Sustainable Design is one approach to addressing the depletion of natural resources and concerns about the environment and natural ecosystems. Green design attempts to utilize the sustainable limits of the earth's resources while maintaining quality of life. This is done with thoughtful use of design to incorporate "green" materials, products, and processes in lieu of conventional approaches.

Berard Martel Architecture offers responsible design services that enable its clients to benefit from the advances made towards more energy efficient buildings and cost savings designs. In its most valuable application, sustainable design is not the attachment or supplement of architectural design, but an integrated creative process within architectural design.

Sustainable design has many goals some of which include reducing water use, conserving energy through better designed and constructed building envelopes and higher quality interior environments through more selective use of materials and products.

The following examples are of green and sustainable building elements:

High-performance insulation which can reduce demand on the heating and cooling systems, thus lowering utility costs.

Siting buildings to maximize the benefits of the sun's light and heat when desirable.

Designing window locations to provide daylighting without glare in the summer and to additionally provide heat gain during the winter.

Heat recovery and "natural ventilation" systems in the HVAC program.

Renewable / recyclable and regionally manufactured materials for finishes and building maintenance requirements.

The use of energy star rated equipment, power saving lighting controls and monitoring occupied space and ventilation.

The basis of green design in an organized effort focused on achieving the highest level of sustainable design compliance meeting a client's required performance, reliability, quality, and aesthetics requirements in the project program. Usually, the best results are achieved when green design begins early in the design process.

Some of the many benefits of green design are:

Earning tax breaks and energy related rebates where applicable.

Cutting energy and water bills and buffering operating budgets from increases in energy prices.

Reducing heating and air-conditioning equipment loads and the associated costs of purchase, maintenance and electricity.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Initiative and advocacy are prevalent from our membership groups such as the AIA where numerous efforts are underway to assist the profession and our clients with various tools and information.

The AIA has compiled resources in the form of articles, videos and events to help better understand costs, show great examples, and provide other aspects of sustainable design. These are all available at http://www.aia.org

ASHRAE also provides the Advanced Energy Design Guides, an effort to reduce energy consumption in a variety of building types by 30% in a sensible approach.

Berard Martel Architecture, Inc. is a member of the USGBC. In addition, Robert G. Martel is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional, having recently participated in a LEED Platinum (pending) Commercial Interior project, the first its kind in NH. You can learn more about the USGBC and LEED at http://www.usgbc.org

The application of sustainable design is flexible and is custom-fitted to the client's need and the project desired. Ultimately, the integration of LEED to a project is a team effort, dependent upon the support and input of the team members.