Telling Great Stories

Do you remember way back when you were four or five. You’d had your bath, you were cozy in your pajamas and Mom or Dad was tucking you into bed? Remember as you snuggled under the covers while they read you a bullet point list?

Of course you don’t - what a ludicrous notion! No child would put up with something so crushingly boring as to be read a list! No, your Mom read you stories. She read stories because stories are interesting, they’re entertaining, they have fascinating characters who face and overcome challenges. But most important, stories teach lessons. They have morals that allow us to see and understand things that we didn’t before.

Stories are a whole lot more interesting and valuable as agents of communication than are lists. Lists are not only boring to read, they don’t provide any insight into the value you brought to the project. Generic descriptions are, well, generic and fail to get anyone excited.

Fortunately, there are other ways to show your experience and the value you bring to your clients.

The RFP stated: Please address your firm’s approach to creative problem solving.

The response could have been a generic description such as:

Acme Engineers is dedicated to bringing a creative approach to problem solving. We begin by assembling a team of experts who study the problem from as many angles as possible. We then convene a brainstorming session in which creative ideas are encouraged and recorded. The ideas are then ranked using a voting mechanism, which identifies the top five ideas.

Projects on which we’ve utilized creative problem solving include:

• Followed by the predictable, boring and uninspiring list

Not very interesting, engaging or convincing. So how about something like this instead?

The Farmers Are Planting Drywall!

When Beaumont Health Systems wanted a new office building, they specified that the project should be LEED Certified. This had implications for the building, but also for the waste stream that every construction project generates. The goal was set at diverting at least 50% of the waste from landfills.

Never content to simply meet the goals, we set up an in-house contest with teams assigned to each component of the waste stream. Who could divert the largest volume of waste?

By the time we were finished, we’d diverted 350 tons of concrete, brick and block from the landfill and crushed it off-site for fill and other appropriate applications. We worked with the waste management company to begin a sorting process for the general trash, leading to waste diversion of close to 80%. But the winning team, with the most creative solution, had located a landscape supplier who took the gypsum from the old drywall to be ground up and resold as farm fertilizer.

The project is currently diverting 75% of the construction waste from the landfill, which earned the project two LEED credits, allowed Beaumont to leave a minimal impact on the environment and raised awareness within the construction workforce, Beaumont employees and the community at large.

A story like this ensures that the client will actually read it. Who, browsing through a proposal and coming across a headline like that, would not? Also, the story clearly demonstrated the firm’s creative problem solving ability in a way that no generic description or list ever could. And that’s all you need. No boring lists. No generic descriptions. Just an engaging tale of remarkable accomplishment. The kind you achieve every day.

www.stoneandcompany.net

Creating Buildings That Deliver On Progressively More Ambitious Environmental Goals Will Require Energy Simulations That Reliably Predict Post-Occupancy Consumption

Photo © Lara Swimmer

Higher energy performance has evolved from an aspiration to an expectation. Owners of buildings—especially those certified under rating systems like LEED—increasingly count on an energy savings payback. And a wave of “net zero energy” buildings promises to generate enough energy on-site from renewable sources to equal or exceed demand. As a result, predictive energy models face new scrutiny. “In the last five years, energy modelers have learned that they will have to answer for their models,” says Laurie Canup, an associate with Portland, Oregon–based THA Architecture.

Energy modeling depends on physics-based simulation to predict how energy will flow through a building, taking account of mechanical systems, materials, control schemes, occupants, and weather. The software packages were created to help architects and engineers choose among competing design options, and they do that well. As Matthew Herman, an energy-modeling expert with engineering firm Buro Happold puts it: “The models are more than accurate enough to consistently drive design teams toward the right decision.”

However, predicting the raw kilowatt-hours of electricity or cubic feet of heating fuel that a building will consume is another story. Some recent projects show sizable gaps between prediction and performance. The primary problem is the unpredictable nature of humans. For example, users may occupy a building differently from how they were expected to, while owners routinely skimp on commissioning to find and fix faulty equipment. And building managers may reprogram controls, sacrificing energy performance for occupant comfort. “Modeling isn’t rocket science,” says Dennis Creech, executive director of Atlanta’s Southface Energy Institute. “It’s harder because there are people involved.”

