Peter Rumsey
Hacking the Design Process: Tips for Teamwork on Net Zero Buildings
On 02, Jun 2015 | In PEI Blog | By Peter
By Peter Rumsey
When you work with a large team on a high-performance building design there are a lot of opportunities for the project to get watered down along the way. Most of them have to do with the team not knowing how to collaborate in such a way as to make radical energy savings work on a budget. You just simply can’t follow the standard linear design practices and achieve net zero or net positive buildings – those that produce as much or more energy as they consume – on a budget.
Teamwork is critical with net zero buildings. Here are five essential collaborative strategies to keep in mind that help make net zero design cost-effective, even if your team is working on a tight budget.
Tips for Teamwork on Net Zero Buildings
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Design is not a serial activity
Don’t design the structure and then add the systems. Everything is designed in parallel. Get everyone at the table early—the architect, the builder, the systems people and make sure they avoid this linear approach of the past. They need to work shoulder-to-shoulder from beginning to end.
Read full article at PowerHouse Growers.
Peter Rumsey Teaches Clients How to Take Risks
On 02, Jun 2015 | In PEI Blog | By Larry
Peter Rumsey, one of the first green building engineers to design net zero buildings in the US, has a long history of championing energy efficiency combined with technologies such as radiant heating and cooling systems and chilled beams. He has led many of the world’s notable firsts in green design, including the first net zero commercial office building, the first net zero laboratory and largest net zero museum. He is now designing two of the world’s largest net zero office buildings.
An Education on How to Take Risks
With a mission to save unprecedented amounts of energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Peter is known for inspiring building owners to stretch to higher goals than they thought possible. “Peter encouraged us to take on unreasonable design goals. He pushed us to adopt cutting edge technologies and strategies in our buildings and then stayed with the project until we delivered success,” explained Rohan Parikh, who worked as head of Infrastructure and green initiatives at Infosys, a very large software company in Hyderabad, India.
Read full article at PowerHouse Growers.
Meet “The Father of Green Building”
On 07, May 2015 | In PEI Blog | By Molly
(Photo: Bisnow)
San Francisco’s Exploratorium is a place where kids learn about science through spectacularly fun interactive exhibits. It’s a place Point Energy Innovations founder, mechanical engineer Peter Rumsey, went to often as a child, and a place where he fell in love with science.
Embracing the curiosity and drive for experimentation the museum encourages, when the museum moved to its new location on Pier 15, Peter—while at Integral Group— led the design of the innovative bay water heating and cooling system, consulted on daylighting, and made many additional design decisions that helped the building to become the largest net zero energy targeted museum in the world.
The museum is about experimentation and innovation and the new design matches. San Francisco’s Bisnow recently toured the building with Peter. The Exploratorium and many of Peter’s other net zero energy designs led Bisnow to name him “the father of green building.” Learn more about the building and Peter’s approach to his work in this new Bisnow article.
