Health & Wellbeing in Buildings

Health & Wellbeing is the new frontier for making our buildings even better. A rich body of academic research and business case studies have arisen over the last five years, showing the physical, physiological, cognitive, health and wellness benefits of positive interactions between humans and the built environment.

The WELL Building Standard™ is a specific example of capturing and formalising this complex issue into a documented rating system, much overdue and warmly received. It follows similar approaches to common rating systems such as LEED and BREEAM in that a ‘credit’ style approach is used during the design and operation stage of the building to demonstrate compliance.

As global thought leaders in measuring sustainability in the built environment, IES has been researching and developing our approach to understanding Health and Wellbeing through our World leading IESVE software.

The WELL Building Standard

The WELL Building Standard is a certification scheme developed by Delos and the International WELL Building Institute™ to highlight the benefits of integrating occupant health and wellbeing in the design, construction and operation of our buildings. The Standard is organised into seven main ‘concepts’; Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Fitness, Comfort and Mind. All are applicable to three general building project typologies; new & existing buildings, new & existing interiors and core & shell compliance.

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WELL Credit Analysis

The IESVE software offers many outputs that are relevant to the seven concepts of the WELL Standard. Thermal comfort indices for ASHRAE 55, indoor air quality, mean age of air, visual comfort, daylight performance using Dynamic Daylighting and sky view are just some examples of appropriate modelling outputs for WELL credits.

CONCEPT	NO.	NAME
Air	3	Ventilation effectiveness
Air	12	Moisture management
Air	15	Increased ventilation
Air	16	Humidity control
Air	21	Displacement ventilation
Light	53	Visual lighting design
Light	54	Circadian lighting design
Light	60	Automated shading & dimming controls
Light	62	Daylight modeling
Light	63	Daylight fenestration
Comfort	76	Thermal comfort

WELL Faculty Videos

Our Health & Wellbeing Faculty event brought together key experts in the field to share their insight and explain the relevance of the WELL Building Standard. Watch all the speaker highlights here.

Health & Wellbeing in the Built Environment

Ann Marie Aguilar of the International WELL Building Institute discusses the importance of health and wellbeing considerations in the built environment as part of our WELL Faculty event.

WELL Inspired Design & the Role of Simulation

Lindsey Malcolm of XCO2 discusses the role of simulation in relation to the WELL Building Standard as part of our WELL Faculty event, which took place as part of World Green Building Week 2016.

WELL and MEP Implications

In this Faculty presentation, Julie Godefroy of the International WELL Building Institute explores the topic of WELL and MEP implications.

Meet our WELL Expert

Mark Knipfer, Vice President of the IES South Atlantic Division has an extensive understanding of the WELL Standard. Amongst the first of his peers to achieve WELL Accredited Professional status, Mark has joined an exclusive group with demonstrated expertise in this exciting and growing field.

Mark adds this credential to an impressive resume, having been a LEED Accredited Professional since 2004 and served as a contracted LEED reviewer starting in 2008. Mark has also served on the USGBC’s Indoor Environmental Quality TAG and the IAQP Working Group and has participated in the WELL AP exam development as well as research and development on the Air- and IEQ-related LEED-WELL crosswalk, released in April 2017.

Mark is now fielding more and more questions on WELL, from general questions of perception and value to ad hoc consulting on individual pre-conditions or optimizations to full service consulting.

Contact us today to find out more about how Mark and the rest of our global consulting team can assist in embedding good practice Health and Wellbeing concepts into your projects.

Case Studies

XCO2 WELL with the VE

XCO2 Energy Ltd explored how using IESVE on two different Indoor Environmental Performance projects could potentially meet the requirements for compliance with the WELL Standard.

Immeuble Bureaux Issy-Les-Moulineaux, Paris

IES Consulting provided daylight modelling services for WELL Building Standard Credit 54 on this newly proposed office block.

21-27 Rue Philibert Delorme, Paris

IES Consulting performed the comfort assessment for WELL Building Standard Credit 76 on this reonvated 40,000m2 office development.

SCENEO

The SCENEO project is the first building in Continental Europe to achieve a WELL Building Standard Certification at Gold level. IES Consulting provided daylight and thermal comfort analysis services toward the WELL Building Standard.