Open Air Lobby/Drop off

The intent of the requirement is to remove contaminants from shoes before they are tracked into enclosed spaces and create indoor air quality issues. Typically these need to be inside the building, and precedent indicates that review teams take a quite strict view of the requirement for mats to be inside the building, although limited exceptions are made for renovated buildings.

That said, the regulations were not created with SE Asian architectural design in mind, and depending on the design, location and use of the property it may be possible to convince the review team that the credit intent is satisfied by placing mats at the entrance to the sheltered lobby. For example, It appears unlikely that this solution would be acceptable for an office building lobby in Bangkok where air pollution is high and dust will contaminate the lobby, while it may be acceptable at a remote island hotel where sand should be removed at the building entrance.

In any event, I would recommend submitting a CIR to confirm the strategy if achieving the credit is important to your certification strategy.

LI#5219 addresses an issue similar to yours: http://www.usgbc.org/leed-interpretations?keys=5219. Just as your question suggests, this ruling exempts open-air spaces, but requires walk-off provisions at entries into enclosed spaces.

However, because IEQc5 criteria have changed slightly since LEEDv2.2, portions of this interpretation may not be applicable to LEED-2009. To be safe, you may choose to request an interpretation from the USGBC citing LI#5219 and inquiring how this ruling might apply to your project’s specific conditions.

Hi John,
Did you get any feedback from USGBC regarding this subject? In our project there is a dining room which is connected to an outside terrace. The terrace has a roof and a short surrounding wall and people can access it only from the inside. My case is in some way similar to yours and I would like to confirm if this kind of entrance between the terrace and the dining room need a 10feet long entryway mat?

Balconies accessed only from the interior don't need entryway mats. I would apply that to a terrace as well.

Agata - We had a similar design, a dining room which is connected to an outside terrace. The terrace has an open grid/ trellis roof and a short surrounding wall with trellis. Similar scenario, people can access it only from the inside. However, there are gates for emergency egress. We did not provide a 10feet long entryway mat in this area and were awarded the credit. The USGBC reviewer questioned it, but we indicated these doorways would be exempt from the requirements of this credit as emergency exits or non-regularly used/available building entries.