It pays to be in the right place at the right time, according to architects in Nevada. For those lucky enough to be practicing in the state during these recent years of unprecedented growth and change, the experience has been exhilarating, to say the least. “It’s fantastic to be an architect in our town in this time period,” said Wade Simpson, principal at Welles Pugsley Architects of Las Vegas. “The opportunities are unimaginable.”
With current trends in architecture pushing the profession to more demanding and creative heights, designers don’t expect the excitement to abate anytime soon. These trends include sustainable or green building, mixed-use development, design-build design and the use of new technologies and products.
Going Green
“The biggest trend is this huge bandwagon of green design,” explained Brad Van Woert, CEO of Reno’s Sheehan Van Woert Bigotti Architecture (SVWB). “It has changed how we do business.”
Pioneered in the 1920s by Southern California architect Rudolf Schindler, sustainable (or “green”) design was inspired by sensitivity to the environment and regional climate. Schindler’s designs were recognized for their incorporation of basic materials, such as wood joists and concrete. They were also known for the fluidity of design between interior and exterior spaces, which seemed to bring the outside environment to the inside of the structure. While Schindler was definitely unique in his time, his basic design tenets are at the forefront of much of today’s architectural trends. Because of dwindling natural resources, higher energy costs and increased social conscience, more builders and clients are using sustainable design for its functionality and savings, as well as its aesthetic beauty. “Every client cares about creating a sustainable building design,” emphasized Thomas Schoeman, CEO and president of JMA Architects in Las Vegas. “With structures accounting for 36 percent of the total energy use, 65 percent of total electric consumption and 30 percent of total waste output in the U.S., it’s not hard to understand why building green has become so consequential.”
A year ago, many architects were skeptical of green design because costs were much higher. Today, architects are willing to pay the higher design costs because they see the energy savings they will have in the future. “Insurance companies are offering incentives for energy conservation,” said Christopher Larsen, executive director of Dekker/Perich/Sabatini. “And, architects also receive tax credits for green designs.”
Sustainable design is approached from two viewpoints: resource conscious design and healthy design, according to Simpson, who is certified as a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) architect by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The USGBC is a coalition of leaders in the building industry who promote buildings that are environmentally responsible and healthy places to live and work.
Resource conscious design reduces the consumption of natural resources by:
• using land and energy efficiently
• employing storm water filtration
• reducing waste products
• using native landscaping
• minimizing habitat disruption
• selecting building materials for minimal environmental impact
Healthy design helps make building occupants healthier and more comfortable by:
• enhancing indoor air quality
• increasing connections to the outdoors
• introducing more daylight
• improving acoustics
The recent greening of architecture began in the public sector as government planners looked for ways to better manage and create publicly funded projects. Since it has become easier to obtain public or grant-based funds for sustainable projects over those that are not, LEED certification is now the cornerstone for most public projects. “It encourages a better quality project,” Schoeman said. “It also makes [planners] more strategic in their thinking.”
Educators Lead the Way
County school districts have been some of the first clients in Nevada to go green. A quintessential education project is the prototype middle school recently designed by Welles Pugsley for Clark County School District. The project creates an open, user-friendly environment. Architects placed separate function pods, such as the gym, classrooms and fine arts department, around an elevated central courtyard which facilitates fluid movement throughout the structure. The placement of staff parking below the courtyard also enhances the open feeling of the campus. To ensure plenty of natural light on both the first and second floors, second floor areas have both windows and roof monitors, while first floor rooms have light shafts which direct light from the second to the first floor.
School architecture has undergone a design revolution over the past several years, according to Van Woert, whose firm has designed the last 23 elementary schools for Washoe County School District. “It’s a whole new educational prototype in how kids are educated,” he said.
As sustainable design becomes the standard in public buildings, its influence leaks down to the world of private design as well. A LEED certified design is useful in commercial projects because it can provide an environmentally compliant template, assuring the design adheres to any pre-established local regulations.
Building green involves a different kind of mindset throughout the process, according to Van Woert. He described some of the intricacies of trying to design a low-income housing project he is designing for Catholic Community Services in Reno to be as sustainable as possible. “It’s a real tight site that’s three stories high, so we’re trying to get the best solar access for passively heating the space,” he explained. To minimize resources used for transportation, all materials used in the project will be local, that is, generated within 500 miles of the site. In order to keep the site as clean as possible, especially during construction, builders will recycle materials and greatly reduce the amount of waste.
Although LEED certification can add anywhere from 2 percent to 8 percent to the initial cost of a building, according to Schoeman, in the Las Vegas market, the payback begins anywhere from three to 20 years. In the meantime, the building undoubtedly accounts for greater employee satisfaction and productivity, along with creating a positive image for the building owner throughout the community.
Mixed-use Projects
While mixed-use projects have been around Nevada for some years in the form of casino resorts, rising land values along with cultural shifts have spawned an increase in both their numbers and variety. “We’re seeing a cultural shift in the U.S., people are returning to the cities; they are attracted to an urban environment where they can walk to things,” Schoeman explained. The surge of empty nesters and retirees who have relocated to Nevada in recent years mirrors this demographic.
Mixed-use projects can be urban or suburban, but all of them are primarily designed with the same objective in mind: to allow people to live and work in a smaller area by meeting all or most of their needs within the development. The most obvious advantages are that they result in a higher quality of life by reducing traffic, long commutes and air pollution.
