Understanding the Building as an Environmental System

To assist the design team with these considerations, each section in Part Three includes comments and suggestions on addressing interrelationships, inherently sustainable elements, and related challenges.
When sustainable upgrades are being considered for an existing or traditionally-constructed building, the design approach must be based on a comprehensive understanding of the building’s original materials and assemblies, including interrelated systems, materials sourcing, design language, and spatial organizations. This understanding, sometimes referred to as “whole building ecology,” will provide a clear picture of the building as an interconnected system in and of itself. Understanding these interrelationships will help identify the optimal changes and interventions that have the least impact upon resources and building character or heritage value and the most impact upon sustainable performance.

Any existing building will have these interrelated components inherent in its makeup:

• design and spatial relationships;
• systems and operating functions;
• built assemblies and components.

If the objective is to improve energy performance, the design team must first consider these inherent functions. The team should seek to understand, for example, how the building was originally designed to function with respect to energy (lighting, heating and cooling systems, building envelope, etc.)

and to assess the current operation and condition of those energy assemblies and systems. There is also value in understanding the environmental impact and benefit of the retrofit or rehabilitation process itself (treatments, materials, waste management, etc.), to help determine repairs, materials replacement, and treatments.

To assist the design team with these considerations, each section in Part Three includes comments and suggestions on addressing interrelationships, inherently sustainable elements, and related challenges.