IMPLEMENTING AND EVALUATING PUBLIC HEALTH GOALS IN BUILDINGS Angela Loder International WELL Building Institute (WELL), United States
The focus on regenerative design, both at a community and a building level, has renewed interest in what healthy buildings, communities and ecosystems look like. However, many of the models for a healthy building are based on ecosystem services or indoor environmental quality work in building sciences, and focus mainly on a risk-reduction approach to health. This focus ignores the more socio-ecological approach used by public health and can dismiss health-promoting design features as ‘nice to have’ but not linked to ‘real health’. This lack of understanding of health, and how building level interventions can impact health outcomes, means that designers often lack the tools and language to talk to building owners about the value of health-focused interventions, or know how to set health goals and evaluate them. This contribution gives an overview of traditional approaches to health and the environment from a public health perspective, explains how this framework influences current differences in health terms (such as wellness vs well-being), and gives a sample tool for designers to use to set health goals and evaluate the outcomes in a design project. REGENERATIVE DESIGN AND HEALTHY BUILDINGS: AN EVOLVING RELATIONSHIP Many of the models that come from ecosystem services consider a risk reduction approach to health, e.g. the reduction in flooding and heat stress from better designed infrastructure [1]. Similarly, at a building level, experience from adverse health outcomes, such as sick building syndrome from energy-efficient buildings in the 1970s [2], has meant that for many, a healthy building is most likely a ‘green’ building; it reduces risks to health, usually through better air quality and improved thermal, acoustical, and lighting comfort [3]. There is also some general understanding, based on popular perception and recent media coverage of easy-to-digest research [4], that access to nature also provides health benefits [5], though how this fits into a risk reduction, building science approach, is not always clear.
HUMAN WELL-BEING VIA CERTIFICATION AND TOOLS
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