COVER FEATURE
HIGH-PERFORMANCE GREEN BUILDINGS – Closing The Building Services Loop
By Ir . Chen Thiam Leong
COVER FEATURE
The adage , “ The best designed and installed building services will last until the end of their Defects Liability Period ”, will continue to hold sway until there is a concerted effort to transform our industry practice .
We often lament that we have “ First Class Design , Second Class Installation , Third Class Commissioning , and No Class Maintenance ”. Attempts have been initiated in the past to change this to “ First Class Design , Got Class Installation , Best in Class Commissioning , and Sustainable Maintenance ”. However , after pursuing efforts to improve the maintenance aspect for over two decades , the author decided to revisit his strategy . That was more than a decade ago . His redirected approach is premised upon the realisation that “ before we can successfully improve the operational and maintenance aspects of building services , such installations must , in the first place , be properly designed , installed and commissioned before being handed over to the operations and maintenance ( O & M ) team ”. Furthermore , proper commissioning should be preceded by clarity in the Owner ’ s Project Requirements ( OPR ) and reflected in the consultant ’ s Basis of Design ( BoD ) for subsequent installation conformance .
The journey towards this goal has proved to be long and arduous , requiring patience and support , but this needs to be done before we can dream of truly achieving high-performance energy-efficient green buildings . Hence , let us examine these stages in sequence .
The Construction Loop
The major players impacting the performance of building services begin with the Project Owner , followed by the Designers , then the Installers ( with the Commissioning Specialist in tow as the constant glue ), before the Operations Team takes over , supported by the Maintenance Team . This loop is simplistically depicted in Figure 1 .
The Project Owner
The construction loop begins with the Owner and his OPR . As an example , for a seemingly straightforward office tower development , the OPR should define whether it is an owner-occupied building ( fully or partially ) or a speculative office tower , or a combination , et cetera . Different OPRs will impact the designer ’ s building services provisions differently . In the event the Owner has no OPR , the Design Team ought to develop the OPR for the Owner to sign off .
The Designer
With the OPR , a designer will then strategise and conceptualise his Building Services provisions to
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