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December 04, 2007, 11:31 AM ET
An Architecture Award Asks: Is It Livable?
DeAnza College’s Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies has won an architecture award for being both efficient and pleasant for occupants (DeAnza College image).
A story in the San Jose Mercury News focuses on the Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies, at De Anza College. The center’s building recently won a Livable Buildings Award from the Center for the Built Environment, at the University of California at Berkeley. The awards recognize buildings that “demonstrate exceptional performance in terms of occupant satisfaction, resource efficiency, and overall design.”
DeAnza’s building uses sunlight for illumination. The Mercury News reporter, Crystal Lu, notes a finding that “students improved their English and math scores by 15 percent to 22 percent when taking tests in natural daylight.” Passive-solar heating also warms the building in the winter.
The Center for the Built Environment says its awards program is unique because “it is the only one to include the preferences of building occupants in its selection criteria.” The Global Ecology Research Center, at Stanford University, and the Philip Merrill Environmental Center, in Annapolis, Md., were the other two award winners. Donald Bren Hall, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, was among the finalists from higher education.
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