As the year comes to a close, we want to acknowledge the many individuals, companies and organizations whose support makes our research both possible and impactful. In spite of new challenges, our community is resilient and we remain focused and committed to our shared mission. We also announce the winner and honorable mentions for the 2025 Livable Buildings Award, plus news and publications.
This spring and summer, a team of CBE researchers traveled to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to launch a new and unique field study to evaluate the benefits of fans in reducing heat stress and improving work performance in a manufacturing facility without air conditioning. This work is critical as summer temperatures and heat waves are increasing, along with the growth of such industrial and logistical facilities. The project is supported by CBE’s industry consortium partners Big Ass Fans, and the team includes experts on heat and health from the University of Sydney.
This summer we are excited to announce new funding to support research on low-carbon materials and adaptive reuse. We also share new media that disseminates our work, along with updates on our growing membership, awards and publications.
In this edition of Centerline we share recent news about staff recognition, funding to create radiant system guidelines, and highlights of new publications on embodied carbon, HVAC innovations, insights and marginal emissions. We also have updates on conferences and other inspiring gatherings, including the ‘Women of Carbon’ film screening at UC Berkeley.
As we wrap up 2024, we are excited to share updates on recent work and also about upcoming events where our research team will share our results with broad audiences from industry and academia. Much of this work benefits from the invaluable contributions of our industry partners and research affiliates that include companies and academic institutions from around the world.
This summer five members of the CBE community received recognition for conference papers and for career contributions, plus travel funding to support conference participation. Three of the awards were presented at the 2024 ASHRAE Annual Conference, and two at Indoor Air 2024. We commend these well-deserved awards and in this post highlight the efforts leading to them.
This spring CBE’s research team was thrilled to learn we had won two major funding awards from the California Energy Commission. These winning proposals were led by the California Institute for Energy and Environment (CIEE) who will lead the future work in close collaboration with CBE researchers and other contributors. Both projects are multi-year efforts, each with a wide range of research activities and deliverables, and leverage CBE’s collective knowledge, capabilities and our extensive network of industry and academic partners.
As we gear up for our year-end rituals and activities, here at CBE we can take a moment to reflect on our efforts during 2023, and remember our purpose — to contribute towards making a more sustainable and equitable world. We are pleased to report on such wide ranging work, and also note that this would not be possible without the participation of CBE’s Industry Partners. We are grateful for their support and the ongoing contributions of our colleagues, students and affiliates. We wish you all the best for 2024, and in this post share some of our major accomplishments and milestones.
The 2023 Livable Buildings Award has been awarded to VMDO Architects for their Paul Jennings Residence Hall, a 500-bed student housing facility at James Madison University completed in 2019. This project is the first residential building to be recognized by this award program, held annually since 2007. The awards also recognized the Bay Area Offices for SERA Architects with an honorable mention. SERA designed a full-floor office in a historic building in downtown Oakland, Calif., with a focus on creating a flexible and healthy workspace.
CBE’s controlled environment chamber has been used for research leading to hundreds of journal papers, including keystone work related to human response, indoor environments and mechanical systems in buildings and automobile cabins. A major renovation was completed this fall, updating obsolete systems and failing equipment that was hindering important research operations. This milestone was celebrated in a ribbon cutting ceremony and happy hour before CBE’s fall Industry Advisory Board meeting. In this post we acknowledge the recent contributors, and discuss past work and future directions.