PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST DESIGNING FOR HEALTH AND WELLBEING IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT MAY 2015

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1 PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST DESIGNING FOR HEALTH AND WELLBEING IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT MAY 2015

2 ABOUT THE BCO The British Council for Offices (BCO) mission is to research, develop and communicate best practice in all aspects of the office sector. It delivers this by providing a forum for the discussion and debate of relevant issues. ABOUT THE AUTHORS The BCO thanks the following people for writing and contributing to this report: Derek Clements-Croome, University of Reading Ann Marie Aguilar, Arup Associates Mallory Taub, Arup Associates IMAGES COVER More London Nigel Young/Foster + Partners PAGE 4 Businessman meditating under tree in office bikeriderlondon PAGE 5 Manager looking out of the window in office Diego Cervo PAGE 6 Reception area of modern office building Monkey Business Images COPYRIGHT BRITISH COUNCIL FOR OFFICES 2015 All rights reserved by British Council for Offices. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the British Council for Offices. The BCO warrants that reasonable skill and care has been used in preparing this report. Notwithstanding this warranty the BCO shall not be under liability for any loss of profit, business, revenues or any special indirect or consequential damage of any nature whatsoever or loss of anticipated saving or for any increased costs sustained by the client or his or her servants or agents arising in any way whether directly or indirectly as a result of reliance on this publication or of any error or defect in this publication. The BCO makes no warranty, either express or implied, as to the accuracy of any data used by the BCO in preparing this report nor as to any projections contained in this report which are necessarily of any subjective nature and subject to uncertainty and which constitute only the BCO s opinion as to likely future trends or events based on information known to the BCO at the date of this publication. The BCO shall not in any circumstances be under any liability whatsoever to any other person for any loss or damage arising in any way as a result of reliance on this publication.

3 CONTENTS Introduction 4 Context 4 Beyond comfort 5 Personalisation 5 User experience 6 Beyond the building 6 Next steps 7 References 7 3

INTRODUCTION Given that a fundamental goal of buildings is to create an indoor environment in which people spend, on average, 90% of their time, architects and engineers have a large opportunity to

4 INTRODUCTION Given that a fundamental goal of buildings is to create an indoor environment in which people spend, on average, 90% of their time, architects and engineers have a large opportunity to positively impact people s health and wellbeing. Pushing this idea further, to what extent do architects and engineers have a duty to ensure that building occupants are healthy and happy (Aguilar, 2014)? A premise for this question is recognition of the value of people-focused design. The topic of the relationships between health, wellbeing and the built environment is growing both in research and practice. Designing for health and wellbeing is not about a quick fix solution or a set of products, similar to how there is no magic pill that guarantees a healthy lifestyle. Wellbeing is a comprehensive term that encapsulates a hierarchy of needs that includes physiological, psychological, social and personal needs (Maslow, 1943). For built environment professionals, this implies an integrated, interdisciplinary approach that relates to attention to design, operations and occupant behaviour. CONTEXT The shift towards putting people first comes at a time when statistics show the rising cost to the UK economy of sick leave and long-term illness, estimated recently at 14 billion a year (CBI, 2013). As the cost of staff salaries and benefits typically account for about 90% of a business operating costs, ways in which the built environment can help foster a more productive environment should be of significant interest for any organisation (World Green Building Council, 2014). In a survey of 2000 UK office workers, the BCO found that most companies have a long way to go to realise these benefits from enhanced wellbeing initiatives, given that almost two-fifths (39%) claim their organisation s culture does not support wellbeing, and more than a third (35%) feel their employer does not value their wellbeing at all (BCO, 2014). Based on the results of this survey, the BCO concluded that there will be great impact, and with it return on investment, if workplaces are aligned with a culture of wellbeing specific to the company s business, employees and physical environments. A study of over 700 American construction professionals found that architects, owners, human resources executives, architects and contractors are willing to pay more for buildings with demonstrated positive impacts on health, and cited many financial benefits to such buildings, including lower healthcare costs, higher levels of employee satisfaction and engagement, lower absenteeism and higher productivity (McGraw Hill Construction, 2014). For an organisation to be successful and to meet the necessary targets, the performance expressed by the productivity of its employees is of vital importance (Clements-Croome, 2006). From both financial and social points of view, it follows that personal wellbeing could be, and should be, identified in briefs for future building design. 4

BEYOND COMFORT Past discussions of indoor environmental comfort have focused on developing design criteria relating to uniform thermal, visual and acoustic characteristics that drive satisfaction.

