Episode 103 – Creating a Living Building – The Kendeda Building at Georgia Tech

The podcast for project managers by project managers. We’re taking a tour of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design. This building was built to the Living Building Challenge 3.1 certification standards, the most advanced measure of sustainability possible in the current built environment. , before COVID19 quarantine restrictions.)



Table of Contents



01:45 … About The Kendeda Building 02:51 … John and Shan: Proud Parents 05:06 … Project Schedule 06:13 … The Kendeda Fund 07:49 … The Living Building Challenge: Version 3.1 10:48 … Red List Materials 12:27 … Ceiling Construction 14:46 … The Staircase Story 16:14 … Managing Triple Constraint Requirements 18:47 … Understanding the Project: John’s Story 20:16 … Team Selection Process 22:44 … A Heavily Populated Certified Living Building 24:23 … Continuing Education 26:07 … Podcasting in the Restroom 28:25 … Net Positive Water Consumption in the Bathroom 29:45 … Turning Waste into an Asset 31:07 … Podcasting in the Basement 35:58 … Project Surprises 39:15 … The Cost of Sustainable Design 40:50 … Looking Back on the project 44:34 … Closing



WENDY GROUNDS:  
Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers, for project
managers. I’m Wendy Grounds, and with me is Bill Yates.  And Bill, we’re doing something very
different today, it’s a first for Manage This.



BILL YATES:   This is a very different episode. Wendy you’ve connected with leaders of another fascinating project, and this time we’re gonna go to the source, we’re gonna see it. So this one’s all about sustainability, and we’re going to look at a living building. Now, recently I took a tour of the Ford Rouge Factory where Ford Motor Company makes F150s, those pick-up trucks, and they build those under a huge space, and they have a roof that’s a living roof.



WENDY GROUNDS:   Ahh
okay.



BILL YATES:   It’s 450 thousand square feet. So they’re able to capture the water, they have drought-resistant ground cover on top that collects and filters the water that they use in their manufacturing process. It’s one of the largest living roofs in the world, and



WENDY GROUNDS:  Very
cool



BILL YATES:   I’ve
seen it.



WENDY GROUNDS:   Ah
very nice



BILL YATES:  So I
can’t wait to check out this living building.



WENDY GROUNDS:   I
hadn’t heard about that one, so I’m excited to to where we’re going today. So
the Georgia Institute of Technology
constructed The Kendeda
Building for Innovative Sustainable Design, and they call it a
living-learning laboratory, and the two guests we’re talking to today are both
working in The Kendeda Building. The first one is John DuCongé. John is a senior project
manager in the design and construction department at Georgia Tech. Currently,
John serves as a senior project manager on The Kendeda building. Our other
guest is Shan Arora. He’s the director of The Kendeda building.



BILL YATES:   Yes, so
let’s take a tour of this living building here that is on the campus of Georgia
Tech, and check it out.



About The Kendeda
Building



BILL YATES:  We are on the Georgia Tech campus.  We are in a gorgeous building, and I can’t wait to dig into more about it, and John, so you’re the project manager on this. Give us a sense, help the audience understand what we’re looking at here, so tell us some of the specs on this building.



JOHN DUCONGÉ:  Okay, this is a 37,000-square-foot building.  It’s a classroom building and auditorium, we also have class labs in the building.  And it’s fully functional as an academic center on campus that’s featuring a lot of sustainable design initiatives that, you know, we as a campus have been trying to achieve, and so this is taking us to a new level of sustainable design.



Having a Living Building Challenge project on campus is
really an accomplishment for us.  We’re
thankful to the Kendeda Fund for sponsoring this project.  It is a combination of different types of
construction,