initiative in the Construction Industry reported that
“industry leaders noted that the construction industry is
experiencing a shortage of workers. This current shortage is
complicated by two trends: the growth of the industry, and the
retirement of the “baby boomers.”
The ETA projects that the
construction industry will grow at an average annual rate of 1.3
percent between 2002 and 2012, adding over one million new jobs. The
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the number of jobs in
construction will increase by 800,000 in the next ten years from 2004
(6,964,500) to 2014 (7,756,900.)
Declining
productivity
The AEC industry is highly competitive, and firms
must continually improve their productivity to remain
competitive. Sustainable practice is one area that firms have
identified as a strategic opportunity for growth and differentiation.
At the same time as firms build new expertise in sustainable design
and construction, the challenge of continual productivity improvement
has reached crisis proportions in many parts of the world. Statistics
published by US Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the productivity
of the construction industry has actually declined in the last 40
years while non-farm productivity has increased by over 200% in the
same period.
The productivity imperative has spawned a
reconsideration of project methods. Leveraging the concept of
Project Alliancing in Australia, Integrated Practice or Integrated
Project Delivery (IPD) looks at how relationships will evolve toward
greater collaboration and information-sharing between the design and
construction professionals, leading to improved project outcomes.
More
open sharing of information using Building Information Modeling (BIM)
allows for the visualization simulation and analysis of a design,
addressing errors prior to construction. This effort is aimed at
more efficient and less error prone construction while also allowing
for better designs that are more sustainable to meet our future
needs. But sharing of information means we must look at how the
technology itself must change to accommodate this new way of
collaborating between professionals, and how the independent “silos”
of information can be integrated for improved sustainable
impacts.
Silos of Information
The traditional
lifecycle flows through planning, designing, construction, operations
and maintenance, and decommissioning of the world’s infrastructure
- buildings, highways and roads, network elements such as
telecommunications, power, water, wastewater, and gas.
Discipline-specific software applications support professionals and
tradespeople who plan, design, build and maintain this complex set of
systems.
The
engineering group uses CAD applications, construction uses large
format paper, the records or network documentation group may use GIS
tools, and operations uses paper or a handheld viewer. The
information flow between these groups is more often than not paper.
The result is a very inefficient process characterized by data
redundancy, redundant processes, and poor data quality.
For
building construction, the diverse set of disciplines involved may
include land developers, surveyors, architects, civil and structural
engineers, environmental and geotechnical engineers, heating and
ventilation specialists, plumbers, telephone companies and utilities,
and road departments of local governments. Different software
applications support these participants in the design and
construction process. Each discipline has traditionally maintained
its own professional standards, and has conducted its work
independent from the others. As a result, each discipline has
maintained an island or silo of technology related to design and
engineering information and work product (see Fig. 1).
However,
the lifecycle of infrastructure is being compressed due to economic
reality. Owners and operators are concerned about the costs of
operating and maintaining these structures. Over the lifetime of an
infrastructure element, these costs tend to comprise 90% of the total
cost of ownership. Economic pressure to reduce overall cost, and
therefore to address the large percentage tied up in operating costs,
drives owners to look at the opportunities afforded by data and
process integration.
For
example emergency responders responding to a terrorist threat,
exploding gas main, a bridge collapse, or a building fire need
immediate and seamless access to information about the building where
an emergency is occurring, including interior, surrounding buildings
and access roads, and telecommunications and utilities, aerial as
well as underground. At the present time they would need to have been
trained in many applications from a multitude of vendors to be able
to access all of the different design and geospatial files that would
help them deal with an emergency.
As
a concrete example, all of the world’s utilities (water, sewer,
power) and telecommunications firms manage infrastructure in
essentially the same way and are facing similar challenges. In
analyzing the information flow in these organizations, the most
striking problem is islands of information (see Fig.2).
The
engineering group uses CAD applications, construction uses large
format paper, the records or network documentation group may use GIS
tools, and operations uses paper or a handheld viewer. The
information flow between these groups is more often than not paper.
The result is a very inefficient process characterized by data
redundancy, redundant processes, and poor data quality.
The
cost of interoperability
Several years ago the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) commissioned a study on
Interoperability to attempt to quantify the efficiency losses in the
U.S. capital facilities industry resulting from inadequate
interoperability including design, engineering, facilities
management, and business processes software systems and redundant
paper records management across the entire facility life-cycle. NIST
estimated that in 2002 poor interoperability cost the US capital
facilities industry $15.8 billion (Euro 9.9 billion).
In
addition additional significant inefficiency and lost opportunity
costs associated with interoperability problems were identified that
were beyond the scope of the NIST analysis which suggested to NIST
that the $15.8 billion cost estimate developed in the study is likely
to be a conservative figure. The NIST estimated that two-thirds of
these costs are borne by owners and operators, predominantly during
ongoing facility operation and maintenance. This has to change if we
are to address the challenge of a exploding world population, the
need to double all the worlds infrastructure in the next 45 years or
so, coupled with fixing all the aging infrastructure we have today.
A redefining of process and technology sharing amongst design and
construction professionals is underway.
Vision
for a Sustainable AEC
Visionary green cities are being
announced, such as the plan to create Masdar City, the world’s zero
carbon, zero waste, car-free city near Abu Dhabi International
airport in the United Arab Emirates, recently announced by the
Worldwide Fund for Nature and the environmental consultancy
BioRegional. In China, Virginia architect and sustainable design
visionary William McDonough has been engaged for many years in the
master planning of green cities such as Huangbaiyu. The design
consultancy of Arup was hired by the Chinese government to lead the
construction of Dongtan near Shanghai, a green city which will
implement techniques for recycled water, alternative energy from
cogeneration and biomass, with a high degree of carbon neutrality.
The city of Greensburg, Kansas is rebuilding its entire community to
the highest LEED rating standard after being completely devastated by
a tornado in 2007. The growing list of inspiring projects suggests a
compelling move toward green building and city design on the part of
the AEC industry. This move drives increased commitment to retool as
an industry, with innovative approaches to professional
collaboration, increased productivity, workforce skill, and
sophisticated data integration. There is a critical need for
sustainable urban environments around the globe, and the AEC industry
is evolving to meet this challenge.
Written by Erin Rae Hoffer, AIA LEED®
AP & Terry D. Bennett, PLS, LLS, LPF, LEED® AP, Autodesk and Geoff Zeiss, Director of Technology, Autodesk
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Our
understanding of the critical nature of climate change is converging
with the migration of the world’s population to urban environments.
As a result, concern with sustainable urban environments, or “green
cities”, has come to the forefront. Serious challenges face our
world’s infrastructure and motivate new approaches and technologies
to improve how we design, build, operate, and maintain our
constructed physical environment – both buildings and
infrastructure. How can we face these challenges and succeed in
developing sustainable and economically efficient urban environments
for our growing communities? Fortuitously, a rethinking of digital
data which underlie infrastructure and building design approaches is
underway.
New technologies and processes are being created to
address challenges in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction
(AEC) industries today. The vision of an aligned data structure will
enable us to understand the impact of design and policy decisions on
sustainability and bring us closer to the green cities of the future.
