Who, or what, inspires you to be healthy? To exercise more and to eat better? Is it your children and family? Is it your friends and coworkers? Was it a health scare that made you realize it was time to start taking better care of yourself? For me, it was a desire to continue building on a healthy foundation that included exercise and continually watching what I eat after I lost a bunch of weight over the course of a year. Whatever your reason to get and stay healthy, the decisions you make on a daily basis are important to your own mental and emotional health.
As I was wrapping up my run this morning, I was thinking about this idea of being healthy. I really started amping up my fitness game a few years ago when we purchased an in-home spin bike, and from there, I’ve added yoga, strength and stretching to my workout routine, and this summer, even running outdoors. Through the online community, I have met people both in real life and online who are inspiring me every day to take better care of myself.
I was curious though, besides the people in our lives, can the buildings and offices we live and work in inspire us to lead a better, healthier life? Since people spend almost 90 percent of their time inside, buildings are said to have a profound impact on our health and well-being.
In this month’s Special Feature, we take a closer look at the International WELL Building Institute’s (IWBI) WELL Building Standard, which is the first rating system focused exclusively on a building’s impact on human health and wellness. Whether it’s an office, school or residence, the WELL Building Standard aims to create a healthy environment in the places we live and work, improving our health and human experience. The WELL Building Standard aims for superior air quality and energy efficiency, and has requirements for natural light, fitness, nutrition and ergonomics, all aimed at making for a more pleasant working environment.
We also talk to Jessica Cooper, chief commercial officer at the International WELL Building Institute, about WELL v2, the second version of the program that supports and advances human health through better buildings. WELL v2 incorporates key learnings from nearly 1,000 WELL projects, and also reflects the current health research and data amassed since the program began in late 2014.
And as long as we’re discussing healthy buildings, it’s important to talk about the products that go into these projects. So we put together a list of the metal construction products that are free of the chemicals on the Red List, and have achieved the Declare label from the International Living Future Institute. These products also comply with the LEED v4 Material Ingredients Credit, Option 1.
Designing a healthy building goes beyond just a tight building envelope. Every product and process in place during the design and construction process work together to create an environment based around healthy and vibrant humans.
