Paul Liesman directs corporate and commercial commissioning at HDR, one of the largest engineering and architecture firms in the United States. Commissioning is the discipline of verifying that a finished building performs the way its owner was promised. He has spent decades finding out where buildings quietly fall short, which makes him unusually clear about what New York's decarbonization laws actually ask of a million buildings.

Paul Liesman, Director of Corporate and Commercial Commissioning, HDR

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In this conversation

Paul's definition of commissioning: a deliberate program to operate and verify that a building meets the owner's design intent, backed by documentation and measured data.

Why he refuses to blame any single party for construction errors. Owners push for speed and low price, engineers underbudget construction administration, contractors cannot always find skilled labor.

The back-of-napkin math on New York's climate law: about 200,000 buildings a year would need attention to meet the 2030 goals.

His view that in ten years the industry still needs the architect, engineer, construction manager and every trade; what changes is how they communicate.

Every building that you build is a prototype. I don't care if you're building hamburger stands.

Paul Liesman

Chapters

Can the industry keep up with the law?

Whether owners, engineers and utilities can physically deliver what climate legislation requires.

By the numbers

Local Law 97: required emissions cuts for large New York buildings

By 203040%

By 205080%

Buildings produce roughly two-thirds of the city's greenhouse gas emissions; the law covers most buildings over 25,000 square feet.

Paul asks whether owners, engineers and the grid can physically deliver what the law demands. These are the targets he is measuring against.

Source: NYC Department of Buildings, Local Law 97 ↗

Margins and the commercial reality

Why commercial building owners live and die by thin margins, and how that shapes retrofit decisions.

The owner's right to operate

The owner's authority over how a building runs, and where commissioning can and cannot push back.

Nothing works the first time

Why the first attempt at any system fails, and the value of people who expect it to.

Converting offices into homes

The promise and the practical limits of turning empty offices into apartments.

You can have the best HVAC system in the world, and if your building envelope is not designed or installed correctly, it doesn't matter.

Paul Liesman

Takeaways

Every building is a prototype: a one-off assembled by a temporary team under financial stress, which is why the best mechanical system fails if the envelope is designed or installed wrong.

Bring the commissioning agent in during design, not construction. A verifier who understands the owner's requirements from the start can write a real testing protocol; one hired at the end cannot.

Decarbonization is an arithmetic problem: roughly a million New York buildings, targets a few years out, and electrification that assumes street feeders can deliver energy the gas pipes currently do.

A law is a law and you have to comply. That's what it is.

Paul Liesman