In the past, some modelers exploited the resulting uncertainty by selecting assumptions that yielded trimmer energy predictions. Such “gaming” is on the decline, according to both architects and modelers. “There was a period where people were clearly greenwashing and making crazy claims,” says Herman. “A lot of that stopped during the recession.”

Model Early and Often

Despite the uncertainties and challenges involved, energy modeling has been riding an upswing over the past decade. Mitchell Dec has experienced that first hand. Dec was the only energy modeler at Glumac when he joined the Portland, Oregon–based engineering firm in 2005. In those early years, Dec was brought on to projects primarily after construction documents were already well advanced. His job was to assess whether a design could beat code-mandated performance to improve its LEED rating, and to tweak designs that fell short. “We’d count the beans. We were an afterthought,” he recalls.

Today Dec leads a 13-person energy-modeling group whose members engage at even the earliest stages of design. “Energy modeling early and often is the workflow for buildings that are 50 to 60 percent more efficient than code versus 15 to 20 percent better,” says Dec.

Stefano Schiavon, a modeling expert with the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California, Berkeley, agrees, adding that today’s highest-performing buildings could not exist otherwise. Without simulation, says Schiavon, it is impossible to predict the impact that largely passive energy-saving techniques such as natural ventilation and thermal storage will deliver.

The need to get these passive strategies right is driving software improvements. Older simulation packages such as eQuest are being eclipsed by more powerful tools. Commercial options include Virtual Environment, offered by London-based IES, and the TRNSYS code developed by the University of Wisconsin and applied most notably by German sustainable-design firm Transsolar. A new graphical user interface, meanwhile, is spurring adoption of EnergyPlus—an open-source upgrade of the U.S. Department of Energy modeling engines that underpin eQuest.

Schiavon says that the more sophisticated tools have enhanced capabilities for simulating daylighting and thermal properties and can model in two-to-three-minute intervals rather than hourly. This enables a more accurate understanding of the buoyancy effects that designers might exploit in atriums or solar chimneys, as well as better apprehension of the transfer of heat at work in features such as radiant floors.

High-performance buildings that meet or beat expectations show that models can accurately predict real energy use. Dec cites the 103,000-square-foot Lewis Integrative Science Building at the University of Oregon in Eugene completed in 2012, which was designed by a joint venture of Omaha, Nebraska–based HDR and THA and modeled by Glumac.

One component that involved extensive modeling is the lab building’s glass-covered atrium, where scientists mix and meet. THA wanted to take advantage of buoyancy to condition the three-story space by drawing in air, along with excess heat and cooling from adjacent labs. 

Making it work required extensive computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis to predict air and smoke movements during a fire.

The CFD models showed that passive ventilation alone might not clear smoke from the top level, necessitating ceiling fans to supplement the buoyancy-driven airflow. Nevertheless, even with the fans, the atrium cut the building’s predicted annual energy use per square foot—its energy use intensity or EUI—by 33 kBtus (33,000 British thermal units). Predicted EUI for the entire facility was 168 kBtus per square foot per year—60 percent better than the national average for lab buildings in 2003 and thus meeting the goal of the Architecture 2030 Challenge, which seeks to make new buildings carbon neutral by 2030. After one year of occupation, performance is slightly ahead of expectations, with an EUI of 163.

Tucson-based architect Jerry Yudelson, coauthor of The World’s Greenest Buildings: Promise Versus Performance in Sustainable Design, points to the Research Support Facility at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, which is making good on its net zero design goal. “They’re pretty much right on the money,” says Yudelson. For the support facility’s first phase, which came online in 2010, modelers at engineering firm Stantec predicted an EUI of 35.1 kBtus. It consumed 35.4 during the first two years of operation. The second wing, completed less than one year ago, is beating expectations.