5 BEYOND COMFORT Past discussions of indoor environmental comfort have focused on developing design criteria relating to uniform thermal, visual and acoustic characteristics that drive satisfaction. Comfort models are moving away from designing for uniform conditions and moving towards dynamic conditions (de Dear, 2011). This is related to the idea that transient experiences can have a positive effect on people s mindset. Furthermore, there are meaningful, incalculable factors that greatly contribute to one s satisfaction, pleasure and joy when inside buildings. Beauty, colour and biophilia are all examples of ways in which the design of the built environment can contribute to positive multi-sensory experiences that can be both aesthetically pleasing and calming. The recent BCO survey of UK office workers found that high percentages of respondents were dissatisfied with their office design and were specifically unhappy with their workspace if there was a lack of colour (80%), a lack of greenery (64%) and a lack of art (61%) (BCO, 2014). Biophilia at the building level can be upscaled to the level of green infrastructure, which has been linked to improving social cohesion, improving mental and physical health, lower crime, economic vitality, increased property prices, better urban microclimates and reduced pollution (Arup, 2014). While this is just one example, it demonstrates a broader perspective of the impacts of design decisions and ways in which the built environment can be a means of directly and indirectly influencing health. Factors beyond environmental comfort are becoming important considerations in people-focused design (Clements Croome, 2014). PERSONALISATION Providing people with a high degree of personal control over their thermal and indoor air-quality environment has been linked to a higher perception of feeling healthy and higher productivity compared with people with a lower amount of control (Boerstra, 2013). Technology is advancing quickly to provide high levels of personal environmental controls, sensing and data tracking. These innovations range from products, to apps, to wearables, and are transforming how people track their health, interact with buildings and measure building environmental performance. For example, watches made by FitBit are equipped with continuous heart-rate monitoring and can track a person s number of steps, calories burned, floors climbed and movement-based sleep quality (Bonnington, 2014). Comfy is an app that lets occupants change the supply air temperature at the diffuser nearest to them, which helps more people be comfortable at any given time by allowing for on-demand changes in local thermal environments (Peters, (2014). Apps have turned smartphones into instruments that measure light levels, sound levels and UV air pollution. Technology is enabling a citizen science movement, in which occupants are empowered with data and will start asking for healthier environments, with proof in hand, when buildings fail to perform. 5

6 USER EXPERIENCE The role of built environment professionals is expanding to include the design of full occupant experiences. Both physical and non-physical elements of a building impact occupant experience. Designers are moving into new, interdisciplinary realms that include developing workplace strategies to help clients spatialise and materialise current and future goals for their workplace and employees. Within this space, there is an opportunity to influence behavioural change by encouraging healthy habits. For example, valuing design for active occupants early on in the design process can lead to spaces that promote regular physical activity. Recent research shows that active working by mixing sitting and standing is much healthier than only sitting for long periods of time. On the urban level, designing for healthy cities includes planning that promotes daily walking and biking, as part of the growth in public health problems has been a result of an increasingly sedentary population (Gehl, 2010). In a survey by RIBA of 1330 people living in the nine largest cities in England, respondents said they would be encouraged to walk more if there were safer design of pathways, more attractive public parks and green spaces, more attractive streets and pathways, and safer design of public parks and green spaces (RIBA, 2013). Whether on the building level or the urban level, the built environment can support healthy choices as part of user experience design. BEYOND THE BUILDING Occupant health and wellbeing is influenced by the physical environment as well as programmes and benefits offered by organisations. Healthy policies can promote social cohesion and mitigate stressors, as well as be a fundamental part of company culture and brand identity. Studies have found that in workplaces 6

