Green Building Design

Green UN Haus for the United Nations in Papua New Guinea

In its Delivery as One (DAO) initiative, the UN family in Papua New Guinea (PNG) proposes to build a "Green UN Haus" to co-locate the 11 UN agencies, the World Bank, and ADB.

President of NRGmagnet, Lisa Surprenant, was contracted by the UN country team to provide an objective, fact-based analysis of the available options and propose the optimal design solution for an energy efficient "green" UN building.

In March 2010, the government of PNG gifted a US$16 million parcel of land for the new building. In May, Ms. Surprenant travelled to PNG to develop the agency requirements, perform surveys of the real estate and construction markets, do detailed architectural programming, obtain accurate pricing and a cost benefits analysis, and design an energy efficient building for the UN family.

With these, she generated a robust proposal to the UNDG Technical Working Group on Common Premises who will give the green light for construction-slated to begin in 2011.

The estimated cost to construct, fit-out, and operate the 9,733 m2 new Green UN Haus is half of what the cost will be if all agencies continue to rent. And given the uncertain real estate market, the costs to rent could go even higher!

An additional savings potential owing to energy efficiency, security, and parking of some USS$18.5 ml over the building's lifetime is anticipated.

Operational benefits include enhanced security in this Security Phase II country, better inter-agency planning and coordination, more effective and efficient common services and information management systems, and the opportunity to manifest One UN.

Given the precarious leasing situations, the scarcity of land, and the DAO initiative, building a Green UN Haus is key to achieving programmatic and operations integration in PNG.

 

NRGmagnet llc is a certified SWaM (small minority- or woman-owned business) with offices in the US and Holland. We provide a full range of energy efficiency, greening, and renewable energy program services. We have a unique set of core capabilities including: Policy and Program Design, Master Planning, Infrastructure Assessment, Analytics; Gender & Disaster Program Support, Capacity-Building and Training, Program Implementation and Evaluation, Green Building Consultation, Standards and Labeling, Codes Support, Water Efficiency, Vulnerability Assessments, Baseline Surveys, Communications and Marketing, Monitoring and Evaluation, and EU Accession Advice.