Reality Bites

While models can hit their marks, reality can also outwit simulation. Consider the 58,000-square-foot Health Professions and Student Services Building on the Danvers, Massachusetts, campus of North Shore Community College, which was one of the largest buildings to go for net zero energy when completed in 2011. Boston-based DiMella Shaffer was the architect, RDK Engineers designed the mechanical systems, and Buro Happold delivered energy modeling.

Modeling via EnergyPlus was supplemented with advanced CFD and lighting simulation to evaluate a wide range of options that would maximize on-site energy production and minimize consumption. Modeling showed that a demand for acoustically isolated classrooms precluded passive ventilation, pointing the design team toward a geothermal system instead. The building’s heat pump exchanges thermal energy between 500-foot wells drilled under the parking lot and interior chilled beams.

Modeling also drove the clerestory windows in the upper walls. “Energy modeling proved that it was desirable to have more daylight and thus less electricity running artificial lights,” recalls DiMella Shaffer principal Peter Shaffer.

After two years of occupation, however, the building is not operating at net zero energy. It is consuming 57 kBtu per square foot per year, double the modeled EUI. Offsetting the unexpected consumption would require more than double the 342 kilowatts of photovoltaics (PVs) installed.

The primary issue, says Shaffer, is an inefficient geothermal heat pump, which will be swapped out this winter. More chilled beams will also be installed to accelerate heating and cooling, in response to occupant complaints that prompted managers to keep the entire building conditioned overnight.

Peter Fourtounis, the project’s lead architect and now at Boston’s Elkus Manfredi Architects, adds that post-design decisions, including the addition of a computer lab and higher-than-expected plug loads, contributed to the performance gap. He also points out that the project had been designed for a PV array that was 15 percent larger.

User behavior has had a more positive impact on energy use at Hawaii Preparatory Academy’s Energy Laboratory in Kamuela, designed by Boston-based Flansburgh Architects, with energy modeling by Buro Happold. The building, completed in 2010, was shaped to enhance natural ventilation using CFD analysis. The structure backs into the prevailing wind, and air forced over its shed roofs creates negative pressure, pulling fresh air through automated louvers and windows. The results of that passive scheme, coupled with solar power, far exceed the building’s net zero energy goal. The building is operating without any mechanical cooling and consuming just over half as much energy as predicted.

What did the modeling miss? The site’s microclimate has been milder than Buro Happold’s assumptions, which were based on weather data collected on-site during design and from the nearby airport. But the bigger piece, according to Herman, is that the occupants tolerate conditions that are hotter and more humid than those outlined in ASHRAE Standard 55, which defines a range of indoor thermal conditions acceptable to most people. “They just wear Hawaiian shirts all the time. Even up to 82 or 83 degrees, they are still perfectly comfortable and don’t turn on the AC,” he says.

Occupant behavior was also a surprise for the historic warehouse renovation in Portland, Oregon, that architects GBD and Ankrom Moisan designed for Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas. The LEED Platinum–targeted project, completed in 2012, is slightly ahead of modeled energy performance overall, but the pattern of use was unanticipated, says Dec at Glumac, the project’s energy modeler: electricity consumption is about two thirds of what was modeled, while gas use runs 10 to 20 times higher in heating season.

Dec attributes the low power use, in part, to the behavior of reflected light. It’s a weak point for energy models, and the building’s daylit atrium is simply directing more light into adjacent offices than predicted. But he says bigger savings come from the ever-increasing efficiency of office computing equipment, which he calls a moving target.

Better office equipment and less electric lighting help explain the increased gas use, says Dec. With lighting and machines contributing less heat in cold weather, natural gas-fired heating has to make up the difference.

Feeding Back

Vestas got lucky, since lower power use more than offsets their increased gas consumption. Assuring greater accuracy up front, however, will require a closer fit between the assumptions modelers make and the behavior that follows.

Last year the Seattle-based New Buildings Institute offered one solution: national guidelines for those parameters not already defined by codes or standards. Mark Frankel, the institute’s technical director, says they based their COMNET guidelines on informed analysis of such factors as the number of computers in offices and how many stay on overnight.

Another accuracy-boosting strategy is to extend the model’s use beyond the design process. Modelers can help tune control systems, educate building users, and identify equipment malfunctions. Extended modeling is one reason NREL’s new structures are performing, says Tom Hootman, director of sustainability for Denver-based RNL, the project architect. Updated “as-built” energy models of each wing delivered by Stantec following construction give NREL what Hootman calls “a road map for net zero energy operation.”

Future projects benefit too, since prolonged involvement creates a feedback loop for validation of modeling tools and assumptions. A growing number of designers argue that, at the very least, design and engineering contracts should require owners to share post-occupancy energy data. Yudelson notes that such feedback is one key to meeting the stringent goals of the Architecture 2030 Challenge. “There’s a lot of learning that’s got to take place in the next five years,” he says. “This is serious stuff, and we’re not treating it seriously.”

By Peter Fairley

Establishing Credibility

Inspiring Trust in Others

Ensure that you build credibility on firm foundations.

Would you attend a training course run by someone with no experience of his subject?

Would you buy from a sales professional who had previously let you down?

Or, would you go "above and beyond" for a leader who didn't routinely keep her word?

Chances are, you'd answer "no" to all of these questions. If you're going to invest your time, energy, and enthusiasm with someone, you want that person to be credible and worthy of your trust.

But what is credibility? Why is it important? And, how can you build it?

In this article, we'll answer these questions, and we'll look at why being credible is so important for a successful career.

What is Credibility?

The root of the word "credibility" is "credo," which means "I believe" in Latin. Put simply, credibility is the feeling of trust and respect that you inspire in others.

No single thing creates credibility. Rather, a combination of things must be in place for you to establish it.

Why is Credibility Important?

Think about a time when you worked under a leader who had credibility. Chances are that she energized and excited her entire team. You knew that she would do the right things for the right reasons, and you trusted her judgment.

Credible leaders attract enthusiastic and committed followers, and people want to work for them. But credibility is important in many areas, not just in leadership roles.

For instance, sales professionals need credibility to be successful – people don't want to buy from someone they don't trust, or from a person who doesn't know about his product.

You also need credibility when you give presentations, deliver training, and sell your ideas. 

How to Build Credibility

No matter what your role or position, credibility is something that you have to earn. It takes time, patience, and consistency to build it. Follow the tips below to establish credibility.

Build Character

If credibility were a pyramid, then your character and integrity would make up the foundation.

To build character, first identify the core values   that you won't violate – people with strong character stand up for what they believe in, even when it goes against popular opinion. Spend time getting to know yourself and what you care about most, and be willing to defend your values and choices.

Integrity   is also essential for credibility. You need to be known as someone who does the right things for the right reasons.

To preserve your integrity, think carefully about the choices and promises that you make, and never make a promise or commitment that you can't keep. When you make a mistake, own up to it immediately, and do whatever it takes to correct it.

You also need to be authentic. People who are authentic do what they say; there's no mystery about their intentions, or about how those intentions might translate to their actions. This is why it's important to know yourself inside and out, and to demonstrate authenticity in everything that you do.

Develop Expertise

The more expertise you have and can demonstrate, the greater your credibility.

To build expertise, choose a single area that is fundamentally important to your role, organization, or industry. This will help you focus your efforts and ensure that you don't become overwhelmed. For example, if you're in engineering, you could develop an expert knowledge of the materials that your products use, and you could then build out from this.

Also, make sure that you stay up-to-date on your industry. When you're informed about industry trends and developments, people will trust your judgment.

While your reputation for expertise is important, it's just as important to protect it   and acknowledge what you don't know. When you guess, or operate in areas outside of your expertise without informing others, you run the risk of giving out false information, making bad decisions, and being shown to be wrong. This can undermine your reputation for expertise, and damage your credibility.

