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Project Summary Project Description Application of Tools Opinion of Tools Decision making process Contact Details

Decision making process

Name of the case study
Sustainable design of DR City

Decision making process - stages
The decision-making process in relation to sustainable issues has consisted of different steps:
1. Formulating a general building program
2. Settling a Building Committee
3. Environmental screening
4. Defining goals, involving users

The consultants for each segment in DR City have had the responsibility to establish their own environmental management system for the segment, and to carry out the environmental screenings of the materials and constructions used. The plans and the screenings have had to be approved by DR City´s environmental consultant. Generally, this has worked well. Only in one case it has been necessary to ask a segment-consultant for a remake of the management plan.

In the prioritisation of environmental goals, the users, i.e. the present staffs of DR, who are going to work in DR City when finished, were asked to prioritize different goals for the buildings, including environmental goals. One of the things they prioritized was natural ventilation and daylight.

Decision making process - levels
MEMPD was used on a technical level

Decision making process - sources of information
Documents and direct communication between partners

Decision making process - who are the decision makers
The main decision-maker is client, DR City. DR City is physically and organisationally divided in 4 segments, containing different functions of the DR City. The projects in the four segments have different consultants and contractors, and are based on architect competitions (including a competition for the whole area).

Other main actors involved are (with different consultants and contractors in the four segments):
• Consultant for the client (DR City): COWI A/S and PLH arkitekter
• Technical consultants on the four segments: A number of Danish architects and engineers. At segment 4, the concert hall, Jean Nouvel is the architect, as well as there are foreign consultants connected
• Contractors on the four segments
• Others: The Municipality of Copenhagen (environmental guidelines for new buildings and renovations), Ørestad Consortium (developers, with a number of environmental guidelines also), EU (financial support for the technology project, IT-Eco).

Decision making process - who made the final decision for project implementation
It was a political decision by the board of the DR, that the DR City should be designed as a sustainable building.


Name of tool
MEMPD (Manual on Environmental Management in Project Design (in Danish: ´Miljørigtig projektering´).

Decision making process - tools in decision-making process
The decision-making stages on sustainable issues included the following steps:

1. Formulating a general building program
2. Settling a Building Committee
3. Environmental screening
4. Defining goals, involving users -- MEMPD was used in step 3 and 4.

The tool included added stages in the design phase. The consultants for each segment in DR City have had the responsibility to establish their own environmental management system for the segment, and to carry out the environmental screenings of the materials and constructions used. The plans and the screenings have had to be approved by DR City´s environmental consultant. Generally, this has worked well. Only in one case it has been necessary to ask a segment-consultant for a remake of the management plan.

In the prioritisation of environmental goals, the users, i.e. the present staffs of DR, who are going to work in DR City when finished, were asked to prioritise different goals for the buildings, including environmental goals. One of the things prioritised was natural ventilation and daylight.

The sustainable goals and initiatives have been an integrated part of the partnering concept. The environmental goals in DR City are related to respectively Buildings and production technology.

Buildings
The General Building Program includes a number of environmental goals on energy and water consumption, landscape, contaminated land, waste, use of materials, indoor climate, noise and safety. Although the ambitions are high, only a few goals have defined quantitatively.
• On energy a main goal is to reduce the "energy-frame" of the buildings (consumption of heat and electricity) by 33% compared to the present demands in the Building Regulations (BR 95).
• For landscapes and recreational areas the building should be planned to minimise negative effects on the local nature and climate
• For contaminated soil the goals are to avoid health—damaging influence on users and neighbours in the building process and building operation
• For waste, it is a goal to make waste sorting at the source easy, to minimise need for transport on the ground when waste is collected, and to consider local composting of garden waste.
• On materials, the energy consumption from the production of the materials should be as low as possible, based on an LCA-screening (using for instance BEAT-2002). There is a long list of demands for the materials used, e.g. to use materials with longevity, avoid environmentally harming materials (e.g. VOC, radioactive, cancer- inducing etc.), reducing waste of materials on the building process and so on.
• A number of quantitative goals have been defined on temperature, humidity, static electricity and well-being. The latter is defined from the PMV–index (Predicted Mean Vote), the PPD-index (Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied) and the PD-factor (Percentage of Dissatisfied). For the acoustic performance on the building, a number of quantitative demands were formulated.
• On working environment (including safety) the goal is to establish the best possible working environment in the construction and operation phases
• On water the consumption of clean drinking water should be reduced, and the disposal of waste water. This includes use of water saving installations and considerations on collection and reuse of storm-water.

Production / technology
The largest environmental impacts from DR City are expected to come from the production equipment (for actually producing the television and radio programmes, i.e. all types of electronic equipment, light, cooling etc. The sustainability goals defined in this part include:
• To establish 1.200 m2 solar cells plant (photovoltaics / PV?s)
• The energy consumption is expected to be 38% compared to a "traditional" solution. This is expected to be reached by using ground water cooling in an Aquifier cold storage, which will substitute mechanical ventilation
• Using natural and hybrid ventilation (intelligent double facades) – no benchmarks defined
• Reduction of groundwater use by collection of stormwater – no benchmarks defined

There is a limited number of benchmarks or quantitative goals defined in this part. The reason is mainly lack of references; in the Building Regulations there are no benchmarks of measures from which goals on this type of projects can be defined. Also in general, there are little experiences or standards for e.g. the energy use of such office buildings, with so much production equipment. Therefore, the demands on the production equipment have not been described that much in details, but have been defined as using "best available technology", finding some good solutions on the site by being innovative.

MEMPD is mainly a process tool, which suggests the client and consultant which steps to take to design a sustainable building. MEMPD was not followed completely, but was adapted to the specific situation. In this way, the decisions made on sustainable issues were framed by the procedures described in MEMPD.


Decision making process - how was the information for the dmp disseminated
The partnering concept has the main advantage that the client is always orientated on the state of the project, and that the partners are committed to the project. One practical implication of the partnering is that the client, the consultants and contractors share the same office-complex, the same facilities etc. This makes meetings and direct communication much easier.

Decision making process - how was the public involved
The users were involved in the design process, as they were asked to prioritize between different environmental goals. There was no intention to involve the public in general in the project. Citizens in Copenhagen have been informed through the planning procedures in the law on spatial planning, which gives citizens a right to comment or complain over the project).

Decision making process - was there public discussion over the project
DR City is a very big project, by a national institution, therefore the building project has caused a lot of attention, but not much discussion.

What tools were used to assess sustainability?

MEMPD (Manual on Environmental Management in Project Design (in Danish: ´Miljørigtig projektering´).

More information

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