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FEBRUARY 2015 | 9 RENDERING COURTESY THE HOLBORN GROUP OF COMPANIES; PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY STERLING COOPER CONSULTANTS Sterling Cooper Consultants G eorge Steeves says if he hadn't become a mechanical engineer he would have considered going into politics, because he loves communicating with people. That much is evident with his remarkable ability to make first-time guests to Vancouver-based Sterling Cooper Consultants feel not just at ease, but as if they are a welcome part of his family. When AWARD visited him, the notoriously busy Steeves, who admits that del- egating responsibilities to others has until recently been a sticking point, hap- pily chatted about everything from politics to travel, from his childhood in New Brunswick to fatherhood. Only gradually does he ease into discussing business, and later still he summa- rizes the success of his company by swivelling in his chair to survey the high-rise towers looming vertiginously beyond his glass-walled boardroom. "We've helped design a huge chunk of downtown," he says. "For major hotels alone, we've designed the mechanical systems for about 70 per cent of them." Steeves' convivial manner is noteworthy because it informs his approach to business. At a time when fast-track projects have contributed to shaky client rela- tionships, he thrives on daily, face-to-face interaction. "George thinks nothing of spending three hours on a Saturday walking a client through a building site and explaining right down to the last detail how a mechanical system operates," says one of his staff. In fact, it could be argued that Steeves' engaging persona has helped Sterling Cooper, which he joined as a partner in 1996, to grow from 14 to 35 people and become multi-disciplined, with energy modelling, sustainable LEED design, energy and plant management and professional engineering services augmenting a core discipline of mechanical engineering. However, that notion borders on complicated, and complexity is something Steeves, 61, abhors. "Honestly, I never set out to do anything other than good work," he says. "I love solving problems: it's what I was made for. That's why I've had such a hard time delegating work; my instinct is to tackle each project personally." Currently, Sterling Cooper is juggling 50-odd projects, ranging from fees of $1,200 to over $1 million. The most high profile of the bunch is arguably Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver, the $360-million, 63-storey hotel/residence located a stone's throw away from another Sterling Cooper achievement, the equally formidable Shangri-La Vancouver hotel/residences. Slated for completion in the spring of 2016, Trump International will be the city's second tallest building after the Shangri-La, and Steeves says of his relationship with developer the Holborn Group, "They're good clients with very high expectations. We've run into challenges here and there, but certainly nothing is insurmountable." As is the case with any hotel, Trump's interior design is still unfinished. "It always comes during the latter phase of construction because the owners don't want to risk having something out of date," explains Steeves. Doesn't this put his team on the spot for delivering the mechanics? "Yep, and we love it," Steeves grins. "The adrenalin kicks in and it's like a battle to get everything done on schedule and to everyone's satisfaction. That's why I love hotel projects so much: lots of challenges. To take another example, the front and back of the house are tricky to get right, and the final result has to look great – not just the standard engineer's look." It's in the hotel realm that Sterling Cooper has earned the most media attention. Case in point: the Fairmont Pacific Rim Vancouver, for which it devised a mechani- cal system that rejects heat to sea water, thus eliminating the need for cooling tower chemicals. "We located the chiller plant in nearby Canada Place," recalls Steeves. "I knew how to use sea water because I'd engineered a sea water system for Canada Place." For Shangri-La, Sterling Cooper devised a ground source heat rejection/heat recovery system; for the IKEA showroom in Richmond it provided heat recovery from exhaust air along with rainwater collection and storage to cisterns for toilet water supply and irrigation; and for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic UBC Thunderbird Arena, heat recovery from the ice plant and cooling systems was used to heat the building, while refrigerant cycle dehumidification and heat recovery reduced energy consumption. As complex as these solutions may seem, Sterling Cooper's philosophy is to keep its engineering for residential, commercial, industrial and institutional projects as simple as possible: in Steeves' opinion, a well-designed mechanical system with fewer bells and whistles is not only easy to operate, it's easier to maintain and can outperform elaborate mechanisms designed to LEED standards. Unsurprisingly, while Steeves has evolved Sterling Cooper into a specialist of LEED requirements, his goal for efficiency causes him to criticize some elements of the sustainability craze. "There are a lot of good ideas in LEED, but a few of them don't suit the Metro Vancouver climate and yet are part of the documentation any- way," he says. "What I would like to see are standards that apply to our climate, as well as performance-based energy targets revolving around a set amount of kilo- watt hours per square foot of space over a set period of time." Steeves points out other shortcomings in the sustainability movement specific to B.C., one being that the motivation to upgrade plants and other industrial facilities is mitigated by low energy costs. "For every $35 per square foot of building rent, only $1.25 to $1.50 represents the energy cost," he explains. "That doesn't create much incentive for retrofits, which we love doing." Mechanical systems don't escape his scrutiny. "Some of them are so complex that building managers can't operate them well, which can actually cause energy costs to increase," says Steeves. "But one of the biggest problems in the broad spectrum of energy efficiency is equipment sizing. Simply put, too many systems are not sized properly for the work they must perform within a building, and the resulting energy waste is considerable." Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver; Shangri-La Hotel Vancouver. Mechanical engineering firm Sterling Cooper Consultants believes no problem is insurmountable by ROBIN BRUNET

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