The Center for the Built Environment (CBE) at the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 is a National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...

 Industry/University Cooperative Research Center. CBE's mission is to improve the design, operation, and environmental quality of buildings by providing timely, unbiased information on building technologies and design techniques.

Overview

CBE is located within UC Berkeley's Building Science Laboratory at the College of Environmental Design

UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design

The College of Environmental Design, also known as the or simply is one of 14 schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley. The school is located in Wurster Hall on the southeast corner of the main UC Berkeley campus...

. One of the largest university laboratories devoted to building research in the United States, key facilities include a controlled environment chamber (designed to resemble a contemporary office while allowing precise control over the levels of temperature, humidity, ventilation and lighting in the space) and an extensive collection of portable equipment for acquiring and analyzing data from field experiments.

Research

CBE's research areas include Indoor Environmental Quality, HVAC

HVAC

HVAC refers to technology of indoor or automotive environmental comfort. HVAC system design is a major subdiscipline of mechanical engineering, based on the principles of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer...

 (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) Systems, Envelope Systems, and Controls and Information Technology. CBE provides information about its research areas and publications on its website.

CBE's research program is guided by its Research Team and Advisory Board. The CBE Advisory Board includes manufacturers, building owners, facility mangers, contractors, architects, engineers, government agencies and professional associations. The research team comprises people from departments across the UC Berkeley campus, as well as scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, graduate students, and international experts from industry or other research institutions.

The center partners with many public and private organizations including design firms, manufacturers, builders and government organizations. Some of the CBE's partners include Arup

Arup

Arup is a global professional services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom which provides engineering, design, planning, project management and consulting services for all aspects of the built environment. The firm is present in Africa, the Americas, Australasia, East Asia, Europe and the...

, HOK

Hok

Hok may refer to:*Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum, HOK is a major, international architecture, interiors, engineering, planning and consulting firm*Hok , a location in Sweden*Hok/sok system, a host-killing gene of the R1 E...

, Kling Stubbins, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP is an American architectural and engineering firm that was formed in Chicago in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings; in 1939 they were joined by John O. Merrill. They opened their first branch in New York City, New York in 1937. SOM is one of the largest...

, and the US Department of Energy.