Campus Green Builder

Pre-design

The College of Menominee Nation, though established on a relatively young campus, is continuously making improvement to increase efficiency and minimize maintenance needs of its facilities. Also the institution’s dependence on the federal grants puts severe restrictions on capital investments in facilities. For this reason, the institution emphasizes the importance of planning and pre-design process to streamline and optimally utilize available financial and other resources. The administration found it beneficial to institute an internal team of experts to evaluate the need for the new library building and investigate available grants that the institution could apply for in raising funds for the project.

• The first step in the pre-design process involved the preparation and submission of a Request for Proposal (RFP) to a number of local experienced firms. According to the institution’s investigation these firms met the criteria and their methodology and mission aligned with College of Menominee Nation’s commitment to sustainability.
• The select architecture firms met with the administration team to determine an optimal design program.
• Martenson & Eisele, Inc. was retained as the project architects based on their commitment to and experience with green building projects. Also their proposal best met the requirements set forth by the institution during the selection process.
• Most importantly, the architectural proposal prepared by the firm would make it possible for the institution to plan construction over a few years, allowing the institution to research financial opportunities and eventually replenish the funds for future phases of the project.
• The Martensen & Eisele’s program focused greatly on the strategies related to incremental construction and project budgeting that fit the institution’s needs. This cohesive and in-depth understanding of the constraints on resources and specific requirements of this higher education institution helped the firm present the winning proposal.

Design

• A basic design was developed and presented to the College of Menominee Nation. This design served as the foundation for add-ons of features and specifications that satisfied the institution’s requirements and fit within the given budget.
• Multiple meetings followed the primary one to determine the functions that need to be incorporated to make the library an efficient and helpful resource to the institution. Also, more meetings were convened to discuss the processes involved in integrating the additional sustainability functions and features into the project.
• During schematic design, the architects determined what type of guidelines and criteria that could be employed to make the facility LEED® Silver certifiable while considering the stringent funding and other limitation on the institutional resources.
• The institution and the design professionals determined that there needed to be 3 phases of the project. This would help the institution complete this project with incremental construction. Additionally this process would allow the building occupants to use the space while offering more time to the administration to make provisions for additional project funds.
• A process similar to the bidding process for the architectural firms was employed to select the building contractors for the project. A three-week bidding period followed during which the contractor selection was conducted based on a point value system. A similar evaluation system was also used during the selection of the project architects.

Operation and Maintenance

Following the construction process, the contractors trained the maintenance staff. The staff received the training regarding the operation and maintenance protocols for the new equipment and controls. This education is helping the facility staff efficiently manage the updated energy efficient systems to their optimal capacity, and it has also provided a comprehensive model to streamline the operation and maintenance processes of other campus facilities. Additionally, this training is assisting the facilities department to monitor and gauge the performance and the energy usage of these new systems.

Documentation of the new equipment and the training manuals for operation and maintenance were developed by the project team and eventually handed over to the institution for training the facility personnel on an ongoing basis.