Why wait until Mental Health Awareness Week to assess how your built environment is impacting people’s mental health and wellbeing? Instead, these considerations should come into play from step 1 of the design process. Released today (15 May), Health & Wellbeing Designed-In explores practical steps to creating healthy places where people can thrive.
The short downloadable guide looks at the ‘why’ of healthy buildings and takes it a step further by demonstrating practical applications of healthy design in different phases of project development. According to the report, targeting the three areas of mind, body, and soul are vital pillars to follow in a project’s brief.
Prepared by Stride Treglown, a UK-based architectural practice, in collaboration with Avon and Wiltshire Mental Heal Partnership NHS Trust, the booklet is open-source and aims to help anyone in the built environment maximise health and wellbeing in the built environment.
“For most of our lives, it’s the places we live that support good mental and physical health, rather than our national health and care services. The healthier the environments we can create, the less burden we place on these essential services,” says Marcus Grant in the foreword, Editor-in-Chief of Cities & Health.
A closer look at healthy buildings
While the mention of ‘healthy buildings’ only became a mainstream buzzword because of the pandemic, its held steadfast in its mission forward. From daylighting to biophilic design to indoor air quality, building managers and designers are seeing increasing demand and guidance enforcing healthier design.
Last week, the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) launched the International Healthy Buildings Accord, outlines the imperative for healthy buildings, key focus areas and strategic policy actions necessary to accelerate healthy buildings worldwide. The Accord already has more than 200 signatories, with high-powered individuals signing on such as the Surgeon General of the United States, and CEOs of organisations like the International Interior Design Association and Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.
So even though the conversations around healthy buildings have spiked in the last few years, it’s a topic that’s here to stay.
To download your copy of Health & Wellbeing Designed-In, click here.
Content Team
Work in Mind is a content platform designed to give a voice to thinkers, businesses, journalists and regulatory bodies in the field of healthy buildings.