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In the past few decades, the profession has heard a lot about indoor air quality and sick building syndrome (the puzzling condition in which a majority of occupants experience a variety of health or comfort problems linked to time spent in a particular building, but for which no specific illness or cause has been identified). And we have learned about the many ways to design a healthy building, from minimizing materials that release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to providing adequate ventilation and lighting. But how does the architect ensure that a building that was designed to be healthy will stay that way once it is occupied?

“It’s a real-world problem,” admits Ben Kishimoto, aia, of Kishimoto/Gordon Architects in McLean, Va. What good is careful design if, within months, occupants are tracking in lead-contaminated soils, cleaning crews are mopping floors with VOC-emitting products, and the maintenance workers can’t access the drain pans to see if mold is growing in the mechanical system?

The nitty gritty

One man who has studied housekeeping issues closely is Stephen P. Ashkin of Healthy Housekeeping in Bloomington, Ind. Ashkin consults with architects and organizations on how to design buildings that can be cleaned efficiently and safely.

“It’s well documented by the EPA that cleaning and maintenance affect the health of the building and its occupants,” says Ashkin. In recent years, the government agency has produced a number of resources, including Building Air Quality: A Guide for Building Owners and Facility Managers and IAQ Tools for Schools Kit, to address these issues.

With regard to general housekeeping in a new building, people can get sick from exposure to particulates or biological contaminants that have not been adequately removed or to VOCs and other toxic components in the cleaning compounds themselves. “If we use pollution prevention strategies,” explains Ashkin, “we can reduce people’s exposure to harmful materials.”

By implementing these techniques during the design of a building, the architect offers the client a double bonus. In addition to the likely gains in worker productivity, the building owner will realize very clear savings in annual cleaning costs. In a typical New York City office building, for example, the maintenance savings alone could amount to about $46,000 per 100,000 square feet, year after year.

 

Photography: © Stein White Nelligan Architects

Entries, bathrooms, and janitors’ closets

Not surprisingly, the first line of defense against dirt should occur at the front door. Ashkin estimates that 85 percent of the dirt entering a building comes in on people’s shoes. This innocuous-looking soil often harbors animal dander, pesticides, lead, and other hazardous materials. For the high traffic anticipated at the National Air & Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Va., scheduled to open in 2003, the Washington, D.C., office of Hellmuth Obata Kassabaum (HOK) designed a return air vent below the floor grates. Located in the entry vestibule, this vent will pull as much dirt as possible off visitors’ soles. Further north, the New York City firm Stein White Nelligan Architects selected open aluminum grating with strips of a brushlike material for the vestibule of the South Jamaica Branch Library in Queens, N.Y. Here, the mud and dirt drops into a pan below, equipped with a floor drain, which the janitor periodically hoses down.

According to Ashkin, bathrooms are the number one source of complaints in a typical office building. They need to be well ventilated, equipped with floor drains, and accessible to hot and cold water spigots. Toilet partitions should be supported from above so that floors can be easily and thoroughly mopped. And grout should be minimized because it absorbs bacteria that is virtually impossible to remove. In addition, notes the cleaning maven, cleaning costs will drop if big, easily accessible trash cans are specified instead of the ubiquitous recessed ones that are too slender and must be unlocked with a key.

For a healthy building to stay healthy, janitorial closets also need to be given their due. Over the years, to maximize billable space, designers have downsized or eliminated these necessary support spaces. But, explains Ashkin, cleaning supplies must be readily accessible so that spills can be picked up right away, thereby minimizing the likelihood that stronger, more toxic chemicals will be required later on. And because potentially hazardous chemicals are often stored there, these closets should be constructed with full partitions, ventilated separately and placed under negative air pressure.

 

South Jamaica Branch Library Queens, N.Y. This neighborhood library, which opened in December 1999, was the first project developed under the New York City Department of Design and Construction’s nascent sustainable building program. Light monitors scoop up natural light, which then bounces off light shelves and curved diffusing reflectors to indirectly illuminate workstations in the public reading room (below) and circulation area. Stein White Nelligan Architects specified chemically stable finish materials, including brick and ground-faced block walls, which require virtually no care.

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