Designing healthy buildings like a good ancestor: TEDx Talk 14.01.24

Matt Aspiotis Morley - Designing healthy buildings like a good ancestor - TEDx - 14.01.24

What connects evolution history with the healthy building movement?

Evolutionary history helps explain our innate connection to music & dance, need for social bonding, penchant for salty or sweet foods, empathy with certain four legged animals, and plenty more besides

That kind of zoomed out, deep time perspective can also provide a surprising amount of guidance on how to build better buildings today for the generations to follow

those responsible for our built environment can in other words make targeted design decisions influenced by evolutionary psychology and anthropology to ensure cross generational karma.

essentially this is how I feed my hero complex - helping residential real estate developers, hotels and offices create places and spaces that are healthy for people and planet

In addition to urgent de-carbonization for planetary health, right now that means answering specific human health concerns as well, such as 

 - non-toxic building materials 

- enhanced indoor air quality 

- maintaining a connection to nature indoors

-designing interiors for physical activity and mental wellbeing

Evolutionary timeline

No matter where we are on the evolutionary timeline - in any society, be it tribal or post industrial, some of us are drawn to child rearing, others to trading goods and services, caring for the sick, preparing food or passing on wisdom. 

While some (like me) feel a gravitational pull towards the physical structures we inherit, build, and ultimately leave behind. 

And So, now that i have you gathered around this large format campfire, let me tell you our  story…

Green building materials in new and existing buildings

We begin with the materials that go into building construction and interiors because If we get that bit wrong, those elements alone can be responsible for habitat loss, resource depletion and environmental damage even before the first foundation is laid 

To prevent that, we want less fossil-fuel based plastics in our flooring, more sustainable timber, and more locally sourced, recycled and biobased materials.

Building materials that impact human health

At the same time, on the human side, we are still playing wack-a-mole with a plethora of ‘chemicals of concern’ that quietly crept into our man-made building materials after the 19th century’s chemical revolution. 

Think of asbestos, formaldehyde, Lead, more recently still flame retardants, antimicrobials, and chemical off-gasses known as Volatile Organic Compounds.

Indoor air quality in building operations

The issue is low-grade piping, insulation, furniture, flooring, finishes, paints and adhesives that previous generations inadvertently buried in our buildings leaving behind a toxic inheritance

If allowed to accumulate indoors these substances can variously cause hormone disruption, cancer, respiratory problems, & Cognitive disfunction. The stakes are high basically. 

How do we avoid making similar mistakes in our new buildings and refurbishments?

Great-great grandparent test

As a first pass when looking at a fit-out materials list, i use the great-great-grandparent test - would they have recognized a given material? 

If not, i need to push the manufacturer for what’s called a Product Declaration showing exactly what’s in it, essentially like a material ingredient list, so we have some visibility on the possible health risks to people or planet

Life Cycle Analysis of materials

From there, going a level deeper, we can deploy a life cycle analysis to check how a material was extracted, what went into the manufacturing process, how it degrades or breaks down over time while in use, as well as what options exist for its reuse at the end of its life

Precautionary Principle

Thirdly, the precautionary principle - if in real doubt about a specific material, the responsible thing to do is leave it out, especially when dealing with a large volume order, for example the choice of flooring in a 1000-unit residential tower. 

So those three tools help ensure the materials going into a building are not creating an unhealthy indoor environment or causing damage to the natural world.

The building lifecycle

Of course Buildings, just like the materials that go into them, have their own lifecycle, from planning to design, construction, operation and in some cases eventual demolition

Although if you adopt a 100 or even 1000 year mindset in phases 1-3 you can delay demolition indefinitely, which means less waste, less carbon impact and more chance of making it into Wikipedia

So that in-use phase can extend on and on, our work therefore continues to make an indoor environment as healthy as possible.

Healthy indoor air - inspired by the International Well Building Institute WELL certification

Even before Covid hit, as part of a healthy building plan, we knew We needed to increase indoor ventilation rates, so circulating the air in a closed indoor space more often; upgrade air-conditioning unit filters to catch the smallest airborne particles and off-gasses, and install air quality monitors to help us ‘see’ the air quality and identify issues in real time.

Green healthy indoor air quality

Combined with a materials policy, these initiatives will give us something close to green healthy indoor air, maybe not as good as self-isolating in a forest treehouse but clearly these are solutions specifically for urban living..

Natural materials and biophilic design in indoor spaces

When we start prioritizing non-toxic, natural materials such as woods, stone, cork, wool, rammed earth, lime plaster and clay, they automatically bring an organic aesthetic back into our buildings right when our Dense urban environments feel increasingly disconnected from the natural world we evolved in.

Biophilia in architecture and interior design

Only recently with what is known as Biophilia are architects and designers rekindling that connection with nature by reintroducing elements of the wild back into our built environment in what equates to an aesthetic cross-breed: Part indoor, part outdoor.

Biophilic design is really just a butterfly emerging from its cocoon in design terms, it’s been right there all along, waiting for its moment

So we fill our interiors with all those natural materials and finishes as well as living plants, vertical gardens and hydroponics.

We deploy indirect representations of nature such as colours, fractal patterns, organic textures and shapes, but also sounds, scents, even smart lighting to replicate the ebb and flow of sunlight.

Research studies into biophilic design

In one of two studies I worked on with a research team at the University of Essex, after just 30-60 mindful minutes in a biophilic space, 74% of respondents felt an improvement in mood, 84% felt more productive and 87% reported lower levels of perceived stress.

Matt Aspiotis Morley - Designing healthy buildings like a good ancestor - TEDx - 14.01.24

Vitamin Nature for health and wellbeing

So a space loaded with 'Vitamin Nature' like this one provides enough sensory continuity with the natural world  to trigger many of the same mental health benefits as our brain on actual nature - at least until that next jog along the river. 

Green exercise for building users

Which is where our tale takes another twist, because green exercise / exercising outdoors means you get all the mental health benefits of being fully immersed in nature as well as the physical benefits of movement and exertion. Green exercise is like exercise squared.

