Energy Efficient Design Pays Off

In 2005, LPA set three directives for the company: 1) encourage all professional staff to become a LEED accredited professional; 2) use sustainability to guide our processes and programs; 3) participate in the Savings by Design program where every building is designed to perform 15 percent better than California’s stringent Title 24 requirements.  

Savings by Design gives building owners incentives for energy efficiency. To date, we’ve retrieved more than two million dollars of incentives for our clients. Design teams are also eligible for incentives that reward energy efficient building design. In 2010, LPA used its incentive money to award travel and training grants to worthy employees. The program was such a success, we’ll be doing it again in 2011.

This is a terrific way to reward, educate, and improve our staff with money that we’ve earned by teaming up with our clients, and working efficiently amongst project teams.

So who benefitted from grants this year? We’ve compiled a list below, along with a snippets of lessons learned or lessons hoped to be learned (since several of the events take place within the next few months).

2010 LPA Travel and Training Grants

ASHRAE* High Performance Building Design Professional Certification

Recipient: Doug Seamark, PE, LEED AP

ASHRAE Online Training Programs

Recipient: LPA’s Mechanical Engineering Group

One-week course and certification in Therapeutic Landscape Design at University of Chicago

Recipient: Jessica Craven, LEED AP

Development of Specification Certification and Training to become a CDT professional

Recipient: Justin Kerfoot, CSI, LEED AP

Upcoming

GreenBuild 2010

Recipients: Jeremy Hart, Architect, LEED AP; Denise Mendelssohn, Architect, LEED AP; and Melody Jiang, LEED AP.

One-week study in New Orleans at Sustainable Center for the Environment

Recipient: Megan Dietz, LEED AP

Firm Program

Center for the Built Environment: LPA joined UC Berkeley’s program earlier this year, giving us access to valuable ongoing research and continuing education opportunities.

“Through LPA’s corporate partnership with UC Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment I was able to attend a symposium detailing developments in building façade design. It was exciting to see new technologies that allow a building’s ‘skin’ to integrate natural ventilation, thermal control, and visual comfort seamlessly into designs that are both elegant and high performing.” –Keith Hempel, AIA, LEED AP

“LPA joined the Center for the Built Environment, an industry-university collaborative research institute at UC Berkeley. Through our membership with CBE, LPA is being exposed to research in the areas of advanced building systems, indoor environmental quality, occupant satisfaction, and building information systems. CBE’s research findings related to occupant satisfaction in K-12 schools have already begun to influence how we design school facilities.” –Erik Ring, PE, LEED AP

*ASHRAE is the International technical society organized to advance the arts and sciences of heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration.