Karl Heitman has green cred.
As president and founder of Heitman Architects, he designed the first privately owned LEED Certified industrial building in the State of Illinois for Anixter. He has designed the largest LEED CI – Gold facility in the US for Kraft Foods in Morris, Ill. Heitman Architects completed two regional distribution facilities for BMW; one in Illinois, the other in Pennsylvania; which both earned a LEED NC – Silver designation. Recently, his LEED NC -Gold facility for S. C. Johnson in Sturtevant WI was awarded NAIOP’s National 2009 Sustainable Development Award
Recently, Heitman sat down with Mark Thomton, editor of Chicago Industrial Properties, to discuss the latest in green design, how it has weathered the recession, and, what it may hold in the future. The following is a portion of their conversation.
Why did you want to become an architect?
I would have been an artist, but it was more practical to be an architect. I like drawing and I do a lot of still life drawing. I still practice quite a bit. I have four children who have all gone into the arts.
It was a foregone conclusion by the time I graduated high school (becoming an architect). I really enjoy it. I did love math, which is one of the basic skill sets, and I love problem solving. I also enjoy the artistic side of it. I never thought about being an industrial architect, but I happened to be in Chicago at the right time.
What has your business been focusing on during the recession?
A lot of our focus the last two years has been nontraditional architectural work. We are focusing on optimization for corporations to reduce their overall footprint and real estate cost. It has to do with optimizing the functionality of the buildings. Operating costs on buildings are one of the biggest costs that corporations deal with.
Is it fair to say that the green movement has not lost any steam in the recession or has cost issues hindered it?
The way the people on the forefront are looking at it is if you are going to build today, you have to build responsibly. 
You are going to build the most efficient building that you can. The legislation in Illinois has raised the bar. The energy code here is stricter than the baseline LEED requirement. I think everyone who is building will do it efficiently.
Was this even an area of focus 10-15 years ago?
When I was in college in the late 1970s it was a big topic of conversation. We had an energy crisis then and it really put these issues on the front burner for a lot of architectural students. We were all talking about things like passive solar buildings. That was all forgotten in the 1980s because energy costs were down and the economy was flourishing. Now, in this recession, it is foremost on everybody’s mind. We lost a lot of skills we had prior to World War II. Then, buildings were built without air conditioners and with a lot of natural lighting. You relied on a lot of natural lighting and cross ventilation. Now we are basically building refrigerated boxes that you have to pump air through.
When you work with clients, what are the first 2-3 things you attempt to incorporate right away that can help them operate more efficiently?
You have to start with an efficient footprint. You have to reduce your building size to meet the demands of the client and still be highly efficient. Insulation value is very important. Windows and how you site them–if they are high performance glass–that is something you want to put in the building right off the bat. Insulation values on roofs are very important. The next hurdle is lighting. You want to get high-efficient lighting. LED lights are coming on, but they are not quite cost effective yet. You also need to use equipment that has a high Energy Star rating. The other part of it is how do you measure and monitor performance? We look at control of the lighting. Can you get by with less light during the day and rely on outside light? The same can be done with temperature controls. We are seeing building management systems come into play that can actually control the energy use in the buildings. That is long-term savings.
Companies want to see results. What can they expect to see by taking these measures?
You can see results immediately. If you are in a high performance building, energy costs may drop 15 percent right off the bat. For buildings that have higher demand or are operating 24 hours a day, the savings can be even greater. It is relative to the building use.
Moving forward, are sustainable elements that were considered optional in the past going to become standard?
I think so. It is so embedded now in our culture. Everyone realizes that being captive by foreign oil is a problem. Everyone has accepted it.
Consumers deal with resource prices at the pump, how have resources affected what you do?
Material usage is a big part of the green movement. A part of it is using local materials. The steel that we use is all 100 percent recycled content steel. Wood we use is certified material that is coming from a renewable resource farm.
The stewardship on that side has increased…
It has. Resources have definitely changed over the last 10 years.
How do you keep up with new technologies?
It is changing so fast that we really can’t keep up with all of it. We rely a lot on our suppliers and the contacts that we have to bring us up to speed. You have to hire consultants and talk to suppliers who are on the cutting edge.
What are some of the technologies or practices that are emerging that really excite you?
Anything that is passive in building design is pretty exciting for me. We are looking at new technology for light tubes that captivate sunlight and spread it throughout the building. That will save energy and it is very economical to install. Solar control on windows and captivating daylight through them has a lot of creative solutions. Opening up the working environment to better air quality actually reduces costs, because a lot of the green concepts are to reduce materials such as adhesives. This also makes the working environment healthier. That is exciting.
How does new software help you in this endeavor?
It is a different aspect of greening. We are on the forefront of leveraging design technology. We can incorporate full, virtual 3D environment design. We can use the Web to design buildings with clients all over the world and we are not traveling to do it. We are working in China, Paris, and Dublin on projects that we would not normally have done, but because we are leveraging technology we are in locations we have never thought that we would be.
Another thing that is developing through this technology that we use is consolidating all of the suppliers within the building stream. We are working more collaboratively with engineers, contractors and subcontractors. The owners also get involved with facility management. Creating virtual models of buildings that everyone can participate in serves clients beyond occupancy. Another tool we are working with is laser scanning. We can scan the entire building and create a model of that building within a millimeter of accuracy. Once that building is put into a computer model, you can do energy analysis and run all kinds of simulations on it. You can study efficiencies and solar loads. We can really fine tune the buildings. We participated on a pilot project in Washington D.C. We took the laser scan and converted it to a BIM model. Through the analysis the building was able to improve its energy use by 40 percent.
When you look at U.S. building standards, how do we compare to the rest of the world?
I think that we are behind the curve in terms of adopting technologies. Higher energy costs in Europe have created higher demand for energy efficient buildings. In terms of green roofs, Chicago is one of the leading green roof cities in the country, but in terms of industrial buildings in Germany, 15 percent of all the roofs there are vegetative roofs. There is a big difference, but we are catching up. Asia is labor intensive in their construction techniques, but they are leveraging dense construction. That is something that we are starting to see here. Populations are moving back to the cities. We are looking to consolidate within existing infrastructures. It saves a lot on utilities and transportation costs. That is a trend that will continue. That is what you are seeing in China now. We worked on a prototype industrial building that was based on a Chinese building in the U.S. It was a five-story distribution building. It was very unusual. Depending upon land costs, it may hit our shores.
How far can the green movement go?
Some leaders in green design are building facilities that have a net positive effect. They are creating more energy than they use. The water that leaves the building is cleaner than the water that came in. That is really the goal on the leading edge. It’s giving back. That is really a goal we should strive for in the future. It is more than sustainability. If someone says that their marriage is sustainable that is not a very good answer. It has to be something beyond that. It has to be more positive than just sustaining. That is how we should look at our design environment.
What are you hearing about potential industrial development?
We are really encouraged that the market is coming back. It has started with companies that have a pent up need. We had companies that went dark on us in November of 2008 and have turned back on almost like a light switch this year. They have decided to move forward with renovations, additions, or build-to-suits. We have a few clients in the manufacturing industry who have decided to double the size of their facilities. We think there is going to be a real rebirth of manufacturing in the U.S. It’s like a perfect storm. Fuel costs are requiring manufacturers to operate closer to consumers to reduce transportation costs. Quality and security of products are more relevant and we are seeing that quality control coming out of the Pacific is less than desirable. Labor costs are rising in China as well. It makes it more difficult to control quality and price. Products now become obsolete faster. People buy new cell phones every year. We have clients who have 20 percent of their inventory obsolete, because of the time it gets here from China. In my mind, that will change things to make manufacturing more decentralized.