Tip:

Be careful in how you communicate your expertise; you don't want others to see you as arrogant or as a know-it-all. Stay humble about your accomplishments, and develop your emotional intelligence, so that you can communicate in a sensitive way.

Be Transparent

People trust what they can see. When you're open and honest, others don't have to guess what your motivations or intentions are.

Keep this in mind when you interact with your clients, team, or suppliers. You inspire trust when you talk openly about your intentions, values, and goals.

Also, keep the lines of communication open, especially when you have bad news   to share.

Self-disclosure, when you reveal information about yourself to others, is an important part of transparency. For instance, one study found that college professors who shared personal information were perceived as more credible than those who didn't. (The Johari Window   concept helps you think about how you can build trust with self-disclosure.)

Communicate Clearly

Your communication skills play an important role in your credibility. For example, people who listen attentively and make thoughtful, informed comments are often seen as more credible than those who don't listen well, or those who speak thoughtlessly.

Start by strengthening your active listening skills. When people are speaking, give them your full attention, and ask questions to clarify anything that you don't understand.

When communicating with others, speak clearly and confidently. Don't use industry jargon   to make yourself sound more knowledgeable – instead, focus on eliminating barriers to communication, so that your listeners clearly understand your message. Also, don't exaggerate facts or stories; stick to the truth.

Be Professional

Have you ever worked with bosses, clients, or colleagues who were unprofessional? Perhaps they did a poor job controlling their emotions under stress. They might have disrespected others, failed to "do the detail," or made little effort with their appearance.

Professionalism   is an important element in credibility because it shows others that you truly care about your relationships and your work.

To exhibit professionalism, control your emotions at work. Don't lash out at others when you're tired, stressed, or frustrated. When you're in an argument or negotiation, don't take others' comments or opinions personally. Do your best to remain objective, and keep emotion out of the discussion.

Come to work well-dressed. It might seem like a small matter, but how you present yourself says a lot about who you are and how you feel about yourself. When you dress in a professional and appropriate manner, you'll likely find that your self-confidence and self-respect get a boost as well.

Also, meet the deadlines that you've been set, always deliver high-quality work, and don't make excuses when you haven't performed well.

Key Points

You establish credibility when you inspire trust in others, and it's important to your success, no matter what role you're in. It's especially important if you're in a leadership role.

To build your credibility, demonstrate honesty and integrity in everything that you do.

Work on building expertise, be transparent, be professional, and communicate clearly.

By Tom Hallett and the Mind Tools Team

Modular Classroom Makeover

New designs for portable school buildings make improvements that are more than cosmetic.

Photo © Laurel McConnell

The mention of “portable” classrooms—or any similar term—puts fear into the hearts of parents with school-age children. Regardless of whether you call them portable, modular, or temporary classrooms, they conjure up unwelcome images of shoebox-like structures with few windows, stuffy air, and noisy and ineffective mechanical systems. But now several design firms, nonprofit organizations, and prefab building companies are developing improved portable classrooms that address these problems and allow schools to expand quickly and sustainably

Although there isn't much current literature addressing the performance of portable classrooms, older research supports this dubious reputation. One study conducted in 2004 by the California Air Resources Board and the state's Department of Health Services found a much higher instance of environmental problems in the relocatable units as compared with permanently built school buildings. The investigation documented conditions such as inadequate ventilation, excessive noise, poor thermal comfort, low lighting levels, and high concentrations of formaldehyde.

Despite these shortcomings, many school systems can't do without portable units. According to the trade association the Modular Building Institute (MBI), across the U.S. about 260,000 classrooms are in “relocatable” buildings—buildings that are designed to be reused multiple times on different sites and are partially or completely constructed in a manufacturing facility. The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that a third of American schools have such classrooms.

These classrooms exist because they fulfill critical needs. Districts can respond to fluctuations in enrollment quickly and cost-effectively. Since almost all of the construction occurs off-site, portables ordered in the spring can easily be built and installed over summer break. And because they are generally less expensive than traditionally constructed schools, the units can often be paid for with funds from operations and maintenance budgets, allowing districts to avoid the lengthy and uncertain bond-approval process. “There are many good reasons portable schools exist,” says Margarette Leite, a principal at the Portland, Oregon–based architecture firm Palleroni Leite Design Partnership (PLDP). Leite and fellow PLDP principal Sergio Palleroni have designed (along with others, including architecture and engineering students at Portland State University, where both teach) a higher-performing alternative to the typical modular school.

Palleroni and Leite's classroom, which they have dubbed SAGE for “Smart Academic Green Environment,” features an efficient mechanical system that depends on an energy-recovery ventilator, materials with no or very low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and ample daylighting through clerestory windows. Following the debut of a prototype in late 2012 at the U.S. Green Building Council's Greenbuild conference in San Francisco, the first SAGE classroom will be installed later this winter at a Waldorf School in Corvallis, Oregon. But it is not the only option for schools looking for ways to expand quickly and sustainably. Several design firms, nonprofit organizations, and prefab building companies are also developing improved portable classrooms that already have begun to attract orders from both independent schools and public school districts.

For example, a new charter school in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia, is planning an entire campus made out of Sprout Space units. Designed by Perkins+Will, the Sprout includes elements intended to promote student health and productivity such as architectural-grade storefront glazing, dimmable LED lighting controlled by daylight and occupancy sensors, and marker boards and tack surfaces as substitutes for typical finishes.

And Project Frog, a San Francisco–based developer of component building systems established in 2006, is in the midst of fulfilling its largest contract to date—more than 250,000 square feet of educational facilities on 15 different campuses in the South San Francisco Unified School District (SSFUSD). The buildings are designed to perform 40 percent better than Title 24, California's strict energy code, mandates.

Project Frog developed the panelized system it is deploying at SSFUSD in collaboration with HMC Architects—a firm that specializes in education facilities, among other building types. The system relies on load-bearing wall sections with electrical chases included, laminated wood beams, and an acoustical metal ceiling and roof deck that acts as a structural diaphragm. These elements are fabricated in a factory and flat-packed for transport to the site, where they are erected on top of an on-grade slab. “This component assembly approach is derived from the lean manufacturing techniques used by companies like Boeing and Toyota,” says Ash Notaney, Project Frog executive vice president of product and innovation.

Arguably, the portable classroom with the most ambitious set of performance goals is the one developed by the Seattle-based nonprofit SEED Collaborative. The SEED (Sustainable Education Every Day) is designed to meet the criteria of the Living Building Challenge—a “beyond LEED” building certification program administered by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI). In order to earn Living Building designation, a project must satisfy 20 tough-to-achieve “imperatives.” Among these is a requirement for net zero energy: the building must produce enough renewable energy on-site to meet or exceed demand on an annual basis. It must also comply with the Challenge's materials standards prohibiting the use of 14 potentially toxic substances on the certification program's Red List. Many, such as formaldehyde and PVC, are commonplace in building materials and prevalent in conventional portable classrooms.

A prototype SEED manufactured by Method Prefab—an off-site builder of homes and commercial structures—was displayed as part of an ILFI conference held in Seattle last April. The 32-by-28-foot classroom has a durable building envelope with a high R-value (a measure of thermal resistance or insulating value). It is made of structural insulated panels exposed on the interior and clad on the exterior with a fiber-cement rainscreen. Additional features include triple-glazed windows, a photovoltaic (PV) array, and a composting toilet.

The prototype has been purchased by the Perkins School, an 80-student independent elementary school for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, located in Northeast Seattle. Once the permitting process is complete and the unit installed, Perkins plans to use it as a science classroom. Part of what made the SEED so attractive was the learning opportunity afforded by its clearly evident structure, visible electrical conduits, and a digital dashboard. This will allow students to track the electricity generated by a 6-kilowatt PV array, to be mounted on the roof of an adjacent building, as well as energy consumption. “The classroom inspires kids to look around them and think about intelligent design,” says school head Barry Wright. These features also made fundraising relatively easy: the school was able to raise $130,000, about half of what is needed to buy and install the SEED, in less than three weeks, “because the concept is so intriguing,” explains Wright.

