We, at Donald Aitken Associates, have dedicated our lives to helping individuals and companies, communities and cities, states and nations, fulfill their missions and goals through policies and buildings that are in harmony and balance with the Earth's natural systems. We believe that we are, thus, contributing to sustainability in the truest sense, while enhancing the quality of life of our clients and the strength and stability of their cultural and economic support systems. |
![]() Services Provided by Donald Aitken Associates The benefits of retaining the LEED™ Accredited Professionals of Donald Aitken Associates as consultants will depend, of course, on the nature and goals of your project. It will also rest on your own understanding of, and enthusiasm for, sustainability. The following two sections can help you determine your interest. And, for idea of what we can do by what we have done, read our bios (the buttons are on your left.) Or skip directly to the design services we offer. What is designing for sustainability? Sustainability is usually defined as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations. Donald Aitken Associates recognizes that "needs" remains undefined and could be interpreted as either the barest of life-support essentials or profligate waste by affluent societies. We, therefore, define sustainability on the basis of passing the integrity of essential natural ecosystems on to future generations, since all economies and human societies depend directly upon healthy ecological resources. Included in our aims is the re-vitalization of natural systems for our living environment in a framework in which humans are totally integrated and non-disruptive. Our designs and policies seek to be simultaneously beneficial to natural habitats, to all life support systems, and to human habitats and economies. We draw for our resources and energy systems upon the Earth's ever-replenished (renewable) resources. What do I need to know about the concepts of "sustainability" in order to include them in my project? Probably not a lot more than logic tells you. For example, the United States has less than 4% of its original native forestland left. Clear-cutting has scarred hillsides in many forests. Yet many American builders still think they should be able to build poor quality wood frame homes that last 30 years or so and then will be torn down and dumped in landfills, so that new homes can be built on the same sites, wasting precious resources and trees! Profitable for builders, stimulating for the economy, and devastating to the environment. Wood is a wonderful resource. Properly designed wooden buildings can last for centuries, and the wood from demolitions can build new buildings. There is also profit in building for durability and in reusing building materials. If this is all obvious to you, then you understand one of the basic principles of "sustainability" applied to residential construction methods and materials. The burning of fossil fuels to provide for everything from comfort and light in buildings to driving inefficient vehicles is, according to the overwhelming majority of responsible climate scientists, and to the consternation of the major insurance companies in the world, apparently changing our climate in environmentally and economically destructive ways. Human habitat should require the minimum of external resources for heating and cooling comfort, lighting, and appliances and office machines through energy efficient design and product selection, and the use of locally available indigenous and renewable energy resources. Design for human habitat should include no waste that cannot be assimilated through natural processes, and should not require the use or introduction of unhealthy materials either into the building interior or the environment. If this is obvious to you, then you already understand more of the basic principles of sustainable building design. A full two-thirds of the nation's electricity is used in buildings, mostly in commercial buildings. Commercial buildings account for one-third of the nation's emissions of climate-changing gases into the environment. And the quality of the interior environment in buildings is usually far less healthy than outdoors. Yet "whole building" design allows us to reduce the environmental impacts by 50% or more while creating much healthier buildings, generally for an extra cost ranging from 2% down to nothing. Daylighting and healthy indoor air enhance the performance of the occupants of those buildings. If this makes sense to you, the design principles of "sustainability" applied to commercial buildings will be easy for you to grasp and stimulating to your creativity. Methods for reducing fossil fuel use, and hence reducing the contribution of transportation to this global problem, are also readily available through community design. Buildings and communities can reduce the impact of vehicles by providing safe pathways for human feet and bicycles, or simply reducing "fossil fuel miles traveled" by integrating home, work and stores into the same communities and structures. Human habit should build communities that are neighborhoods, integrating building sites and walkway design to promote friendly interaction, keeping cars, garages, driveways and access roads out of the way of people. Valuable additional elements to introduce, where possible, are natural corridors for wildlife, community gardens, and local agriculture for local consumption. If this all sounds attractive to you, then you are clearly being drawn to the human benefits of sustainable community design. Environmental Planning must seek to answer every question about present and future needs of human habitat and its environment as part of any development and building process. Nothing can be left to chance if the earth's delicate ecosystems are to survive at a level healthy enough to support the needs of future human populations and economies. You already have that understanding on an intuitive level. Donald Aitken Associates will help you to bring that understanding into your project. What are the actual services that Donald Aitken Associates provides? All of the factors briefly outlined above, and many more, are taken into account by Donald Aitken Associates, working in close collaboration with clients to balance these objectives with their particular needs, interests and constraints (including economic) and the unique conditions of their building site(s). To achieve sustainability cost-effectively, all factors involved in designing and constructing a building must be considered during the initial planning stages. The factors that we always consider, and the related services that we provide, are the following:
The actual scope of responsibilities by Donald Aitken Associates, and all related fees and costs, are discussed and agreed upon at the inception of the project. [top]
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