Tag Archives: air quality

2010 Livable Building Award Winners

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The Center for the Built Environment’s fourth annual Livable Building Award winners were announced in mid-December. The entries were judged on excellence of design, operation, and occupant satisfaction. According to a CBE press release:

Award entries are open only to the top scorers in CBE’s Occupant Indoor Environmental Quality Survey, which is used to study occupant satisfaction in terms of air quality, lighting, thermal comfort and overall building satisfaction and has been implemented in more than 860 buildings in North America and Europe.

The top award went to UC San Francisco’s 654 Minnesota Street project. Read about the UCSF project here.

The Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology was recognized with an honorable mention. Read about the Kavlie Institute and the other finalists here.

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More information on the CBE Occupant Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Survey is available here.

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Assorted Links

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Window reflections can melt vinyl siding.

PACE program participants must pay off the loans before they can refinance their mortgages.

Transit-oriented development may be threatened by air quality rules in California.

EPA & DOT propose colorful fuel economy labels to make it easier to compare vehicle mileage.

And there’s an interesting article about Smart Grids and privacy.

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California’s “Air Basins”

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The state of California is divided geographically into 15 different “air basins” in order to regulate air emissions on a regional, rather than a local basis. The divisions were decided upon based on both geographically like features (in some cases “air basins” are literally geographic basins surrounded by mountains) and by political boundaries, such as counties. While air quality can vary from basin to basin, emissions and pollution are obviously not confined to air basin boundaries.

The nine county Bay Area makes up its own designated air basin, the “San Francisco Bay” air basin. This basin is home to the second largest metro population in the state and is characterized by high vehicle miles traveled, several regional airports and industrial activity. Being a coastal region, wind and weather patterns can have a dramatic effect in transporting the pollution from the region into inland areas.

To find out more about the San Franciso Bay air basin and the 14 other air basins in California, visit the Air Resource Board’s interactive map here, get the latest air quality reports for your region from the annual California Almanac of Air Quality and Emissions, and check out a list of 50 things you can do to improve California’s air quality, here.

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