SUSTAINABLE BUILDING DESIGN
What is presently referred to as sustainable building design is not new. All ancient cultures worked with the materials at hand and planned their buildings to take advantage of the sun's winter warmth, or to be sheltered from the summer sun. What is new, is that with extreme population growth, combined with our reliance on non-renewable natural resources, we have acquired an urgent awareness that modern buildings should be designed to be self-sufficient and to conserve precious energy resources.
Since establishing our Arizona practice in the late 1960s, Gresham & Beach has concerned ourselves with issues affecting how buildings should be designed and constructed in a dry and harsh landscape. Our overarching goal has always been to design structures that maintain value for our clients. Appropriate building designs for our desert climate dictate proper building positioning; use of durable and local materials and colors; shade structures that enhance, as well as expand usability; and the incorporation of new technologies and design techniques that can reduce energy consumption. These features are inherent in all of Gresham & Beach's work.
This attitude is consistent with the current interest in a more focused and active use of sustainable design. Our philosophy is to always be ready to offer sustainable design solutions, where it is cost effective and attractive to our clients. Passive sustainable design measures seldom add significant cost to any project. But more active applications of sustainable design require that we evaluate the life cycle cost benefits and that we proceed only with our clients' best short- and long-term interests in mind.