Biophilic gym design in new and existing buildings

If a hard working post grad student at this medical university in Stockholm can’t get Outside in their break because it’s a snowy -5C, biophilic design can provide a solution

We converted an under-utilized waiting area of just 25m2 into a forest-themed fitness room using sustainable non-toxic materials with functional equipment for small group training sessions accessible to all staff and students

Why did one of the world’s leading medical universities ask me do that? Because the right dose of exercise has been proven to boost productivity and concentration, reduce anxiety, enhance feelings of self-esteem, and improve mood.

In other words, those around us benefit indirectly too, whether that be an employer or university in this case.

Not all of are focused on health and wellness

But I’m not here to sell you exercise - not all of us were 'born to run’, in fact our ancient instinct is to conserve energy & avoid unnecessary exertion. 

Based on UK averages, Somewhere around 85% of you in here, the non regular exercisers, are officially off the hook, Inertia is the norm.

There’s a catch however because from a deep time perspective, calories were generally scarce, so several hours of daily movement (hunting & gathering) were required to procure even a minimum calorie intake.

The birth of Agriculture and then industrialization broke that bond, unleashing untold numbers of comparatively cheap, low grade calories for our ready consumption.

A mismatch of modernity

There have only been 10-15 generations since industrialization but our ancestors spent around 10,000 generations in a Paleolithic environment. Our genes simply aren’t adapted to a world of calories on tap > it’s what’s known as a mismatch of modernity.

Lifestyle disease epidemic in public health

We’re now in the midst of a lifestyle disease epidemic in advanced economies with obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease responsible millions of deaths every year. 

So how can buildings help? 

Sitting is only part of the issue when it comes to inactivity, it’s movement that really matters.

Matt Aspiotis Morley - Designing healthy buildings like a good ancestor - TEDx - 14.01.24

Inactivity and movement in sustainable design

Some, indeed any physical activity is better than none and studies show going from an entirely sedentary lifestyle to just 60 minutes of moderate exercise per week can drastically reduce mortality rates. 

Active Design strategies as wellness features

'Active Design' strategies facilitate frequent movement snacks amongst building occupants - tiny bite size chunks of low level activity that might not otherwise happen  yet cumulatively make a real difference. 

In a workplace, I’m implementing environmental design 'nudges' that can assist in forming healthy new 'habits':  adjustable sit-stand desks can be a game changer for those with lower back issues, a standing meeting area is ideal for a 30-minute brainstorming, and a low reclined seating area helps take the load off tired feet.

This is about moving between different spaces for different types of work - be it collaborative, creative or deep concentration.

Promoting mental resilience in green buildings

Crucially though, full autonomy remains with the end user in this type workspace, there are no sticks - only carrots.

The individual is accountable for his or her own actions, because beyond the physical benefits, that’s also where inner, mental resilience is built, brick by brick, micro decision by micro decision

So When nobody is watching, what decisions do you make?

It’s not literally about the stairs, there’s a wider metaphor for life in there somewhere i’m sure but… if you let me loose...

Activated Stairwells

Active Design can also wage war with soulless, dull and neglected stairwells that nobody uses for fear of setting off a fire alarm.

Instead, for say a premium student accommodation building for example, we can design stairwells with wall murals, LED lighting, maybe a sound system and a funky playlist - whatever it takes to make the stairs a frequently used feature of the building, not just an emergency escape (although we do have to follow health and safety code too!).

Active Travel Facilities

An under-utilized Basement space or corridor can provide secure storage for a variety of bicycles, folding bikes, e-bikes and mobility options, ideally with charging stations, showers and lockers for wet running gear.

Investing in Such 'active travel' facilities increases the likelihood of more green healthy movement between home and work, be that jogging, cycling or anything else.

 It’s good for us, the planet and again also indirectly benefits the business or developer that made it all so convenient. 

Restorative spaces - quiet rooms

Specifically for mental wellbeing, An empty room in a forward thinking office can become a restorative space, or ‘quiet room’ like this one for cathartic venting, a moment of strategic rest during the workday, or a delicate 1-2-1 conversation. 

If We fill it with natural materials, an air purifier, nature sounds a d aromatherapy we start to see how powerful a joined-up, 360-degree experiential design approach can be…

Evolution-friendly building design adaptations

So as I see it, a healthy materials policy, purified indoor air, biophilic design, active design strategies and restorative spaces are all evolution friendly design adaptations for modern buildings aimed at reducing stress and anxiety, increasing physical activity, improving the quality of our indoor air and bringing nature back into our urban existence.

A deep time perspective on healthy buildings

When i think about what I do from a deep time perspective - of ancestors past, present and future - creating green healthy places starts to look like something of a family business, it’s all a matter of perspective.

Thankfully, Having a transcendent life goal like this, a 'Telos' in Greek, has given me real meaning and purpose going into the second half of my life, at least until i finally answer the call of the wild, find a mate and pass on my stair-loving genes.

Because Remember, continuity is everything, the House of Mother Nature always wins - this whole show will go on, with or without us, no matter how central we think we are to the plot.

So it’s really just three acts: life, death and the stories of our ancestors.

Both I and the real estate industry  therefore, simply have to make this the performance of a lifetime. 

Sustainable building data - 2050 Materials

Welcome to episode 61 of the green & healthy places podcast in which we explore the themes of wellbeing and sustainability in real estate and hospitality.

Phanos Hadjikyriakou is co-founder and Ceo of 2050 materials, an online database of sustainable building products and intelligent tools that help architects and designers in their efforts to create low-carbon, circular buildings and interiors.

In this podcast we discuss the genesis of the company, the unmet need it addresses in real estate and the sustainability problems it tries to solve, such as toxic building materials and those that are especially damaging to the environment when viewed from a Life Cycle perspective, considering its extraction, use phase and disposal options at its end of life.

We also cover some of the many sustainable building material certification systems as well as how Artificial Intelligence could start to leverage this type of database to propose sustainable, healthy solutions to architects and designers in the not too distant future.

Check out 2050-materials.com while you’re listening along!

https://app.2050-materials.com/

FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS COURTESY OF OTTER.AI - EXCUSE TYPOS!

Matt Morley

First of all, thank you for making the time to join us today on the podcast. Pleasure to have you here.

Why don’t we talk about the genesis of the business? So how did 2050 materials start as an idea? And what’s that journey been like, from the initial concept through to where you’re at today?