The SEED classroom isn't the only green modular conceived as a three-dimensional teaching aid. For instance, teachers can point to the butterfly roof that tops Perkins+Will's Sprout and describe how it funnels rainwater for irrigation to two 50-gallon storage cisterns. Similarly, the expansion and contraction of a fabric duct suspended just below the Sprout's ceiling helps students understand how their classroom is heated, cooled, and ventilated.

The recent crop of higher-performing modular classrooms share more than a pedagogical philosophy—in fact, these new portable schoolrooms have more similarities than differences. With the exception of the Project Frog buildings, which are made up of a panelized kit-of-parts, a single classroom is generally formed from two long and narrow units whose dimensions respond to the limitations of what can be hauled by a semi-truck over bridges and roadways. The portable classrooms typically have simple shed roofs, or a variation on a shed roof, tweaked to maximize the opportunities for windows and daylighting. Structural elements are often left exposed—a strategy that not only allows teachers to explain what is holding the building up but also eliminates unnecessary materials. This approach helps keep costs in check and reduces the number of potential sources of VOCs. Those basic finishes that are included, such as linoleum flooring or carpet tile, are carefully vetted so that they do not negatively affect indoor air quality.

In addition, the green portables are designed for much longer lifespans than the typical relocatable units, which are intended for only 5 or 10 years of use—though in reality they often stay in place much longer. The SAGE, for instance, is a 50-year building, according to its designers. And although its superstructure is wood, its floor framing is steel—a feature that should make the unit easy to move multiple times, enhancing its longevity.

Although the developers of the green portables try hard to keep costs down, features like high-performance glazing, ultra-efficient mechanical systems, and extra insulation typically make them more expensive than standard-issue modular units. Leite estimates that in Portland, an 1,800-square-foot, two-classroom SAGE would be about $160,000, excluding foundations and site work, while a standard two-classroom portable building would cost about $125,000 in the same market. The cost of the SEED is comparable to site-built construction, according to Stacy Smedley, the SEED Collaborative's executive director. (At Perkins, the 900-square foot SEED will cost about $260,000 installed.) However, the classroom should pay for itself in operation and maintenance savings in only 11 years, she says.

Project Frog would not disclose the construction budget for the classrooms it is erecting in South San Francisco. However, the company maintains that the buildings' cost is equal to permanent modular construction (factory-built units installed on permanent foundations). But it still has the advantage of being high in quality and fast to complete. The on-site work for the district's almost 200 Project Frog buildings will extend over three summer breaks but total only 8 or 9 months, estimates James “Larry” Scott, the SSFUSD bond manager. Conventional new construction would have required a year and a half, he says.

Whether a schoolroom is delivered to the site as an almost-complete modular unit or in smaller prefabricated components, the architect's role is different from that of traditional brick-and-mortar construction. In the case of the Sprout Space unit, for example, Perkins+Will has licensed the design to a distributor, Triumph Modular. An interested school would enter into a contract directly with Triumph, who would in turn subcontract with a fabricator close to the site. For each unit sold, Perkins+Will will earn a royalty, explains Allen Post, Perkins+Will's Sprout Space team leader. But the architects may not have any subsequent involvement with the project—unless the client wants the standard unit customized, or desires the firm to design the site surrounding the classroom. In both cases, Perkins+Will would perform these services under a separate contract.

Although the architect's responsibilities may be different when modular construction is involved, the goal is the same, says Post. “We are trying to up the game and improve both temporary and permanent classrooms,” he says. The objective is to make them “healthy, sustainable, and flexible.”

Perkins+Will's Sprout Space, along with SEED, SAGE, and Project Frog, all have shared constraints and common design goals. Although the results can't be described as iconic architecture, this new generation of portables provides energy-efficient and daylight-filled environments that are conducive to learning. “The goal was never to make the sexiest modular classroom,” says Leite of the SAGE unit. “It was to make an alternative to the everyday modular classroom.” Phil Harrison, Perkins+Will CEO, echoes Leite's sentiment when he characterizes the aim of the Sprout Space: “If you want to make a difference, you have to make something that will be viable in the marketplace—something extremely pragmatic.”