The city of Las Vegas has embraced the concept in a big way with its Union Park development in the heart of downtown. When completed in several years, the 61-acre project will boast 2.2 million square feet of Class A office space, 469,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, 3,600 high-rise residential units, 15,800 parking spaces and 1,750 hotel rooms along with a new City Hall, performing arts center and Alzheimer’s institute. Union Park is the largest downtown urban development project in the country. Other mixed-use developments to note include Nevada AIA Design Award winner, The District at Green Valley Ranch, and 17th and Vine, an urban village-type project in Henderson. “It took the Las Vegas Valley longer to catch on to the concept of mixed-use,” said Larsen.
Each project is unique in that it’s designed to appeal to a certain demographic. “We’re creating a lifestyle that’s appropriate to a specific buyer profile,” Schoeman said. Depending upon the age and affluence of targeted residents, amenities could include fitness areas, indoor pools, demonstration kitchens, media rooms, garages and concierge services along with retail and/or office space.
Although many architects and planners realize the advantages of mixed-use, such as opportunities for retail fill-in in urban areas, they admit that it presents interesting challenges. The simple design component of entrances and exits can be tricky to deal with, according to Simpson. “You need to plan for delivery doors and residential entrances,” he said. Residents will not want their front door facing the back door of a retail establishment, for example.
Van Woert also sees increasing support for mixed-use by both Sparks and Reno. “The Mapes Plaza is mixed-use in its finest definition,” he said. Surrounded by a number of new condominium developments in the heart of downtown Reno, the plaza offers an ice skating rink with future plans for retail and restaurants. It provides another critical step forward in the city’s efforts to attract people to both live and work downtown. On more than 800 acres north of Sparks, the Kiley Ranch planned community is multi-use on a large scale. When complete in 2015, it will provide 4,000 homes, a business park, a marketplace for retail and a town center for entertainment.
Multi-use projects like Kiley Ranch represent a natural progression of cultural change in the country, according to Van Woert. The heart of American towns some years ago was multi-use, boasting the four Ps for plaza, pump (water), pulpit and pub. The advent of the automobile and the growth of suburbia, however, pushed people and services away from the city core, creating unfriendly sprawl where many neighbors don’t know each other. The recent interest in multi-use parallels a desire for increased community. “We’re trying to recapture that old-time lifestyle,” Van Woert said.
Design-Build
For many years traditional project planning required architects and contractors to complete their proposals and drawings separately. This design-bid-build process allowed them to come together for bidding and building, but not planning. The current trend is moving toward the design-build process, which pairs the two during planning as well. While many architects are just recently dipping their toes into the design-build process, JMA has been at the forefront for a number of years, according to Shoeman. “We’ve been doing design-build for about 25 years now. We work together to get the best project for the owner,” he said.
By combining forces early on, builders and designers can benefit from each other’s knowledge and also set the budget sooner. Design-build can also result in significant savings for the overall project by reducing time schedules by as much as 30 percent and by eliminating many of the change orders, which can add up to 5 percent to the total cost. Bringing the contractors on board earlier, helps them understand they are part of the entire process, according to Simpson, who has been familiar with design-build for about 10 years. Working together also creates more amicable relationships among everyone involved in a project. “Bid-build creates adversarial relationships because expectations aren’t always met,” Shoeman said.
New Technology and Products
New technologies and products have created a wealth of innovative design options for architects to consider. “We continue to see great advancement in building systems,” Schoeman said. Improvements in window systems, for example, allow designers to select just the right glazing for a building’s orientation, such as reducing heat gain from the morning sun on an east face. Buildings made largely out of glass can still be made energy efficient by using appropriate glazes along with double layers of glass with air space in between. Improvements in photovoltaics (solar systems) have made them a much more viable energy option with the cost about 10 percent of what it was a decade ago, but with 10 times the performance and efficiency, according to Schoeman.
Regarding the design process itself, 3D-4D Building Information Modeling (BIM) allows architects to create more complex designs through visualization and simulation technology. The designs have the added advantage of being immediately related to suppliers, manufacturers and contractors. In general, the program allows designers to more effectively meet customer, design, construction and program requirements.
Using cutting-edge technologies and design, SVWB is creating the Computational Research and Visualization Building (CRVB) for the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno. “It’s the most sophisticated video game ever built,” Van Woert said. When finished in 2008, the structure’s 40,000 square feet will house a six-sided display with virtual reality and visualization facilities. The technology enables scientists at DRI to stand in the 3-D display and interact with such natural events as simulated hurricanes. Van Woert readily admitted that from a design standpoint, the project is the most challenging he has done in his career.
Architecture More Highly Regarded
Perhaps the most significant current trend, however, is an overriding increase in the appreciation for architects. “Design is given a higher value than in the past,” Simpson explained. “It used to be, ‘just build the dumb box cheap.’” Developers are looking toward design to give them an edge. They want the latest and greatest to tell a story that will give them an identity. “We’re allowed to be more creative now,” Simpson added. As Northern Nevada matures and grows, Van Woert sees increased sophistication in his clients. “We are an emerging New Age town,” he said of Reno/Sparks.
Despite trends that come and go, architects consistently speak of the social conscience that accompanies their profession. Believing they have a responsibility to make a difference they endeavor to take the social, economic and environmental needs of their clients into consideration. “I’m really happy to be an architect because it’s a noble profession,” Van Woert said. “If we can keep our egos in our pockets we can do a lot of good for mankind.”
