Healthy Buildings webinar writeup

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David Taylor

Editor, NLQ and New London Weekly

Phil Coffey

Director
Coffey Architects

Xuhong Zheng

Associate
Hawkins\Brown Ltd

Ian Palmer

Head of UK Specification
Airflow

Graham Hurrell

Commercial Strategy Manager
Hydro Building Systems UK

Architects have ‘incredible opportunity’ to improve wellbeing

People have become much more engaged with their environment and more concerned with issues like light following months being stuck at home during lockdown. But architects should now seize this ‘incredible opportunity’ to press for change in the name of sustainability.

That was the view of architect Phil Coffey, speaking at a special webinar last week about healthy buildings and a focus on light and indoor air quality.

‘I think this is an incredible opportunity for architects’, Coffey said, ‘to really grab hold of the idea of climate change, global warming, connected to light, and well-being – which is something that we should all be thinking about much more as we go forward’.

Coffey had been talking about the way many of his projects like 22 Handyside Street for King’s Cross Central Limited Partnership (KCCLP) seek to use light and allow users and building occupiers to feel connected to circadian rhythms. This, he said was for the benefit of occupiers’ health and has been influenced by Coffey’s lifelong interest in photography. ’What we’re trying to do is to try to find depth and beauty’, he said. ‘When we make any piece of architecture, we make something that captures or encloses a piece of that cosmos, a little bit of that light. And if we're connected to that light then we're connected to our wider world’.

Coffey was speaking following Hawkins Brown’s Xuhong Zheng, who talked through a study she had made into the effects of light levels on internal surface colours and changing work environments. Her key findings include that natural light should still come first, since some LED circadian-mimicking lights had proved problematic; that biophilia is important to connect with the outside; that bright morning light should be prioritized to stimulate and set those rhythms, and to consider how buildings can be designed to encourage us to spend more time outside and concentrate on the routine throughout the day. ‘Light can affect multiple aspects of our health, including sleep cycles, the immune system, energy levels – even our appetite’, she said.

The session was kicked off by Ian Palmer of Airflow, who provided some detail on how indoor air quality is of crucial importance in Britain, where air pollution inside the home can be up to 650 times worse than outdoor air, a situation which has been exacerbated during COVID, with more people at home, and which has adversely affected the nation’s economy.

‘One of the best ways to ventilate the building is mechanically’, said Palmer, pointing to the firm’s filtration methods and new technologies which can even help protect against viruses like Coranavirus.

Finally, Graham Hurrell, Wicona UK Sales Director, Hydro Building Systems UK added that the façade also has a part to play, with a place for both opening elements and mechanical ventilation. ‘With a bit of careful thought, the right type of opening can be put into a facade to complement a mechanical system, and achieve, maybe some psychological and some very real ventilation effects’, he said. ‘But the two things can complement each other’.