Data on Real Estate Supply Chains

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

Yeah, great. So I guess that goes back a little bit to my background. I’m an engineer by training. And I would say I’m pretty much a data person in my brain, I was working basically in the financial sector, helping investors align their portfolios with different climate strategies, and essentially giving them different kinds of data on climate change risk.

2025 Materials Principle

The whole idea behind 2050 Materials started when I was working with a few very large real estate investors who started talking about supply chains and supply chain emissions and embodied carbon in the portfolios and in the buildings they owned. I come from a family of architects and people working in materials distribution.

So that sparked my interest, what I figured out very quickly is that what investors were starting to ask for and talk about, everything related to supply chain and material impact, is something that the people on the ground, the designers, the contractors, the building materials suppliers, simply did not have the right data to deliver on sustainability performance.

So I thought that, first of all it’s a big problem, secondly, it’s a big opportunity to fill that gap with a solution. I generally have an affinity for innovation within the material sector. I just think it’s very cool when you see a new material that you can actually touch and feel. And there’s a story behind where it comes from and what it’s been made of. And also if you can add the impact data to it. And that, for me makes it very interesting.

Much More than a Sustainable Building Materials listing Site

Matt Morley

So let’s look at that. Because obviously, on one level, what you’ve developed is, if you like a database of materials, that for someone like me, who’s involved in real estate, primarily interiors, less the construction side, there’s a constant search for new innovative materials that not only look good and fit into a particular space that we’re trying to propose to a developer, but also that are doing some good or and certainly doing less harm to the environment.

Then there’s another level to all of this, from what I can see, it’s a bit more than just becoming an online collection of materials, right, there’s more depth to it that I think is really where it starts getting interesting. Can you talk to us about those calculations and about that extra level of detail that you’re able to get into around the body carbon and the impact of the materials? The platform provides simplified metrics to help designers quickly assess the impact of materials.

Moving to a Low Carbon Construction Industry

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

Well, let’s start from the assumption that we need to transition to a low carbon economy and to Climate Neutral economy. And the construction sector, whether you’re an interior designer, or an architect, or just work in the built environment, the impact your work has is actually massive. And our thesis is that data is the key to getting to a stage where we are designing and eventually building buildings in line with the climate emergency.

Now, the interesting thing about this space is that there’s an abundance of data that shows impacts of specific products and materials in the sector. The problem is that that kind of data is all around the internet, usually in PDFs, and usually in a format that’s very technical. So it’s usually what’s called the lifecycle assessment or an environmental product declaration that states these kinds of values.

Unfortunately, the assessment and the output of these reports are meant to be read by a specialist in the sector. And what the reality is, you need designers and architects who are not specialists in the sectors to still be able to access and understand that data.

So something that’s often, let’s say, misconception of a lot of people when they land on our platform, is that we do a lot of assessment of existing product. In fact, all we do at this point is gather existing data from different sites, we digitize it so that it’s actually accessible on the platform. And you don’t have to look through 1000s of PDF files to extract the information you need.

And then finally, we, and probably most importantly, we actually simplified to the extent that it keeps its accuracy, but it’s actually understandable by a non specialists. So what that means is that we filter out the detail that is probably unnecessary to most designers and architects, so that we quickly give them the numbers they need in order to make an assessment. And we put that at the forefront of the platform, providing easy to consume data on the sustainability performance of building products.

3rd Party Certifications for Sustainable Materials

Matt Morley

Just as a note, I would say I’m totally on board with that approach. I think there’s absolutely no issues in relying on established third party certification systems, whether it’s an environmental product declaration, or a healthy product declaration, or something like that, declare a red list to the cradle the cradle, for example, those are the gold standards, and when you have a little bit of knowledge about this space, then I think you can leverage that, you’re standing on their shoulders.

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what we always say is that we are trying to democratize these kinds of sustainability assessments, and that exactly pointing to the fact that yes, we do have Sustainability Consultants and specialists using the platform. But what we are building the platform for, or the person, or the stakeholder we’re building the platform for is actually the average designer, architect, contractor, who is having conversations with a customer or with a colleague around sustainability.

They need to start understanding this kind of data without going back to university and getting a degree in this. The platform is built for designers and architects to use data during the design and specification phases, simplifying metrics for easy understanding and use in this context.

The Evolution of Sustainability Data on Sustainable Building Materials

Matt Morley

It's interesting, if you tried to do this, five years ago, 10 years ago, you probably wouldn't have had quite so many materials, right? So it's a sign of where the industry is at now that you're able to have such a wide collection, I think it's, it's the right time, because it is now becoming the choices quite expensive. And it's becoming actually sometimes harder to filter through that. But why don't we take a step back?

I understand that perhaps not everyone may not understand the context, which is that there are unhealthy versions or unsustainable materials going into our built environment, both from the construction and then the interior fit out.

So from your perspective on the inside of this industry, like what are the main dangers there? And what are what are we? What are you battling against presenting these more sustainable healthy materials? And what's the problem here with the unhealthy buildings?

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

That's an interesting question. So I would say, let's look at human health. First, when it comes to coming into contact with harmful substances and pollutants, we actually come into contact with those in our daily lives more frequently than we realize. So that might be from building insulation that's, that's packed with flame retardants, to chemicals in our food packaging, in might be wet paint that's emitting VOCs, volatile organic compounds.

So all of these things actually contribute or can contribute negatively to human health and cause things like asthma and a bunch of other health issues. There's definitely there's definitely, let's say, a very imminent health issue that is fixed when you start looking at more sustainable products. But I would say that a big driver of health is also just global health and looking at climate climate issues.

I would say that, yes, in the short term, we want to avoid, for example, vocs emissions in our buildings, because we, we don't want to have respiratory diseases in the long term. And it's not even that long term. If we don't stop emitting as much carbon from the construction industry, then we all of our lives, I believe will be impacted from climate impact. I would split the two things into let's say, direct human health today and then long term health for us. For our kids for, for basically everyone who is living.

Matt Morley

Well “green and healthy places” is the name of the podcast. I think that connection between green as in good for the planet, and healthy, good for us, or in this case, good for the people spending time in a space, then the yin and the yang interact, I think is fundamental.

