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BUSINESS NEWS CARLSON STUDIO ARCHITECTURE AND SARASOTA AUDUBON ACHIEVE ZERO NET ENERGY The design for Sarasota’s Audubon Nature Center has earned Zero Net Energy Building Certification from the New Buildings Institute. The announcement was released by Michael Carlson, principal of Carlson Studio Architecture . The project was also published in NBI’s 2018 Getting to Zero Status Update and Zero Energy Buildings List. The project was recognized and honored at the Getting to Zero National Forum on April 17-19 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Zero net energy buildings are ultra-efficient new construction and deep energy retrofit projects that consume only as much energy as they produce from clean, renewable resources. The Audubon Project completed construction

in January 2016, and the project team provided detailed information in addition to a full year of electrical use data to NBI to document the ZNE performance of the building. The design team included Sarasota Audubon, Carlson Studio Architecture, Brilliant Harvest for the Solar System design and installation, Quest Engineering for the mechanical and electrical design, and Hees and Associates for structural engineering. Roger Landry of ESC LLC, provided commissioning services. Willis A. Smith Construction was the contractor. The project also achieved LEED Gold Certification in the LEED for New Construction, from the U.S. Green Building Council. New Buildings Institute is a nonprofit organization driving better energy performance in commercial buildings. NBI works

collaboratively with industry market players – governments, utilities, energy efficiency advocates, and building professionals – to promote advanced design practices, innovative technologies, public policies, and programs that improve energy efficiency. NBI also develops and offer guidance and tools to support the design and construction of energy efficient buildings. Throughout its 20-year history, NBI has become a trusted and independent resource helping to drive buildings that are better for people and the environment. NBI’s theory of change includes setting a vision and defining a path forward. NBI then sets out to create the research that serves as the basis for tool and policy development necessary to create market change.

EDWARD FRIEDRICHS, from page 4

1) We’re in the business of using design as a business tool, not to win design awards, although those are gratefully accepted. Something that pragmatically solves a client’s business prob- lems can also be “pretty.” We were thrilled if a magazine chose to publish our work, touting the design, but most important was that the client’s business performed better. 2) We should make each design solution suit our client’s culture, both for the employees and the clients or customers. 3) As the firm grew, we realized we had an enormous body of talent throughout the company. The most qualified person to work on any aspect of a project may not be sitting next to you or may not even be in your office. We asked everyone to adopt a collaborative attitude, reaching out within the firm to bring the most qualified person to the team for a specific aspect of the task that aligned with their expertise. For us, it was about using the aggregated talent of the firm for each client. 4) We were all in this together with a common goal: the best business solution that meets a client’s needs and goals. To be clear, this never precluded making the solution aesthetically pleasing. Aesthetics have a strong influence on clients’ and customers’ attitudes about the company and product, but also affects people’s behavior and performance. 5) We carefully documented our clients’ performance goals. We established success metrics before we initiated design, and we measured results after occupancy and periodically after that. This helped our clients justify expenditures to their board, their banker, or governing body and gave us some wonderful stories to tell future clients. It was a practice in the firm to start each design meeting with a client with a review of what their stated performance objectives were and ask if those ob- jectives had changed. Design presentations specifically noted how each design element was meant to enhance one or more of the client’s performance goals. Part Three of this blog series will demonstrate how these principles were applied at Gensler with real-life client examples. Visions, missions, values, and principles are easy enough to list on a laminated card, but they are unbelievably powerful in the application, leading to job satisfaction and success. EDWARD FRIEDRICHS, FAIA, FIIDA, is the former CEO and president of Gensler. Contact him at efriedrichs@zweiggroup.com.

important issue for me was that all of this supported the reasons we were in business for our clients. At a point early in my career, I took on the responsibility of documenting the firm’s vision and values. I began carrying a notebook at all times, particularly as I traveled to our other offices. I asked people what they thought the values of the firm were. I tagged several people around the firm whom I thought understood what I was trying to accomplish. Each time I had a draft, I would send it around to them and ask, “What do you think?” “This is about building an enterprise that works so consistently to a set of values that, as it grows, clients as well as employees know what to expect. This was particularly important as we grew to a large number of offices scattered all over the world.” I got terrific feedback. Sometimes it was “right on;” other times items would come back annotated, “That’s not us, what we should say is …” One day I seemed to have achieved a consensus. We published the result as a statement of “Vision, Mission, and Values,” and asked everyone to operate by these values. I knew we had nailed it a few years later when we were in a period of particularly rapid growth and one of our partners during a management committee meeting said, “We’ve strayed from some of our values. Let’s republish our ‘Vision, Mission, and Values’”. That’s when you know you’re in the right place, working beside people who share the same values and within a culture that speaks to your professional and personal fulfillment. Here are the five principles that guided Gensler during my tenure and are said to guide the firm today:

THE ZWEIG LETTER April 30, 2018, ISSUE 1246

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