UCL IEDE students visit first WELL Certified building in Europe

During the 'Indoor Air Quality in Buildings' module, a core module on both the MSc Environmental Design and Engineering and the new MSc Health, Wellbeing and Sustainable Buildings, students visited the Cundall offices as part of their case study analysis. 

Alan Forgaty, Cundall's Sustainability Partner, gave a realistic appraisal of how Cundall achieved the standard, problems they encountered and solutions they put forward. Students asked many questions and were impressed by the ethos of the building as well as its facilities. Alan has kindly agreed that visits will become a yearly event for students on the new MSc Health, Wellbeing and Sustainable Buildings and has provided a number of possible dissertation topics, which will see joint research between UCL and Cundall’s continue. This emphasises UCL IEDE’s strong industrial links, ensuring that the programmes on offer are both current and relevant.

A core aspect of sustainable building design and operation is fostering health, wellbeing and human performance, both of its occupants and of the wider community. However, there is a growing acknowledgement of the health and wellbeing agenda being beyond the provision of current regulations.

Although other standards do address air quality from the perspective of heating and ventilation, the Well Building Standard goes further in determining if the quality of air – whether via air conditioning or natural ventilation - meets ‘medically validated performance-based thresholds for healthy indoor air quality’. WELL is therefore an incredibly powerful framework for making human health the primary driver by medicalising design.