Do you think there's, is there an element of perhaps sustainability being more applicable to the building materials themselves? Just in terms of the quantities involved for concrete and steel, for example, versus say the interior fit out? Where perhaps it's more to do with health? Or is that is that dichotomy to generalist?

Environmental Impact of a Building Over its Whole Lifespan

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

I think traditionally, you know, I think concrete and steel is obviously the two materials that kind of get the spotlight, especially when we're talking about carbon emissions. And that's because the industry as a whole is producing a lot of carbon emissions. So if you look at a building, it's an interesting case study, actually, because if you look at the buildings materials, you would see that yes, most of the carbon emissions of a new building is in the foundation and the frame. So usually carbon, usually concrete, and steel and aluminium.

Unfortunately, if you actually look at a specific time span, let's say 50 years of a commercial building that hosts officers, say in central London, the reality is that the fit out the change of fitouts. And the frequency of change of fitouts, actually can cause up to four times the emissions of the of the envelope of the building.

So if you take, for example, an office in central London that has new desks, new chairs, new cabinets, new flooring every, let's say, two to six years, which is the average time of fatal change, then all of those emissions related to the products and the materials that go into the, the interiors are actually much larger than the building itself. And of course, all of this has, has a certain assumption. So if we were to reuse a lot of those products, then of course, we would reduce the impact.

But as it stands today, where most of those things are either thrown in the landfill, or let's say down cycled over big extent, fitouts are massively important. So I know it's not an extremely helpful answer, because it might, it would be nicer if we could focus on a couple of a couple of sectors.

But I think what this kind of research is starting to show is, truly, if you work in the built environment, whether you are doing fitouts, or interior design or residential project, or you're a structural engineer, or anything else, your work really matters, like it really matters to be able to have access to this kind of information and to do your part in reducing emissions.

Value and Purpose in Prioritizing Sustainable Building Materials

Matt Morley

I find at some point, it becomes more about your values, or the values of your business and what you're trying to do in your work that pushes one designer or someone working in this space to consider both equally. And sometimes there are decisions to be made. And you know, what materials are better for the planet and not quite so good for their human health or vice versa? It can often be quite complicated.

I think that's why platforms and software such as what you've developed is, is important so that at the next level of detail, then when we're actually on the website looking into some of these materials, doing our research, how are you helping users to kind of make some calculations beyond just Oh, that's a green certified material, but then in terms of its actual impact once it's applied, in terms of the quantities and the scale, and where it's coming from.

So in terms of those details, is there a way you're able to help your users to factor those into the into the equation?

Circular Economy Design Metrics in Building Materials

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

Yeah, absolutely. And your question comes at a good timing, because we’ve launched the tool to do a lot of the things you just mentioned very recently, and users can trial it and try it out for free to start with, essentially what this tool allows you to do is get anything that you would find on the library and make a list of it.

And this can be done at any stage of the design process or it can be done really early stage where you’re not really thinking yet about designs and quantities and you just want to understand more or less what it means, what are the forecasted footprint of my building with me.

Once you have a bill of quantities and you really have a data list of everything you’re about to procure. What we are doing is we collect the data of the products that are on the library within this tool once you’ve selected it as a user.

We show, of course, the total carbon footprint, as well as some numbers, like the embodied carbon per meter squared of gross internal area and do some comparisons of that number to industry benchmark as well as some of the recommended numbers in the industry, we actually go a step beyond just focusing on carbon, we calculate currently a couple of circularity metrics, like the weight of the recycled content in the products that you’re selecting.

And the recyclable contents are kind of how much of the products and the materials that you’re specifying may actually be possible to recycle or reuse at the end of life. And I guess, one thing that that became important when we’re developing this tool, with a few large offices is we we initially were thinking that designers will use this tool solely based on actual products that are available in the market.

So meaning, you know, x brick by this kind of supplier or this kind of manufacturer, what we’ve developed now is we’ve developed an extra layer where it’s generic data for a specific type of product or type of material.

So something that says, for example, a clay brick from the UK without necessarily specifying who the manufacturer is. So that kind of gives a workflow that allows you to, if you’re starting by just considering materials in the beginning, you can choose your materials. And then once you get into the specification process, or if you want to see whether there is an applicable product in your area, to actually go into the product selection process during the specification phases.

Yeah, and one thing I did not mention, but you did actually in your question is, of course, the impacts that we show, you know, they show the manufacturing emissions of the product. So what’s in lifecycle assessment terms is called the A 123 lifecycle stages. But the interesting thing about setting a platform like the one we have is, we have the project location.

And we have the manufacturing location of each of those products in the library, which means that we can quite accurately calculate what the estimated carbon emissions are of transporting those materials.

So one of the things that you can do in the tool is you can pick a bunch of products from the, from the platform that are, let’s say, from China, or a London project, and you’ll see in the breakdown of emissions per category, that the transportation emissions exceed everything else, versus selecting local materials.

And I think there’s an interesting opportunity there to see, you know, what kind of products maybe does make sense to ship from a little bit further away, even though they might not be available locally versus other ones, which, of course, would outweigh the benefits.

Matt Morley

For anyone who’s done a project before with a sustainability or a healthy materials component to it. The reality is this type of detailed conversation, almost every material and it becomes a major headache pretty quickly, you’re constantly evaluating or trying to get to this type of information about not just where materials from how it was produced the impact of extracting it, and its raw format, then in terms of the manufacturing, production, then the transport, and its end of life, as well as it’s in use phase.

And combining all of that is really complicated, because it’s just, you’re trying to move fast, you’ve got climate pressure. And so I think for anyone who’s perhaps, you know, feeling frustrated or overwhelmed by this amount of information in its platforms like this, like your library that help ease that pain, and I think that’s what I what I see here, which is, it’s very easy to be drowned in the information.

We need to make decisions as quickly as possible once the project starts, there’s just no, there’s no time to lose. And I think you’re helping to smooth out that process. That’s really where I see that the sort of main benefit in terms of using this. So once you’re, once you’re building into the library, like what process are you using to screen or to filter materials?

What are you looking for as a sort of, oh, that’s suitable or that’s not suitable? Have you got your own internal benchmarks in terms of where you do or don’t accept the material?