7 that are set up to foster wellbeing, people tend to be more creative, more loyal, and more productive (New Economics Foundation, 2014). Built environment professionals can work with clients to identify potential policies as part of developing a symbiotic approach to health and wellbeing that incorporates both the design of the physical environment as well as an organisational strategy. NEXT STEPS There is an emerging movement of advocacy for and implantation of health and wellbeing strategies in the built environment. The sustainability movement has focused on environmental performance, which is a separate and important aspect of building design. As the sustainability movement learned to distinguish examples of greenwashing from impact, and created benchmarks through green-building rating systems, health and wellness initiatives will benefit from applying strategies based on scientific research and using standards. The WELL Building Standard from the International WELL Building Institute is a new standard focused entirely on the health and wellness of building occupants, and the number of projects adopting the standard is growing exponentially (International WELL Building Institute, 2014). Applying metrics and measuring results will be an important part of moving the health and wellness movement forward. The World Green Building Council has encouraged companies to focus more on how design can improve employee health, wellbeing and productivity, and suggests incorporating metrics that address physical, perceptual and financial outcomes (World Green Building Council, 2014). Successful implementation of health and wellness strategies will require both a better understanding of related medical science research and a deeper collaboration between owners, architects, engineers, contractors and facility management to identify design criteria that go beyond comfort and the building and additionally incorporate personalisation and user experience design. Through bringing health and wellbeing to the forefront of design, the goal is to create better built environments for people. REFERENCES Aguilar A (2014) We have a duty of care. Arup Thoughts. Available at: (accessed 30 April 2015). Arup (2014) Cities Alive: Rethinking Green Infrastructure. Available at: (accessed 30 April 2015). BCO (2014) Making the Business Case for Wellbeing: The 2014 Wellbeing at Work Study. BCO, London. Boerstra A (2013) Impact of available and perceived control on comfort and health in European offices. Architectural Science Review 56(1): Bonnington C (2014) Fitbit announces three new wearables, including a fancy superwatch. Wired, 27 October. Available at: (accessed 30 April 2015). CBI (2013) Fit for Purpose: Absence and Workplace Health Survey. Available at: workplace_health_2013.pdf (accessed 30 April 2015). Clements-Croome D (ed.) (2006) Creating the Productive Workplace. Taylor & Francis, London. Clements-Croome D (2014) Sustainable Intelligent Buildings for Better Health, Comfort and Well-Being. Denzero EU Project with Debrecen University. Available at: Comfort_and_Wellbeing----a_Report (accessed 30 April 2015). de Dear R (2011) Revisiting an old hypothesis of human thermal perception: alliesthesia. Building Research & Information 39(2):

8 Gehl J (2010) Cities for People. Island Press, Washington, DC. International WELL Building Institute (2014) WELL Building Standard. Available at: (accessed 30 April 2015). Maslow AH (1943) A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review 50(4): McGraw Hill Construction (2014) The Drive Toward Healthier Buildings: The Market Drivers and Impact of Building Design and Construction on Occupant Health, Well-Being and Productivity. Available at: (accessed 30 April 2015). New Economics Foundation (2014) Wellbeing at Work. Available at: (accessed 30 April 2015). Peters A (2014) This smart new app solves the No. 1 complaint about offices. Fast Company, 11 June. Available at: (accessed 30 April 2015). RIBA (2013) City Health Check: How Design can Save Lives and Money. Available at: (accessed 30 April 2015). World Green Building Council (2014) Health, Wellbeing and Productivity in Offices. The Next Chapter for Green Building. Available at: (accessed 30 April 2015). 8

Health and wellbeing consultancy

Health and wellbeing consultancy 1 Contents Introduction 3 Context 7 Building opportunities 13 WELL Building Standard 25 Scaling up 31 Applications and implications 35 References 41 Wellness/wellbeing...is