CFC Reviews CMHC Design Report: IDP — What is it?

Integrated Design Process (IDP) was used in the early 1990s, by Canada’s C-20001 program and IDEAS Challenge2 competition to describe a more holistic approach to building design. This design process has been shown to produce more significant results than did investment in capital equipment3. There is now no single “right” definition for IDP. Rather, IDP describes a different, intentional way of approaching sustainable building and community design that offers a much higher likelihood of success than any other approach.
There are an increasing number of practitioners of IDP. Each has a different, and valid, perspective on how to do it, based on their experiences and practices. Most would agree that there are common elements to every definition.
• Goal-driven with the primary goal being sustainability, but with explicit subsidiary goals, objectives and targets set as a means to get there.
• Facilitated by someone whose primary role is not to produce the building design or parts of it, but to be accountable for the process of design.
• Structured to deal with issues and decisions in the right order, to avoid locking in bad performance by making non-reversible decisions with incomplete input or information.
• Clear decision-making for a clearly understood methodology for making decisions and resolving critical conflicts
• Inclusive—everyone, from the owner to the operator, has something critical to contribute to the design and everyone must be heard.
• Collaborative so that the architect is not simply the form-giver, but more the leader of a broader team collaboration with additional active roles earlier in the process.
• Holistic or systemic thinking with the intent of producing something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and which may even be more economic.
• Whole-building budget setting—allows financial trade-offs, so money is spent where it is most beneficial when a holistic solution is found.
• Iterative—to allow for new information to inform or refine previous decisions.
• Non-traditional expertise—on the team, as needed, or brought in at non-traditional times to contribute to the process.
Sustainability is one of the most important issues facing human society today. The challenges as they relate to buildings are complex and the solutions are not simple.
Framing the challenge in terms of motivation and means is one way of clarifying our thinking. Motivation proceeds from a source or ground, towards a goal. The means require some tools and a direction to apply them. Reviewed by Jan Luistermans.