Leveraging Urban Planning and Building Design to Reduce Ambient Combustion Ultra-Fine Particles Exposure

Abstract

Of all modern human settlements today, cities have the most potential to accommodate population growth in a sustainable and healthy manner. Water supply, sanitation, and mass-transit can be efficiently managed in well-functioning dense cities, where the compact urban tissue promotes healthy active transportation opportunities such as walking, biking or jogging. Unfortunately, most American cities today are burdened with increased traffic pollution, leading to ambient combustion ultra-fine particles (UFP) exposure, a significant public health problem.The growing body of evidence-based research in urban planning and building strategies can help to mitigate traffic-related UFP exposure for people living near highways. For environmental scientists and policy-makers to incorporate these strategies in future urban and building developments, they need to leverage the key tools and strategies of architectural practice that address outdoor and indoor air quality in cities.This poster illustrates regulations, strategies and tools used in urban planning and architectural practices in America, with the goal to facilitate the collaboration between environmental scientists and designers towards devising, implementing and evaluating tactics to reduce UPF exposure in cities. The poster describes how evidence-based UFP mitigation tactics can be integrated: (i) at the urban planning level (i.e. landscaped buffers, vegetated and wall barriers or decked highways) with different regulations such as land use, performance or sustainable zoning. (ii) at the building level (i.e. facade sealing, MERV and HEPA filtration, or green facades and roofs) with building codes for indoor air quality. Finally, the poster also explores the most widespread voluntary sustainable building standards (i.e. LEED, WELL, Fitwel or Passive House), and how they compare to evidence-based UFP mitigation strategies at the building scale.