Last year, I spent months studying the WELL Building Standard in preparation for one of the most rigorous standardized tests I’ve ever taken. I doubted myself, I cried, and I almost gave up, but my husband and my mother (my two biggest champions) never doubted me and encouraged me to keep going. In the end, after so much doubt and anxiety, I passed the exam on my first try. Phew! I am officially a WELL Accredited Professional.
My dedication to healthy building practices, sustainability, and ecological awareness pushes me to continue learning in order to advocate for better building design. I also believe it is important for me as an interior designer to help educate my community and clients on the issues we collectively face as humans. Knowledge is power, and we have the power to create healthier lives for ourselves, our families and friends, and our communities.
To that end, I want to share some of the core principles of the WELL Building Standard. The Standard identifies over 100 performance metrics, design strategies, and policies that are divided into ten sections or concepts: Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Movement, Thermal Comfort, Sound, Materials, Mind, and Community. Each month I will highlight the some of the features and health intents of one of these concepts. But first, a quick background on the WELL Building Standard.
WHAT IS WELL?
The WELL Building Standard is the leading global rating system on wellness in the built environment. Initially launched in 2014, it focuses “exclusively on the way that buildings, and everything in them, can improve our comfort, drive better choices, and generally enhance, not compromise our health and wellness.” Put another way, it “marries the best practices in design and construction with evidence-based health and wellness interventions.” According to the latest version of the WELL Building Standard, the goal is to “deliver more thoughtful and intentional spaces that enhance human health and well-being.”
HOW DOES WELL COMPARE TO LEED CERTIFICATION?
The simplest way to explain this is that they complement each other, but WELL is focused on human health while LEED is focused on ecological health. WELL is human-centric (considering the holistic health and wellness of the people who manufacture and install the building materials, the people who use the building, the people who service and maintain the building, etc.) while LEED is environment-centric (considering the materials that are used for building, how they are sourced and manufactured, the sustainability of the systems used within the building, the consumption of resources by the building and its occupants, etc.). There are definitely areas where the two certifications overlap, but their intentions and their raison d’être are different.
Stay tuned over the next ten weeks as I dive into each concept and discuss the core metrics, strategies, and policies that we endeavour to address through the Building Standard.
EXAMPLES OF WELL CERTIFIED BUILDINGS
1. Le Huppé by Immostar
Location: Quebec, Canada
Size: 230,00 sq. ft.
Certification Level: Gold
2. Deloitte, 1 New Street Square
Location: London, UK
Size: 267,278 sq. ft.
Certification Level: Gold
3. Edge Technologies HQ
Location: Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
Size: 19,397 sq. ft.
Certification Level: Platinum
4. Mohawk Industries Showroom
Location: New York, New York
Size: 6,864 sq. ft.
Certification Level: Platinum
