The SiOO X Story – Protecting the Planet - Book - Page 31
Chapter 4
Health and Wellbeing
In 1995, Hal Levin, head of the Building Ecology Research Group,
defined a healthy building as ‘one that adversely affects neither
the health of its occupants nor the larger environment. This has
since been extended beyond ‘no adverse impacts’ to ‘more
positive impacts’ as the opportunity for buildings to enrich and
contribute positively to our health and wellbeing has become
more widely recognised.
positive contributions of biomicry to maintaining or improving
the quality of the external environment are arguably less well
quantified or publicised. Healthy buildings, after all, are not
solely about the quality of their internal environments: their
design and construction, as well as the materials used to form
their exteriors, have a valuable role to play in the creation and
maintenance of healthy microclimates in the spaces between –
those places where we walk, shelter, rest and feel energised by.
In this regard, it has long been understood that wood has more
health and wellbeing benefits than any other building material
and that exposure to wood products has measurable health
qualities similar to those created by spending time in nature.
Growing public awareness of the many ways in which buildings can affect our health is now not purely about the need to
eradicate as far as possible those aspects of material use that
are recognised to cause illness (e.g., asbestos) and construction
techniques (e.g., hand-arm vibration exposure – HAV) that can
result in permanent injury, but is, more fundamentally, about
the positive contribution the built environment can make to our
physical, mental and social wellbeing.
Customer demand – whether domestic or commercial – for
better, healthier buildings is thus increasingly reflected in
construction clients’ thinking and briefing requirements. The
achievement – and demonstration – of a building’s enhanced
environmental credentials is now an important element in the
property development equation, as evidenced by the increasing
global recognition of environmental assessment schemes such
as BREEAM, LEED and the Living Building Challenge, as well as
sustainable forestry programmes like FSC® and PEFC®.
Biophilic and biomimetic approaches offer valuable health and
wellbeing characteristics, but whilst those of biophilia have been
extensively analysed and are generally well understood, the
Architect: Leo Qvarsebo. Photo: Lindfors foto.
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