By Joann Gonchar, AIA

This Post Will Make You A More Effective Communicator In 90 Seconds

I've recently been doing a bit of research on space exploration.

The hunt has inevitably led me to stories about SpaceX founder (and billionaire genius) Elon Musk, a man whose mission to colonize Mars has led to the development of self-landing rockets, among other innovations over the last few years.

In the course of geeking out about such rocketry, I stumbled across two Musk interviews that inadvertently illustrate one of the biggest conversational mistakes — and missed opportunities — I see people make every day. Coincidentally, they're both by men named Rose: Kevin Rose, founder of Digg and partner at Google Ventures, and Charlie Rose, the veteran PBS/CBS interview host. Each had the chance to interview one of today's most fascinating innovators, but one of them succeeded in a slightly more enlightening (and less awkward) interview.

The difference was in the questions they asked, and specifically how they asked them. See if you can spot what's going on:

Kevin: What led you into entrepreneurship? Was it something that you always knew that you wanted to be, an entrepreneur on your own? Or did you stumble into it?

Charlie: What are you doing in terms of planetary exploration?

Kevin: Where do you come up with your best ideas? Are you on vacation, or do you wake up in the middle of the night and draw things down?

Charlie: How did you go about the design?

Kevin: When did you decide to get into computers and technology? Did you start coding? Or was it a lot of...?

Charlie: What do you think?

Can you guess which interview went better?

You can see the interviews for yourself here and here if you're interested (this snippet about global warming here is fantastic). But you probably won't be surprised when I tell you that Charlie Rose's interview was more interesting, and came across as significantly more professional. The man is great at asking questions and getting out of the way; he uses short, open-ended questions when he wants elaboration, and short, yes-or-no questions when he wants to be pointed.

Kevin Rose, on the other hand, ends every question in the interview with a series of possible answers. Instead of performing an interview, he administers a multiple-choice exam. In the process, he not only uses time that his interview subject could spend talking, but also misses out on serendipitous conversational outcomes. With the multiple-choice question format, you simply water the conversation down.

We all do this. "What are you doing for the holidays? Are you staying in town, or are you going somewhere, or do you have to work? "

This usually occurs because people have a hard time ending sentences. We are uncomfortable with terseness. So we ramble until we trail off, or until the other person jumps in. Instead of, What do you think?, we say, Do you think x, y, z, q, r or...

Once you start paying attention to this it will drive you nuts. We don't tend to notice the multiple-choice problem in ourselves until we're in a situation like a sit-down interview, recorded for all the Internet to see, when suddenly the repeat effect of the struggle-to-suggest-options-because-I-don't-know-how-to-stop becomes really... well, irritating!

(Of course, the Musk interviews are a good example but not a fair comparison. Charlie's been at this for decades. Kevin is a very smart guy, and his Foundation series is quite good. 

The interviewee lineup is spectacular – albeit male-heavy – and he unearths some pretty interesting backstories. His Q&A skill will increase as with all interviewers, and he's going to discover in the course of interviewing people what great interrogators know: the interviewee will always suggest more interesting answers than you can.)

As a journalist-turned-entrepreneur, I've written a few times about the skills that businesspeople can pick up from reporters. The art of asking great questions is one of the most frequently useful. (I elaborate on my rules for better Q&A, whether in a formal interview or a simple conversation, in an old Fast Company post here.)

The #1 tip for asking better questions? Cut them off at the question mark.

Those better, terser questions will make you a better conversationalist, a more effective information-gatherer, a more efficient speaker and perhaps paradoxically, a more pleasant communicator.

It takes will power to be concise. But effective questions will double your conversational effectiveness, and just might make you a little more interesting yourself.

So... what do you think?

Shane Snow
Journalist, Geek, CCO of Contently