Open AccessDesign, decision-making and trade-offs in the Centre for Sustainable Development (La Maison du développement durable) in Canada
Author(s) -
Amy A. Oliver,
Ricardo Leoto,
Gonzalo Lizzaralde,
Anne-Marie Petter,
Nilanjana Roy
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
iop conference series. earth and environmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1755-1307
pISSN - 1755-1315
DOI - 10.1088/1755-1315/294/1/012055
Subject(s) - sustainability , architectural engineering , architecture , post occupancy evaluation , efficient energy use , sustainable development , downtown , engineering , business , operations management , political science , geography , ecology , electrical engineering , law , biology , archaeology
In order to fight climate change and reduce carbon emissions, professionals in the construction sector often strive for optimal mechanical / technical solutions and assume that a “best” solution exists at a given time and in a given place. But what happens in sustainable building projects when different sustainability or project objectives run at odds with one another? The Maison du développement durable or Centre for Sustainable Development (CSD) – a LEED platinum certified building — is recognized as one of the most sustainable buildings in Canada. This mixed-use building, conceived to be a social and environmental hub in downtown Montreal, houses 3000 m2 of office space and conference rooms. The design included a series of innovations, such as a five-storey biofiltering wall and an under-floor air delivery system. In 2018, the Fayolle-Magil Construction Research Chair in Architecture, the Building Sector and Sustainability from Université de Montréal and the Canadian NGO Équiterre partnered to conduct a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of the MDD. The study focused on six functional and architectural aspects of the MDD and involved analyzing 12 integrated design workshops, dozens of project documents, and specifically gathering new data. The results show that finding what is “best” is not what happened in reality. Instead, professionals were required to make a series of trade-offs in decision-making. Some examples of these tradeoffs include: adaptability vs. cost, air quality vs. energy performance, shared spaces vs. building floorplate efficiency, and innovation in the design phase vs. long-term operations. This paper shows that tradeoffs adopted during the design phase impacted the MDD’s performance. The results of this study are not only valuable to the project’s partners, but also to the construction industry in general, offering insight into design compromises in sustainable office buildings.