"We sustain our working experience on facing new challenges that most people believe they can't be resolved. We are design pioneers in ecological architecture in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean Region. Our team has designed or collaborated on important LEED-certified projects. Sustainable design is embedded in our team’s work ethic, and we apply energy and environmental design criteria to each project, enabling our clients to identify opportunities to optimize energy efficiency, obtain LEED certification or pursue other sustainability opportunities depending on their organization’s goals.
We endeavor to go beyond just being good at our jobs to solve problems with practical solutions, searching for opportunities to reach the project’s true potential. Our commitment goes beyond a single project. We seek to build long-term, high-quality client relationships, acting as a trusted advisor who can successfully guide them through the process to meet new challenges. Our team shares these fundamental beliefs:
In the positive, transformative power of great architecture to help regenerate our communities and our economy, now and into the future. That the definition of “sustainable design” must reach beyond the energy and environmental design techniques of the day to embrace the defining essence of an idea or culture, and hold it intact over generations. That high-performance green building projects can be successfully delivered within conventional budgets and tight schedules through an integrative process that unites clients, designers, and builders as an interdisciplinary team working in close creative collaboration."
PERSONAL COMMITMENT “I think that the experience of design and building should be both exciting and fun, with dynamic energy flowing from mutual inspiration and close collaboration between the client, the designer, and the builder. This is the stuff that makes the most successful project.
The most important element in any project is first to listen deeply to our clients and build a relationship where our clients regard us as their trusted advisors. For this, we need to fully explore our client’s vision to define the project scope and successfully manage the project team through the entire project process. In this way, we can meet our client’s goals and go beyond expectations.”
BACKGROUND Vincent Pieri has lived in Puerto Rico since 1988. In 2003 he founded PIERI + ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS. He is a leader in green building and design excellence, with a proven track record of delivering successful high performance and LEED-certified green building projects within conventional budgets and tight schedules.
PROJECT APPROACH His background in architecture, project management, and integrating ecological strategies has imparted a talent for how to listen to clients and ask the right questions to unlock practical solutions to a wide range of project challenges.
He brings a no-nonsense approach to every project and believes that facilitating collaboration between architects, clients, and builders is essential to delivering your project with the highest quality, on time, on budget.
The Integrative Process - Going Beyond "Business as Usual" What is an integrative process?
The Integrative Process - Going Beyond "Business as Usual" What is an integrative process?
The aim of high-performance architecture design is to go beyond the traditional “business as usual” design process. As it relates to high-performance building design, an integrative process is a method used to interweave human, technological, and natural components into a building transforming these seemingly different elements into a practical, cohesive and meaningful whole with the purpose of actively participating in the health of a place.
The process breaks down “siloed” disciplinary boundaries and embraces non-linear planning and design practices in pursuit of optimal solutions and outcomes. What it boils down to is getting everyone who will be involved in the project together early in the project, and get them properly aligned to collaboratively participate in defining every aspect of the project.
Why is this important for building design?
Why is this important for building design?
Conventional “Business as Usual” planning, design, construction delivery, and operations processes often fail to recognize that buildings - and their project teams - are part of larger, complex interrelated systems. As a result, solving for one problem may create other problems elsewhere in the system.
In contrast, an Integrative Design process is highly collaborative. This approach requires the whole project team to focus on the entire building and all of its systems together, emphasizing connections and improving communication among professionals and stakeholders throughout the life of a project.
The Integrative Design process takes more time and collaborative effort during early conceptual and design phases than conventional practices. Yet, this upfront investment of time and effort reduce project costs and risks, as 80% of a project's first cost and life-cycle cost are established by decisions made in the first 20% of the design process. The dynamics of exchanging ideas and identifying risks early helps generate the best possible outcome, enabling our clients to stay on time and budget, enhancing value and profitability.
And because the project scope, goals, and metrics have been thoroughly explored and woven into the design throughout the process, projects can be executed more thoughtfully, optimize building system synergies, and better meet occupant needs, provide a higher level of quality, and ultimately save money.
What are the Optimal Delivery Methods for Integrative Design?
What are the Optimal Delivery Methods for Integrative Design?
We prefer projects where we can collaborate directly with our client, consultants, the builder, and key stakeholders early in the project to clearly define the project scope, goals, and key metrics. We prefer Design-Build or Integrated Project Delivery methods as they are more suited to typically engage the builder as a project team member from the project's inception.
An Integrative Design Process can be successfully implemented using traditional Design-Bid-Build delivery. However, it is not the optimal delivery method. This is because Design-Bid-Build delivery focus is on a low-bid fixed-pricing model and its contractual structures do not necessarily focus on overall project quality and do not support collaborative and cooperative relationships or effective communication between the Client, Designer, and Builder.
Nevertheless, if you require competitive bidding for your project, there are a number of ways that we can meet your competitive bidding requirements while allowing the project team to engage the builders during design. Options include: Design-Assist, having a builder participate on the design team as an independent consultant; competitive contractor selection using schematic design bid documents; and hybrid forms of Construction Manager at Risk.
Do I Have to LEED Certify my Project?
Do I Have to LEED Certify my Project?
While most of our firm’s work involves LEED certification (https://www.usgbc.org), our design process does not require our clients to pursue LEED certification. That being said, we highly recommend pursuing LEED certification because:
it provides a robust framework for establishing metrics and accountability for integrating energy and environmental design and construction best management practices, provides the project with a solid platform for establishing highly effective facilities operations and maintenance practices, LEED certification provides an unbiased, transparent assurance that the project team cut no corners in designing your building. The LEED plaque represents leadership, and it announces that the building has an integrated design that will be energy and water efficient while increasing occupant health and comfort. it provides our clients with a high profile third party recognition as leaders in energy and environmental stewardship.
The Bottom Line
The Bottom Line
Regardless of the delivery process or pursuit of LEED certification, the key to a successful project outcome involves bringing the client, designers, and builders together from the very beginning of the design process, forming a high functioning interdisciplinary team with the ability to participate creatively to first clearly define your needs. This is the core of the integrative design process.
You can rely on the PIERI ARCHITECTS team to:
Approach your project as co-learners with you, listening first to your aspirations, goals, and objectives; Work with you to assemble a properly aligned design and construction team that can fulfill your aspirations; Help with site selection to ensure your business works harmoniously with and within the surrounding place; Partner with you to explore design possibilities, working with you to focus your vision and transform the synergies of many ideas into a single, cohesive concept; Recommend design solutions that enhance occupant well-being and workflow to bring optimal productivity to your business; Apply disciplined project management to the entire process: from budget, timelines, and regulations, to rigorous attention to detail; Stand by your side as a trusted partner to allow you to stay focused on the daily demands of your business.