Feature image: The LEED Platinum Prairie Village Public Works building includes offices for about 40 staff and a garage. Image credit: Tom Kessler Photography/Courtesy of Clark & Enersen.

To optimize air quality for their clients, the architects of the new 20,300-square-foot Prairie Village Public Works building in Kansas, did all the obvious things and then some. As a final step, the architects at Clark & Enersen tested the air quality in the newly completed building—and discovered how they could improve their design even further.

“I think it makes sense to do air quality testing on all projects,” says Andrea Anderson, LEED AP BD+C, an architect at Clark & Enersen and the sustainability coordinator for the project, who also serves on LEED’s technical advisory committee for indoor environmental quality. “You get real-life metrics and are able to give building occupants peace of mind—you know there ’s nothing lurking.”

Compared to a typical office building, the design of the Prairie Village Public Works facility is more complex. The one-story building, which replaces a couple of aging facilities from the 1950s and 1960s, has two wings: One side is devoted to staff offices, and the other half is a spacious four-bay garage for maintaining police and city vehicles and a variety of other equipment, including wood chippers and snow plows.

A large auto mechanic's garage with three bays, seen from above. — Garage doors on both sides provide natural ventilation, and orange exhaust hoses on reels hanging overhead remove direct exhaust from vehicles. Image credit: Tom Kessler Photography/Courtesy of Clark & Enersen.

From the outset, Prairie Village’s city council wanted the building to achieve LEED Platinum and directed city staff to make it happen. Hired in 2019, the architects at Clark & Enersen looked for ways to maximize points for energy efficiency and indoor air quality, among other sustainable features. For the office wing, the design team specified a variable refrigerant flow HVAC system, which had both the lowest initial cost and the highest energy savings. For the garage, they installed vehicle exhaust hose reels with a dedicated exhaust fan and a make-up air unit to supply 100% outside air to the space.

In addition to complying with LEED mandatory requirements for ventilation, the design team was careful to use low-VOC materials and leveraged several enhanced indoor air strategies, including air filtration and carbon dioxide monitoring. According to a 2015 study published in Environmental Health Perspectives , people working in indoor environments with lower levels of pollutants and carbon dioxide have better cognitive function than those with average levels of both.

Front view of the garage bays, with the office windows on the left. — The mechanics’ office is located to the left of the garage bays on the ground level. Image credit: Tom Kessler Photography/Courtesy of Clark & Enersen.

Intent on gaining every possible point to achieve Platinum certification, the architects made the case for going the extra mile and doing a formal indoor air quality (IAQ) assessment. Before staffers moved in, the team went through both options outlined in LEED. First, they performed a building flush-out—essentially giving it a good airing out—and then conducted IAQ testing of all occupied spaces. The testing evaluates the levels of particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and a lengthy list of volatile organic compounds, including benzene and formaldehyde.

Nearly all the spaces passed the test. However, the report showed that one particular space did not: It had slightly elevated levels of PM2.5 particulate matter and benzene. It was the mechanics’ office, a 360-square-foot space accommodating four people within the garage.

While the mechanics’ office had its own fresh air supply, it was drawing return air from the garage. The team rerouted the system so that return air would recirculate within the mechanics’ office and swapped out the air filters with ones that had higher MERV ratings to remove more particulate matter. After these changes, all spaces passed the follow-up test. “The fix was cheap, and it worked,” says Josh Davidson, the project manager at McCownGordon, the company responsible for constructing the building.

Four people sit at a conference desk in a modern, daylit meeting room. — Left: View of the office interior. Right: View of the garage bays. Image credit: Tom Kessler Photography/Courtesy of Clark & Enersen.

Angled view of the garage bays, with a mechanic in front doing work. — Left: View of the office interior. Right: View of the garage bays. Image credit: Tom Kessler Photography/Courtesy of Clark & Enersen.

The Prairie Village building needed 80 points to receive a Platinum certification, and the final total came to 83 points, two of which come from indoor air quality testing. Helping to reach that total were five points—the most possible—from Innovation credits. In addition to reducing water usage and incorporating a public education program about the building’s green features, the building also uses 80 products with Environmental Product Declarations, though only 40 were required for the credit. The project also implemented green cleaning procedures from the Safety First pilot credits developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last, staff conducted an occupant comfort survey and found high levels of satisfaction; just about everyone was “very satisfied” with the air quality.

“Current building code gets you a pretty doggone good building, but LEED Platinum got us some neat engineered systems that we might not have done otherwise,” says Keith Bredehoeft, director of public works for Prairie Village. He cites the high-efficiency VRF system, which allows staff to fine-tune the temperature of their individual spaces, as another highlight of the new building. Adds Bredehoeft, “They are positive enhancements that are actually really good for your employees.”

Health strategies earn LEED Platinum for Prairie Village Public Works