Sustainability Standards for Materials on the Platform

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

That's a really interesting question. So first of all, I guess we live in a constant state of research within 2050. So we are always on the lookout for new new products, new materials, especially when they come from smaller companies that are just popping up whether it's a startup or a company that's been operating for a few years and we just have not seen it before.

But having said that, there is a very important point to be made about how we work. So we do not police what kind of product or manufacturer makes it on the platform, we actually want to have as many products as possible appearing there and we don't have a specific requirements for products to get on the platform, what we enforce as a library is that there needs to be some level of documentation that provides transparency on the impact of the product.

So, if you go to a library, you can look up concrete and you will find very heavily emitting concrete products and concrete manufacturers, we want to have these products, we understand the sector, at least for now still needs a lot of these products, what we ensure is we essentially put transparency over some some abstract assessment of what is a sustainable material or not, because there are no sustainable materials, in my opinion, there are materials that are suitable and can generate the Sustainable Design and there are materials that are non suitable, and the specific data related to each material does not necessarily give the answer to that.

So in short, anything can land on the platform, what we ensure when we onboard the product is that there is some level of transparency related to the impact of the material or the product is causing.

Matt Morley

Sounds like a very pragmatic and practical approach. So some degree of thinking on the part of the user is still recommended, you know, we're still going through that mental process of, of evaluating and arbitrage right, trying to decide which which one is the best in this case, and it may not be the most sustainable, as you said.

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

Yeah, I guess that's, that's one of the things that initially, you know, you start and you are very ambitious, that you will give the perfect answer to everyone and point them to exactly the one thing and they don't have to spend any time thinking. Quite honestly, we very early this very early on, we decided, you know, the specialists are the designers, they are the architects, they know how to do the research to find the right kind of product or material.

So we are not trying to replace their their specialization and the work they know how to do, what we're trying to do is replace a process that would currently take something close to three or four or five hours to compare a few products to something they can do with essentially 10 clicks within two minutes.

Matt Morley

What is the business model going forward? Is it going to eventually be some kind of a paywall so that you pay for access to the materials or the materials suppliers, manufacturers paying to be listed? How do you how do you set things up from a commercial perspective?

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

Yeah, so from a commercial perspective, we essentially list the way that we list products is is an important point as well. So we partner with essentially every certification body that is out there that certifies building material products, and furniture and all of that. And we on board the basic data that the certification bodies have.

So out of so we populate the platform, even without charging anyone really. So it's free for designers, it's free for suppliers. We currently do charge and work with suppliers when they want to have access to those pages, to enhance them to add data sheets to add better pictures to add more technical information that would help a designer actually finalize a specification or a procurement decision.

So that's currently how we work. On the project side of things, as I mentioned the beginning, there's a couple of projects that you can create as a user for free now, but that's going forward something that we would like to charge on a per project basis, obviously, as clients or regulators demand these kind of reports.

Evolving the Sustainable Materials Industry in Future

Matt Morley

That makes sense. Okay, and looking forward them to the next, say, five to 10 years. Where are you seeing this industry around healthy and sustainable materials evolving? Like what are the main sort of trends that you can see taking place that you expect to continue over the next five years or so?

A Data Driven Approach to a Climate Neutral Construction Industry

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

Yeah, so I've said this a couple of times. I think, for us, you know, the key to moving towards the direction of Climate Neutral construction sector and design sector is the data. And that's why we've had so much focus on the data. I mean, moving forward, I think what's really interesting about data is we are starting to have some pretty amazing stuff that's happening on on the AI front and on the generative design front.

I think that more and more, we're starting to see solutions that can make suggestions and generate designs for architects and for interior designers that would allow them to meet certain goals. And again, I don't think we'll, we I, I don't see a scenario where architects are no longer needed or anything like that. I think this kind of doomsday thinking is really not something I agree with.

What I see is similar to all of the hype that's happening right now with Chat GPT, where you ask it questions, and you can have it give you a lot of suggestions, an architect can have very specific tools where they say, I'm trying to achieve a net zero building in central London for this kind of client, and it needs these XYZ specifications. And then a tool would be able to give you five different scenarios of designs, material products, that would actually allow you to get there.

Then again, it's up to you as a designer, or as a specialist to kind of do the next step and, and move from there. So I personally think that data alongside the whole AI revolution that's happening right now is going to open, amazing doors and something that to the mission that we have as 2050 of democratizing these kinds of assessments and understanding very much contributes to

Matt Morley

Yeah, that's a big idea. I like that one. And in terms of how the business evolves over the next 12 months, 24 months, like, what's the as an additional functionality expanding the, the depth and breadth of the library materials? And what are you working on this next year?

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

Yeah, so we have, we are constantly working on onboarding more products. So currently, we are testing a very big push, which will expand your database to include almost every product that has an EPD globally. So that kind of does a big jump from around 4000 products to something like 50,000 products. So from a library perspective, we expect to have something in the next couple of months that is much more complete and uncover actually a lot more markets and the UK, which we've been focusing on.

On the product development side, we have some really exciting features and product pipeline around the projects tool. So currently, you're able to select you know, individual materials and make a list of your, of your materials that make up your projects. We're very much moving towards the direction of allowing, allowing people to create assemblies and see within a specific assembly what is best, and then allow them also to have some functionality of of saving their own assemblies.

Because a lot of designers architects, they reuse a lot of the designs they've done.

So our goal is to move towards a direction where you can actually start building your internal library of systems and assemblies that you're able to very quickly build projects with and also get quick assessments.

Matt Morley

Fascinating. sounds really interesting. Well, I'll be I'll be very happy to watch as you evolve over the next year, and hopefully, five or 10 years is growing the business. So listen, thanks so much for your time. Where can people find out more about the business where you what social media you engaging with at the moment?

