Strategic — holistic — sustainable — green… the latest easy listening buzz words to some; a form of holy grail to architect Frank Sherman, who applies an ever evolving mastery of problem solving and group dynamics to helping clients realize their creative green visions. According to Frank, “that sometimes means helping them discover their creative visions.”

A principal with the Chrisner Group — a strategic green building solutions provider; founding chair of the USGBC NJ Chapter, past chair of National USGBC’s steering committee, and board member elect for National’s NE Corridor Regional Council — Frank has devoted endless hours to developing chapters and chapter networks into a series of regional councils and placing them into the context of the larger USGBC organization. Of late, he has also become a student and an advocate of USGBC National’s new cutting edge consensus-building tool, Dynamic Governance. Dynamic Governance was first developed in Europe as “Sociocracy,” and was adopted by USGBC as a way of making decisions — “particularly useful when there are a lot of strong minded people,” Frank noted. The method was renamed Dynamic Governance early on by USGBC Vice Chair, Sandy Wiggans, because no one could imagine “Sociocracy” playing over here, he said.

Having observed the rapid growth of USGBC with something akin to wonder, this was all heady stuff to me. We often hear that ‘Life is a River.” I decided that USGBC is a River. And in this case that Frank Sherman is a River.

In any case, he is not a linear thinker, he noted.

This is true. Our broad discussion touched upon the potential effects of the new consensus-building approach as it is slowly being introduced across the nation; the potential effects of LEED as it is applied and hopefully monitored across the nation; and, coming back to earth, we zeroed in upon his newest professional challenge — a plan to bring sustainable solutions to an entire distressed neighborhood in West Philadelphia.

As it aggressively seeks investment, the East Parkside, Philadelphia project is now in the advanced stages of planning and the birth pangs of implementing those plans. Frank and his partner Scott Chrisner’s roles will be to bring rigorous, integrated green design decision-making to the process. The goal will be to have the whole project emerge as a high performance, mixed use, pedestrian-friendly, green neighborhood adhering to LEED standards. “It is all about the quality of thought going into designing the buildings - not about amount of green stuff you throw at the buildings,” he said. “Green building is about good design and intelligent design decision-making. If you define your design problem correctly you can come up with creative solutions that don’t cost more, such as site planning. How the building is oriented can greatly affect the energy performance of the building. Fundamental decisions about how to marry the building’s envelope technologies with the building’s systems technologies make a big difference; as do how you are able to use natural resources such as solar and ventilation resources.”

In East Parkside these design decision-making skills will be leveled at a seriously distressed 20-block inner city neighborhood from which most of those who could leave, have left. What is really exciting to him is being involved in a project, which will be able to look at environmental benefits on a wide scale, not just as they apply single buildings. Potentially that can be very powerful, he said. Down the road, he hopes to work with partners who are able to measure impacts: environmental, economic and social.

Frank Sherman and his partner base their business on measuring environmental performance, he said, noting that LEED has developed products and methodologies that provide re-certifications which encourage monitoring ongoing. “People can learn a lot through measuring and monitoring their buildings,” he said. “It is very wise to invest in appropriate ways to so measure.”

The bottom line is that because of this orientation, Frank Sherman looks for certain qualities, commitments and beliefs in clients. He wants clients to be collaborators in exploring green building solutions. Given his commitment to sustainability, he wants to work with those who are as committed to creating high-performance green buildings as he is.