Overview

Everything in the preceding chapters is connected. The orientation of the building affects its heating load, which determines the glazing area, which determines the thermal mass needed, which informs the structural system, which influences the embodied energy of the materials, which relates to the ecological footprint of the entire project. The water harvesting system must be sized to the roof area, which is determined by the building’s program, which connects to the number of occupants, which determines the food production needs, which influences the size of the greenhouse, which affects the passive solar performance.

These relationships cannot be optimized one at a time. They must be considered simultaneously, as a system. The design process that makes this possible is called integrated design: a collaborative, iterative process in which all of the building’s systems are considered together from the earliest stages, and design decisions are evaluated for their effects on the whole rather than on individual performance metrics.

Integrated design requires a different kind of collaboration than conventional building delivery. It requires that the architect, the structural engineer, the energy designer, the water systems designer, and the community planner all be present and engaged from the very beginning of the design process, long before any drawings are made. It requires that the owner and future occupants be part of the design team, because the performance of a regenerative building depends partly on how it is lived in. And it requires a willingness to revisit and revise decisions as the design develops and new information reveals interactions that were not initially apparent.