Phanos Hadjikyriakou

Yeah, I think thanks a lot. Also for the time, people can just search for 20 Quickly materials on Google on LinkedIn. We're very active on LinkedIn, with content and educational articles and all of that stuff. And then the platform is is easily accessible and free on https://app.2050-materials.com/

Circular Interior Design: Sustainable Restaurant Object Space Place — Biofilico Wellness Interiors

Sustainable restaurant design with David Chenery

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circular economy

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restorative restaurants

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Sustainable restaurant design with David Chenery 〰️ circular economy 〰️ restorative restaurants 〰️

Welcome to episode 55 of the Green & Healthy Places podcast in which we discuss the themes of wellbeing and sustainability in real estate and hospitality.

I’m your host, Matt Morley, founder of Biofilico healthy buildings, and in this episode I’m in the UK talking to David Chenery of Object Space Place, a sustainable interiors company specialising in hospitality environments. The construction industry plays a crucial role in implementing circular design principles to minimize waste and improve sustainability.

Our conversation covers the Restorative Design Framework that David has developed with his business partner over the past five years, the role of circular economy principles in restaurant design, designing out waste and lowering embodied carbon while still delivering memorable customer experiences, as well as the pros and cons of sustainability assessments for restaurant spaces.

David is an interior architect by trade, a considered thinker and someone with a rapidly growing client list that may suggest an inflection point in the UK restaurant industry’s relationship with sustainability.

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Matt Morley

David, welcome to the show. It could be really useful for anyone considering a similar shift in their own career to understand how you integrated sustainability into your restaurant interior design work? What was that process of going from being ‘just’ an interior architect / designer into someone with a real focus on sustainable restaurant interiors?

A transition to sustainable restaurant interior design

David Chenery

It’s certainly not that there was one particular lightbulb moment, it definitely was more of a gradual process, slowly feeling more and more uneasy and more and more uncertain. We’ve been going for 11 years now and we started out designing a lot of hospitality.

Then over the years, even though we always tried to do things with integrity, we cared how we treated people we were working with and about designing things with proper materials, avoiding materials on a red list and so on but we never really got to grips with what ‘good’ restaurant interior design would actually look like. This gradual process involved adopting a circular approach to emphasize flexibility, sustainability, and efficiency.

We started working with the Sustainable Restaurant Association about five or six years ago, and we just really started interrogating those questions and started thinking, What does a good restaurant mean?

what is restorative restaurant design?

Andrew Stephen, the CEO of the SRA at the time, threw out a question to us - he’d always wondered what a restorative restaurant would look like, how would that actually be designed? And whilst he gave it to us as a throwaway question, for us, it really stuck, to the point whereby we developed a whole design framework, what we called “the restorative design framework” around trying to solve that. The concept of a circular building, like The Circular Building by Arup in London, influenced our thinking on sustainable construction practices and the ease of disassembly for recycling and reuse.

In the first instance, we boiled it down really simple - to design places that give more than they take. So I guess the point to emphasize there is that we were overwhelmed by the complexity and not sure what this sustainability thing was, and is a SKA rating enough? Is BREEAM enough?

Matt Morley

The idea of almost being overwhelmed with the whole theme of sustainability, and perhaps not quite knowing where to start is something I hear from clients as well, they’re sort of looking for guidance. And by the time someone picks up the phone, I sense something has nudged them in that direction. And it might not be the core tenet of their brand, But there’s enough out there, enough prompts to make them think about how they can integrate sustainability into whatever they’re doing, for example, a boutique hotel group. What about in your sector of restaurant design, would you say the same as true there? Or are there more restaurants that have sustainability at their heart of their proposition?

a shift to sustainability in the UK restaurant sector

David Chenery

Well, I mean, it's one of the reasons we now call ourselves sustainable hospitality designers to begin with, we kind of shied away from that a little bit. Because if you stick your hand up and say you are sustainable, then you know, you're putting yourself in the firing line. And ultimately, you know, once you dig into it, and start pulling all those threads around sustainability, you realize that if you do anything in this country, the UK, you immediately have a carbon footprint, six to 10 times higher than anywhere else in the world.

So can you ever say what you're doing is sustainable. But we realized that to begin with, we had to educate our clients and bring sustainability into our projects. But the commercial reality is that building stuff is hard at the best of times. And unless someone comes to you with that sustainability agenda, it is very often going to get kicked to the side as you go along.

So we had to sort of stick our hands up and say we are focused on sustainable hospitality design, which therefore means we now attract the people that want to pursue that agenda. So I guess it's hard because we have pushed ourselves to live in this bubble. But I definitely think there's been a huge shift in understanding and even more so in in the last year or so.

We're now being approached by restaurant groups who don't make big claims around sustainability. But they might have, you know, 5 to 10 restaurants already and they're aware of as they continue to grow they want to do that in a way that is going to minimize their environmental impact. And they don't quite know how, like you suggest, but they're trying to find some people to help make it happen.

Matt Morley

So I see similarities there between, say, the office sector and hotels, where it's about a soft sustainability, so it's not absolutely defining them, like, say, a hard sustainability brand that's completely committed to the cause. And yet, they know that they need to make baby steps in that direction. But then that raises the question of, where does it start and end if it is a sustainable design that you're creating for a restaurant?

And clearly there are these rating systems, whether it's BREEAM for a new build, or SKA that you mentioned in the past around your interiors on the restaurant work. Did you initially rely on those certification systems more and step away from them over time?

sustainable restaurant design certifications

David Chenery

I think what we’ve realized when we created our own design framework, so that the assessment systems are rigorous, independent, and they make a lot of sense. And we had to learn to work in BREEAM, how to work in the SKA system, definitely.

It’s only through doing that, that you might start to see some of the the flaws, or some of the shortcuts or the kind of bureaucracy associated with them. If you have a one-off independent restaurant somewhere in the country, that won’t have a huge budget for such assessments so they’re just going to run it all directly themselves.

That’s a very different approach than trying to do something for someone like a Wagamama who’s got hundreds of outlets around around the country and has processes in teams and all this stuff.

So our framework acknowledges that. And we really will tailor it to the client we’re working with. Ultimately, we want it to be as sustainable as possible. But we know that different clients will come with a different level of ambition. So we might work with a chef like Chantelle Nicholson for Apricity, where she wanted to push as hard as she could, you know, we were really trialing the circular economy ideas in terms of the materials, we were measuring the embodied carbon to get that as low as we could, the landlord Grosvenor, were really behind us pushing that as hard as they could. Reducing construction waste by incorporating circular design principles and a lifecycle approach is crucial in this context.

