On the impact of newer buildings on urban air pollution

2024-10-25T17:47:00-04:00

In hermetically sealed buildings, less fresh air gets in. [...] Eventually, this polluted indoor air – which is making more than a third of the planet sick – is expelled into the surrounding environment. This raises the question of how buildings pollute the air around them, what pollutants they produce, and whether this expelled air is sufficiently diluted once outdoors.

As the article mentions, the World Health Organization had previously pointed to a "lack of monitoring of air pollution levels, sources and consequences on public health" as a present danger for cities.

To fix it, authors César Martín-Gómez and Arturo H. Ariño of the Universidad de Navarra say: "A detailed understanding of how buildings contribute to pollution in cities is essential. This will give public authorities, decision-makers and managers the tools to establish strategies to, for example, minimise pollution through devices similar to the catalytic converters required on all combustion-powered vehicles. Eventually, we may even be able to recover useful components of domestic air, such as waste methane, which could be redirected to energy generation."

You can read more about the compounding effects of poor indoor air quality via our 2021 feature on urban air pollution here.

As Manhattan grows supertaller, its shadows are getting superlonger

2015-01-19T13:11:00-05:00

But all New Yorkers are losing familiar vistas, and some are losing light and air, as supertall buildings sprout like beanstalks in midtown Manhattan. There are a dozen such “supertalls” – buildings of 1,000 feet or higher – in the construction or planning stages. And the buildings are not, as in Dubai or Shanghai’s Pudong district, being constructed where nothing else had stood. They are, instead, crowding into already dense neighbourhoods where light and air are at a premium [...].

Archinect - News

On the impact of newer buildings on urban air pollution

As Manhattan grows supertaller, its shadows are getting superlonger