Healthy Building Trends

by Jonathan McGaha | January 2, 2017 12:00 am

Building on this strong foundation, addressing the impact our built environments have on our health and wellness is now an emerging trend among planners, architects and owners. Much of this focus relates to obesity and chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, asthma and cancer, as well as general health and well-being (connected to productivity, job satisfaction and stress). Our concept of health has thus evolved to include not only the absence of disease, but also a more comprehensive state of physical, mental and social wellbeing.

Let’s explore the way these trends manifest and the tools designers use to guide the effort. The planning and design of communities, neighborhoods and buildings can minimize disease risk factors such as stress and exposure to pollutants and pathogens. Design can also have a significant

influence on healthy behaviors such as physical activity, making walking to local destinations instead of driving, and taking the stairs rather than the elevator, the preferred choices. Research has also shown that one of the most important elements influencing health and wellness in buildings is connection to the natural world. Known as biophilic design, these elements include visual connections to nature, dynamic and diffuse lighting, biomorphic forms and patterns, and natural materials.

Similarly, neighborhoods and buildings can be designed as foundations for healthy social interaction and resilient communities by creating spaces for chance meetings, community activities and local commerce. Examples of such spaces range from pocket parks to community gardens, and from food cart pods to local business incubators. The places we design can have a profound impact on our health and well-being, independent of individual determinants and access to health care services.

The benefits include:

• Improved public health
• Reduced health care costs
• Attracting and retaining employees
• Increased productivity and reduced absenteeism
• Attracting and retaining tenants
• Reduced occupant comfort complaints
• Shorter hospital stays for patients
• Improved learning and test scores for students

This growing awareness of the connection between the built environment and our health has led to an increased focus on healthy building in rating systems and certifications.

Green buildings rating systems have been in place for many years and address an array of issues associated with sustainable development, with a primary aim of reducing environmental impacts. But they have only limited focus on health through indoor environmental quality measures, such as fresh air ventilation, indoor pollution reduction and daylight. With the emergence of human health as a driver, a handful of healthy building rating systems have emerged to address, measure and validate associated strategies and factors. These include:

• FitWel[1]/Active Design Guidelines
• Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, version 4 (LEED v4)
• Living Building Challenge[2] (LBC)
• The WELL Building Standard[3]

The following summarizes how each directly addresses health and wellness in the built environment.

FitWel is a newly released, evidence-based checklist for a healthy built environment developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and administered by the Center for Active Design. FitWel focuses on creating supportive conditions and giving cues in the environment through urban and building design elements that encourage physical activity and healthy choices, including walking and biking, outdoor recreation, taking the stairs, healthy eating and green purchasing. FitWel is closely aligned with the Active Design Guidelines, developed jointly by the City of New York and American Institute of Architects New York.

LEED v4 has raised the bar on health-related issues, with new credits covering strategies such as interior lighting quality, acoustics, and a deeper focus on healthy materials. This includes introducing transparency in product constituents using health product declarations (HPDs), while maintaining previous requirements related to fresh air ventilation, low-VOC materials, thermal comfort, and daylight and views.

LEED v4 also shifts from single attribute green product consideration, like recycled content, toward life cycle assessment, while also introducing environmental product declarations (EPDs). This places greater emphasis on reducing the environmental and health impacts of material extraction, manufacturing and end-of-life disposal. Still missing are basic health-promoting measures such as active design, circadian lighting, access to healthy food, biophilia, ergonomics, and potable water quality. LEED v4 added several health-focused pilot credits, including an ergonomics, walkability and active design.

The LBC is an advanced sustainable building certification that includes 20 required “Imperatives” in seven performance categories called “Petals,” but it has no optional credits. The LBC emphasizes health and wellness in its Health + Happiness and Materials Petals, which focus on natural ventilation, daylight, biophilia, car-free living, on-site agriculture, elimination of toxic materials (“Red List” of prohibited chemicals), as well as low-VOC materials and ventilation requirements familiar from LEED.

WELL Building is a new rating system released last year by the International Well Building Institute[4]. Its research-based development covered a wide range of health-related issues connected with buildings in design and construction, and especially in operation. WELL Building requires a wider baseline of performance through its 37 health-related “preconditions.” In addition to design and construction requirements, it requires a higher degree of on-site performance testing (water quality, air quality, acoustics, etc.) compared to LEED.

As the focus of sustainable building expands beyond energy, water and resource conservation by elevating the importance of human health and well-being, these certifications for buildings provide valuable guides for improving the built environment that supports our daily lives. I predict they will become important tools to help planners, architects and interior designers create healthier built environments and realize the many economic, environmental and health benefits to individuals, businesses, organizations and communities.

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Alan Scott, FAIA, LEED Fellow, LEED AP BD+C, O+M, WELL AP, CEM, is an architect with nearly 30 years of experience in sustainable building design. He is a director with YR&G Sustainability in Portland, Ore. To learn more, visit www.yrgxyz.com[5].

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