So there was a lot of energy in that same direction whereas we might work with Gail’s bakeries, you know, who are beautiful, and they care about sustainability. And they care about the social side and the environmental. And they’re also doing about 30 sites a year. So there is a commercial reality to the speed and the cost of doing those.

So we are working as hard as we can within that commercial framework to make the best decisions. And that’s to be honest, what we quite enjoy is that we are constantly being challenged not to just live in an ideal dream world. But actually some of it is very, very ambitious and we can set a new benchmark in sustainability and sometimes it’s more about raising the bar slightly.

measuring sustainability in restaurant interior design

So I think assessments are really interesting when it comes to the measurement, this is really what we’re talking about the measurement of sustainability. I think there’s some interesting nuances to dive into there. The first one we’ve realized is that quantitative measurement, the idea of numbers almost always comes down to carbon, because that’s the thing we can reduce down to a number, the bigger the scale of the organization we’re dealing with, the more you need numbers, because it’s just really hard for everyone to grasp the qualitative, multifaceted layer of sustainability without numbers. So it’s, it’s not really a good enough representation.

Optimizing production processes for energy efficiency and waste reduction is crucial in the circular economy model, which seeks to create sustainable practices that allow for resource reuse and minimize environmental impact.

But carbon is really, really useful as a tool. You know, I always say that carbon is to sustainability, what calories are to a healthy diet, you know, I could eat 1000 calories a day, and I would lose weight. But if it was all chocolate, and I did no exercise, that is not a healthy diet. In the same way, carbon is an oversimplification of all the other stuff around you know, VOCs Indoor Air Quality and the social side of things which we can go into as well.

But if the planet managed to get down to dealing with that carbon, we’d be in a lot better place. So I do think that that’s thing with the conservative side. And then the other is you’ve mentioned with the assessment systems A good thing about those are that they are more qualitative They have much more, you know, many more features within facets within them that measure things like the air quality or looking at glare or their staff wellbeing, all these sorts of things. So that’s the way we sort of broke those two things down, when it comes to measurement, I think it’s kind of worth understanding the differences of those.

Matt Morley

And then to some point in that process, you felt comfortable enough to set your own working model of how you go about integrating these various themes and topics into something that you put your name to.

developing principles and a process for designing sustainable restaurant interiors

David Chenery

Absolutely. What we realized was, firstly, when we started looking at the assessment systems at the beginning, we think, how do we make this a sustainable design? What does that even mean? If we get SKA gold or BREEAM Excellent? And then coming across the circular economy and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation website in particular. That’s why I can’t get happy with this idea is because it’s still within the scope of one project. And we need to understand the ripple effects and the circular flows of everything else, and how stuff goes together.

So our framework then becomes about that, because we see that as a bigger understanding of the material construction design ecosystem. Using sustainable materials to adhere to circular design principles is crucial in this context. So I think that’s just a more intelligent place to start as well for us because it then leads us to ask a lot of different questions. And what we start to look at a design approach that is slightly different, based on a set of principles.

the problem with sustainability assessment systems

The danger of an assessment system is you end up with this huge checklist and a really complex spreadsheets. And you know, you’ve got to get however many points out of however many other points, and then you start getting tactical about what decisions you’re making, right? Because you got to get to the certain levels. And if we just get a couple more, we can get up to silver, and it becomes a different weird game, that clearly is better than doing nothing. But it’s not engaging with the core idea.

You know, and I think for us, we wanted to step outside of that and think, Well, if we really want to make a difference here, how are we going to do it. And the other realization is that it’s all very good saying, let’s get the lowest embodied carbon we can. But if you sit down with a blank piece of paper and try and work out let’s just design something low carbon it’s almost impossible, you can’t design to that it’s meaningless.

So we need a design strategy. The unsustainable extraction and consumption of raw materials contribute to environmental degradation and resource scarcity. And that’s why circular economy is so good for us. We’ve managed to prove that if we design out waste and pollution, if we design to keep materials in use for as long as possible, if we get reclaimed chairs and tables, if we sand the existing floorboards, if we expose the walls, if we use the right type of paint, if we cut the staircase up and make it into a wall cladding, that guess what we managed to reduce the embodied carbon of that of typical fit out by 45%, just by doing that for a high end restaurant in central London.

So that connection for us was kind of a key moment of saying, well, we can design this way we have this strategy of designing out waste, of thinking about principles. But the point in developing the framework was, it gives us a way of working. And I think without that, that’s where so many designers feel a bit lost, because we don’t know how to interrogate those decisions and ask enough questions.

If someone can give you an EPD, that says, this has three kilograms of CO2, and another one says this one’s got four. If that’s all you know, then you’re just going to pick the three, even if it comes with all kinds of other compromises on the sustainability, or huge water usage, or all kinds of all kinds of stuff. So that’s why we had to develop a framework and we certainly don’t have all the answers, I wouldn’t sit here and say, we have it all down. The point of having the framework and the point of us applying that to these projects is that we are learning every day.

consultants for a sustainable restaurant interior project

Matt Morley

Maybe that opens discussion then around how far your role goes in terms of the design of the space? Typically when I’m looking at say an entire healthy building project, whether it’s new build construction or refurbishment, I’m often on a call as one of 10+ different consultants from a QS, to MEP, to project management, lifts and so on… but with a restaurant are you operating effectively as a One Stop solution or are there others that you might bring into the mix with you?

David Chenery

Again, it’s a question of scale - a one off independent restaurant with a focused brief, lean budget, then yes we might do most of that sustainability work.

If we didn’t have a sustainability consultant, we often with a social enterprise called Bio Regional who can do assessments for carbon, SKA or bespoke metrics that we’re developing around the circular economy.

And then on the MEP side, we are definitely not MEP consultants. So particularly operational carbon, that energy efficiency piece, we would look to partner with someone like MESH (net zero carbon building performance) then a landlord or or contractor may have their own people they will bring along, but on smaller projects, what we’ll find is you will tend to have specific conversations with, say, the HVAC contractor, or the plumber, or the electrician, to see what we can do with them to get things better. And if it goes slightly a notch above that, then we will have an MEP consultant, similar to ourselves, who will give input on that. The significant climate impact associated with the production of office furniture and the potential reduction in emissions through circular economy practices like refurbishment and repair should also be considered.

