Process to Product
Sustainability has begun to permeate every aspect of the design and construction of buildings and infrastructure. Weidlinger’s role as structural and civil engineer is to support and advance the green agendas of architects, built-environment professionals, public agencies, and private developers by optimizing structural systems and materials and synergizing the contributions of the various A/E disciplines. Weidlinger embraces the LEED rating system as a guide to current best practice and as a direct expression of its commitment to sustainable solutions. Concurrently, the firm is engaged in a process of discovering and applying the cutting-edge materials, systems, and analytical tools that will define best practice in the future.
Weidlinger’s immediate sustainability commitment is to clients and projects. Our engineers regularly design sustainable structures, from green and blue roofs to underground water retention systems, and assess available materials based on their life-cycle environmental impact. They integrate site/civil and underground utilities solutions with green building systems and combine green solutions with multihazard protection against earthquakes, high winds, and blast. They also seek opportunities to quantify the embodied carbon advantage of retrofit, reuse, and recycling; to increase flexibility of new structures to facilitate renovation; and to collaborate with architects in designing aesthetically pleasing sustainable structures.
Although structural and civil engineering has been underemphasized in sustainable design to date, Weidlinger hopes to reverse this trend. Comparing alternatives and quantifying risk are two ways structural and civil engineers can help a team sort through the tradeoffs required to produce the optimal green structure. Beyond a project-by-project approach, however, we believe that new structural ideas will be required to substantially reduce the environmental effects of construction and maintenance, which are currently responsible for almost 20% of a building’s lifetime energy consumption.
To encourage innovative research, Weidlinger fosters a technically robust and passionate culture of sustainability within the firm, which draws on historic strengths in researching and applying new technologies, developing national codes and standards, and creating advanced analysis software. Weidlinger’s growing commitment to sustainability is promoted by a “voluntary army” of green designers and researchers who work as a group to advance in-house education, investigate topics of interest, implement sustainable office practices, and seek relationships with other built-environment professionals who share their enthusiasm.