There is an inextricable link between the built environment and our health. In the Houston metropolitan area, people spend almost 90% of their time indoors. The built environment is the principal environment known by humans. It encompasses the buildings, infrastructure and products that are created by people. It includes our homes, schools, workplaces, parks, institutions, industrial parks areas, and roads. It extends overhead in the form of electrical transmission lines and coal fired power plant emissions, underground in the form of waste and storm water disposal systems, and across the region in the form of highways.
This proliferation or sprawl of the built environment makes it a strategic part of the biosphere where global ecosystems and natural cycles are daily affected by urbanized and industrialized life. We theorize that the built environment, if designed and constructed and maintained in an environmentally responsible manner, will have tangible and measurable positive public health benefits. One objective of this portion of the site is to bring together a diverse group of literature from practitioners and scientific professionals to educate the Houston community, as well as regional design and construction professionals, about the ecological and health impacts and benefits of green building.
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