Sustainable Design


Both the city and county of San Mateo have a commitment to sustainability. The county even has a website devoted to "Making Green Easy". When it was decided to build a new main library the city wanted it to be a "Green" building. They have done an exemplary job in accomplishing this goal. One of the benchmarks used to determine whether or not a building lives up to its claim of being sustainable is LEED certification. This stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and it was created by the U.S. Green Building Council in 1998. Using this stringent rating system the San Mateo Public Library has achieved a Gold LEED certification. This is right below the highest rating of Platinum (very difficult to obtain). Due to the excellent building design one-third of the lighting is from the sun.

Some other features include such items as waterless urinals, alternative energy resources, recycled content materials (made locally), showers and changing areas for staff (to encourage walking and biking to work), clerestory windows (opened during warm weather), an advanced HVAC system, to name just a few of the features. In the Going Green Center of the library is a scale model of the building highlighting its energy efficient design. A downloadable brochure is available with more details. Hard copies of the brochures are available in strategic locations throughout the library.

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