Health & Well-Being

Human health and well-being (HWB) are central to the quest for Green buildings.

WELL is a new building standard, now available in Asia, that seeks to be universal, i.e., applicable to all buildings everywhere.

Can there ever be a universal standard for health and well-being? How do we position HWB at the very start, when pen first touches paper?

In the projects we found, the approach goes beyond the question of mitigating the negatives; it is also about increasing the positives that contribute to physical and psychological health, what is known as salutogenic design. 

We are pleased to feature Ken Yeang in this issue. He reminds us that human well-being must be seen within the context of nature, the health of her systems and species. His approach is by no means easy to operationalise at the drawing board. It does, however, attempts to deal with context in ways that, we know, profoundly alter our experience.

Happy reading.