Environmental Building NewsTM The Leading Source for Environmentally Responsible Design & Construction A Publication of BuildingGreen, Inc. www.BuildingGreen.com Volume 25, Number 5 · May 2016 How To Run a Great Workshop: 37 Tips and Ideas Whether you call it a charrette, a workshop, or simply a meeting, We’ll start off talking about what kind these suggestions from experts will make your next event more fun of mindset to bring into a workshop, and productive. then move to: • how to plan one By Tristan Roberts • what kinds of exercises to do A design team can enable real progress squeeze the life out of a room with an • some ideas for follow-up by setting aside a day or longer for agenda that feels like a forced march. a focused workshop. Or it could just You can read it from start to finish, waste a lot of high-priced time. This article is about design workshops: or skip around and pick out what’s who, what, where, when, and why. useful. You can break down barriers and My hope is that in reading it, you’ll build a functioning team if you bring pick up at least three ideas that you Whatever ideas or thoughts it sparks, together people in different roles who can’t wait to apply in your next work- or whatever feedback you have, please don’t usually get to talk with one shop—whether it’s a short internal consider sharing. There’s a flipchart another. Or you might just reinforce meeting, a half-day design exercise, or and marker (actually just a link to the existing stereotypes. a long charrette with dozens of people. online comment form) down at the end of the article, and you can email Get the right kind of discussion going, If this article had an agenda, it would me. I read every message. and you can move as a team toward be a pretty loose one. innovative solutions. Or you can How to Get into the Right Mindset Choreographing the project process includes designing key components, clarifying the role of workshops in a healthy process, and identifying what you call them and who should attend, among other things. 1. Think big, together An early design workshop and a collaborative design process go hand in hand. While this article doesn’t go into the value of integrative design (see How to Make Integrated Project Delivery Work for Your Project and Integrated Design Meets the Real World), let’s take a minute to talk Image: BNIM about the value of a day-long (or longer) workshop with a large group The conceptual design for BNIM headquarters, “Building Positive” incorporates a public plaza that would help build a patchwork of native landscape for pollinators in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The idea of stakeholders. came out of a workshop exercise connecting the design professionals in attendance with living systems in the city around them. Environmental Building News • May 2016 Copyright © 2016 BuildingGreen, Inc. All rights reserved. The Oregon Sustainability Center People in This Article That term feels dated—for a couple didn’t get built, but its five-day design BuildingGreen thanks the following for reasons. One is that the “eco-charrette” charrette led to numerous design speaking with us for this article. has become associated with a dry breakthroughs, including at least one Clark Brockman, AIA – Principal, exercise of dragging team members that has been used on other projects, SERA Architects down a checklist. Also, treating according to Lisa Petterson, AIA, Moshe Cohen – The Negotiating Table sustainability as a separate topic in senior associate at SRG Partnership. Richard Crespin – CollaborateUp its own silo simply doesn’t support Part of the workshop was focused an integrative process; it allows those Ralph DiNola – CEO, New Buildings on structure, and Petterson says that Institute concerns to be marginalized and green the structural engineer wanted to features to be value-engineered out. Rand Ekman, AIA – Chief use a box beam. “It wasn’t so terribly Sustainability Officer, HKS None of this is to suggest that having revolutionary,” she says, but it would Nadav Malin – President, a multi-day workshop isn’t worth it. If be applied on a relatively large scale, BuildingGreen, Inc. anything, the evidence is that having opening up new possibilities. “Every- Lisa Petterson , AIA – Senior Associate, a workshop moves a project along one got excited,” says Petterson. The SRG Partnership quickly and to a high level of perfor- mechanical engineer and the plumb- Josie Plaut – Associate Director, mance. And there is a trend of projects ing engineer had a place for ducts and Institute for the Built Environment that do multi-day events to dedicate pipes inside the beam. The lighting Jennifer Preston – Sustainable Design day-long workshops to sustainability- designer was happy at the prospect Director, BKSK Architects of a clean ceiling. “Everyone had a related topics