SGAD oversees the sustainable design process on a wide range of projects, from civic to offices and multi-storey mixed-use developments. Based on a decade of working with various clients with varying sustainability objectives, from the lowest Green Building certification level to the most advanced, we’ve developed a structured and effective approach to implementing sustainable design strategies and incorporating LEED requirements in buildings.
We’ve played a leading role in the design of carbon-neutral, LEED-Platinum and Living Building Challenge-pursuing projects using the Integrated Design Process and sustainable design charrettes.
Our clients are diverse: developers, architects, municipalities, and private companies.
Sébastien is a LEED reviewer and formerly served as one of three national Review Team Leaders. With 9 years of LEED review experience, Sébastien has audited close to 100 LEED buildings across Canada, including the first LEED-Canada Commercial Interiors and LEED-Canada Core & Shell. He has chaired the LEED-Canada Technical Advisory Group on Materials (2009-2016), was a member of LEED-Canada Steering Committee (2009-2016), and was Vice-Chair of LEED-Canada Technical Advisory Group on Site, Water & Materials (2007-2009).
We have hands-on experience with various Green Building systems:
LEED for New Construction
We’ve successfully completed multiple LEED for New Construction projects and are currently working on many more, from LEED Silver to LEED Platinum.
LEED Equivalency
Many municipalities in the Vancouver’s Lower Mainland region have adopted a “LEED Equivalency” policy, creating some confusion in the marketplace as to how this is defined. Successfully working on such projects, we’ve developed overtime an approach that helps eliminate that confusion and provides a clear path for the project teams to follow.
LEED for MidRise
We are currently working on midrise multi-unit residential and mixed-use projects located in Vancouver’s Cambie corridor. We’ve found that the LEED for MidRise rating system presents many unique benefits and is often better suited for MidRise projects. It is more prescriptive and comprises increased testing and verification, however its reduces the paperwork requirements that is usually found in the other LEED rating systems, which is much appreciated by developers and designers alike.
Let us help you select the right Building Building system by showing you a comparative table for your project between LEED for MidRise and LEED for New Construction.
LEED for Commercial Interiors
Our extensive experience with New Construction allows us to streamline our approach to apply the LEED for Commercial Interiors to commercial fit-up projects. As part of our CaGBC role as LEED Reviewer, we’ve evaluated multiple LEED for Commercial Interiors projects, providing us with the right tools to manage our projects.
LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance
We’ve developed a structured and effective Feasibility Study process to assess whether your existing building is a good candidate to pursue this a LEED for Existing Building certification. This process allows you to mitigate your risks by limiting your investment in the right buildings.
Living Building Challenge
We’ve worked on advanced Green Building projects with sustainability goals that go “above and beyond” the LEED rating systems. The Living Building Challenge is often sought by clients with ambitious sustainability objectives because it only comprises prerequisites that considerably reduces the building’s ecological footprint, such as being net-zero with energy and water. This rating system also allows certification for parts of the system, called Petals Certification. This partial certification presents considerable benefits as it allows design teams to pursue specific requirements that are relevant to their projects, without having to follow the entire rating system.
We’ve acquired a unique set of skills to support your team in pursuing the Living Building Challenge, or Petals Certification, as Chair of CaGBC’s Materials Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and through our extensive experience with Green materials and products as Design Architect and Senior Research Advisor.
We specialize in Green Building design and contemporary architecture and have a broad experience in institutional, commercial and high-end residential projects. We approach every project with a fresh look at the unique opportunities each site, programmatic and client bring. We embrace projects’ constraints as opportunities to express the project’s uniqueness and the clients’ visions. We seek realistic sustainable design solutions that take into account the full life cycle.
We’ve participated in the design of carbon-neutral, LEED-Platinum and Living Building Challenge-pursuing projects using the Integrated Design Process (IDP) and sustainable design charrettes.
Prior to founding his firm, Sébastien worked as Design Architect and Senior Research Advisor for Busby Perkins+Will on several high profile and state-of-the-art Green Building projects, including UBC’s Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS), Dockside Green CI-2 development, SFU’s Arts & Social Sciences Complex, and Marine Gateway.
Whether you are interested in certifying your project with the Passive House standard, or simply achieving ambitious energy objectives without seeking certification, we can support your team in integrating Passive House standard principles in your project. The Passive House principles could be summarized in 3 simple categories:
We approach each project with these principles in mind and we are constantly looking for opportunities to integrate them in our projects. We have the firm belief that these 3 principles can be implemented in all projects, although perhaps not to the full extent as defined in the Passive House standard, as sometimes it is more relevant on a project to pursue certain sustainability goals than others.
We’ve joined Biotecture’s crew in New Mexico to help build their completely off-grid community: The Greater World. We’ve acquired extensive knowledge and skills in the design and construction of Eartships by attending a 5-week internship that included learning construction methods as well as design seminars. We believe Earthship principles are an important part of the future sustainable built environment. Although we may have a slightly different aesthetic approach to Biotecture’s, we are inspired by the principles and systems they’ve developed and seek opportunities to apply those to more contemporary looking projects.
We’d be pleased to discuss with you how Earthship principles could be integrated in your project.