like daylighting and Z Smith, AIA – Principal, biophilia. As discussed throughout place in this structural system for their Eskew+Dumez+Ripple discipline.” this article, the time invested in build- Phaedra Svec – Associate, BNIM ing a team and exploring key issues That idea didn’t last, however. The site Jacob Werner, AIA – Director of pays off over and over again. was constrained by transit on three Sustainable Design, Wilson Architects Inc. sides, and there wouldn’t have been 3. Call in a facilitator from room for cranes to safely erect the outside the team structure. The design moved to a more “Charrette” refers to the cart that conventional solution for Portland: a The professionals we spoke to for would come around to the design post-tensioned slab. But the idea of this article agreed universally on the studio in 19th-century France, pick- integrated HVAC and structure stuck importance of dedicated facilitation ing up student work for review. “As around. According to Petterson, the in a design workshop or charrette. the cart made its way by, you would team asked, “Why shouldn’t we put An architect at a firm can be a skilled likely be rushing to get every last line radiant heating and cooling in the facilitator, but there are advantages on the drawing or piece of wood in post-tension structure?” It hadn’t been to bringing in a third party, says Josie the model,” says Jennifer Preston, done, but the group, already function- Plaut, associate director at the Institute sustainable design director at BKSK ing well as a team, took the time to for the Built Environment, which Architects. The frenzy and anxiety coordinate on the design and embed provides facilitation services. of that scene, as well as the focus on hangers in the slab. the realm of the designer, is not what Without a facilitator, the emotional In the end, the whole project was we need when we bring together intelligence and inclusiveness in the shelved, but the viability of the project teams, she argues. “What room drop, says Plaut, or the conver- solution has been proven out on our process needs is less speed for sation gets centered around the person other projects that have used it, speed’s sake and more thoughtful who is most powerful but who might according to Petterson. decision-making.” not contribute the most. “Without a facilitator, you can still have all 2. Hold a workshop, not Clark Brockman, AIA, principal at the same people in the room but be a charrette SERA Architects, agrees, adding, playing a different game.” “Clients are more comfortable The term “charrette” isn’t going away investing in a workshop” than a A 2015 white paper, The Social Network anytime soon. However, a number charrette. of Integrative Design, from the Institute of people we spoke to for this article for the Built Environment, argues that prefer to call an extended design Even if you prefer the word a third-party facilitator is in the best meeting simply that—a meeting, or, “charrette,” don’t call it an “eco- position to create an effective team more often, a workshop. charrette.” environment because that is their sole agenda. Environmental Building News • May 2016 p. 2 3. Gives permission to take calculated risks, including unfamiliar technologies, strategies, and materials that might deviate from standard industry practice but can be effectively explored in an integrative process 4. Holds the team accountable with owner-created design guidelines, performance contracts, or commit- ment to earning third-party certification 5. Prevent design by committee A common fear of an integrative design process bolstered by charrettes is “design by committee,” where non- professionals obstruct smart design Photo: Eskew+Dumez+Ripple decisions in the name of providing Eskew+Dumez+Ripple provided pro bono design assistance for the Youth Rebuilding New Orleans input. That’s not an unfounded fear, nonprofit, developing plans for restoring homes for low-income residents. Exercises like this one elicit the but it’s an avoidable one, according needs and values of stakeholders, leading to a shared vision of success for the project. to facilitators we spoke with for this The paper defines a third-party part of a core group of participants, article. facilitator as either someone from can help the facilitator plan the event. “Architects have a wide range of outside the design firm, who may be communication skills, which includes a consultant on high-performance 4. Pick a champion to nurture the group’s vision translation,” says Jennifer Preston. If buildings, or a member of the design occupants say they want a particular firm but without design responsi- type of window in the façade, “it’s our Referring to research contained in bilities. They may have specialized job as design professionals to under- the white paper, Josie Plaut also training or tools.