But that does really depend on the scale of a project and your average high street restaurant of 3000 square foot is probably unlikely to have that person. So you know, that’s probably where we develop our knowledge, particularly often they’re contractors or installers within the industry, that can have a similar mindset to us.

If I go into my garden here, and I pick a pear off the tree, I don’t need a carbon lifecycle assessment or a sustainability consultant to tell me that that’s a good choice. You know, there are some straightforward, common sense principles that we can apply.

The Pareto principle applies suggests 80% of the impact will come from 20% of the decision. So you know, if we’re looking at the water systems, we know even just from looking at the SKA systems that if they are the same 5-7 things you do in terms of water management, such as low flow taps, and WCs, leak detection systems, you do those right and you’ll get most of the impact anyway.

Circular design principles and end-of-life in a sustainable restaurant

Matt Morley

In the past I’ve studied green and health building certifications from LEED, to WELL, FITWEL, and so on following the checklist. And then at some point, you just start, you just start freestyling without needing to hold on to the sides of pool, let’s put it that way. Then you start to combine elements or leave certain bits out, knowing that you’re getting 20% of the value.

So what about end-of-life phase with your restaurant designs? How do your clients manage that?

David Chenery

Well, I guess since we’ve been focused on doing this, fortunately, nothing we’ve designed has had to be taken apart. So you have to say that that’s theoretical in a way and it’s just a really important acknowledgement as a designer that most restaurant fit outs will last about five years whether it’s because the concept has failed or they want to make changes or simply update the look and feel of the space. Even the average building gets fitted out 20 to 30 times in its lifetime.

So, yeah, we haven’t had to be challenged on that yet. But we are aware when we’re designing, you know, whether it’s a counter going in or material finishes on the floor? How is this going to come out again? Can we use particular materials that are in as useful a format as possible? Can we avoid cutting tiles?

Last week, I was looking into an issue for Gail’s, the difference between a timber floor and a tiled floor. Now at end of life, those both become quite difficult. You know, we spent two hours talking to a tile manufacturer about how realistic is it actually that we’re going to get these tiles up, and then once that tile adhesive goes down, are those coming up in pieces, or are they going to be able to be reused? Again, if you can get them up whole, they’re still going to have all the adhesive on the back. And it’s going to be such a labor intensive process to take that off, it’s probably unrealistic to use that for anything other than aggregate, which isn’t really good enough.

We need to as an industry find a better solution for that timber again. Likewise, if we’re looking at a herringbone floor, now that can stay in longer, you can re-sand that, you can refinish it, you can re-stain it, it’s going to have a lower carbon footprint, if you take the carbon sequestration into account and having carbon negative score effectively. But again, you’re not because that has to be glued down in a commercial setting, you have to glue that timber down no matter what you do, because it’s going to move over time. So therefore, you’re not going to be able to take that floor up, even if that’s in 30 years time, for example, without and be able to reuse those elements quite easily. So some of those questions I don’t have the answer to at all.

In many cases, if you do something of quality, you’re maximizing the chance it can stay in there for a long time. But yeah, it’s it is a challenge, I really do think it is, you know, we need to understand how materials come apart. Again, we need to design for disassembly, so that elements can be taken apart using mechanical fixings wherever we can, rather than glue - that is a general principle. But you know, in, in commercial or hygienic environments, like restaurants where we’re talking about cleaning down every day that that can be quite difficult as we come up against standard best practices. Additionally, it's crucial to regenerate natural systems while addressing the tension between resource extraction and environmental protection.

Matt Morley

I think that sort of transparency and honesty is, is really the only position any of us in this game can take because you know, we’re all always learning, but simply doing the best we possibly can at any given time. Right? And as long as it’s a sort of circular but forward motion, we’re heading in the right direction.

restaurant design trends and sustainability

What about restaurant design in general, when you look at what’s happening in the industry, particularly in London, but around the UK, Are you broadly optimistic of where it’s going?

David Chenery

I try and kind of cultivate quite a stoic mindset but we will do everything we can to make it better. I think that depends on which side of the bed I’ve got up in the morning. I think I’m nervous how everyone has rebounded straight back into growth mode After COVID. I think people are just trying to build things. And I don’t know if we’ve necessarily learned the lessons we could have done. But I’m happy that initiatives like Net Zero Now and the Zero Carbon Forum are getting more traction. I’m happy that, you know, the SRA is, is getting good traction with its members.

Right now, I honestly believe it’s probably like a five year problem. And I don’t think you can be running your business, for the benefit of your stakeholders and shareholders. with them front of mind, if you’re not tackling this issue of sustainability, because you’re just not building a resilient business,

So if you don’t dial back in and actually look at your business model and look at your supply chain, and look at how you run your buildings and your energy usage and all of that stuff, you’re just going to have a tougher and tougher time in the years to come. I don’t believe The whole industry has got that and agrees with that. I think there are a number of people who still want to think it’s business as usual but maybe a little bit more green. - we need to move faster than that! By incorporating circular design principles, the restaurant industry can promote a more sustainable future, significantly reducing environmental impact and fostering a healthier planet and society.

David Chenery's current sustainable restaurant interior design projects

Matt Morley

What have you got going on at the moment? What do you have in your pipeline?

David Chenery

We’re certainly fully booked until September at the moment, which is great. I mean, there’s Gail’s - a great client for us. And we’re doing a number of new sites for them - we just opened one in Epping recently. These projects aim to be resource efficient by minimizing environmental impact and maximizing the longevity and adaptability of materials. There’s actually a hair salon project we’re working on as well.

We’ve been approached by some other people like L’Oreal to help them apply our framework to a hair salon. So there’s a flagship I’m working on with them at the moment, which I’m not actually allowed to talk about But that will be quite high profile in central London. And then alongside that, we’ve got some some independent restaurants, we’ve got a six tenant food hall we’re working on.

But also we’re doing a number of more consultancy pieces now, as you can probably imagine. So some of the larger groups, were talking to them about how we can bring these principles and this framework to their sites, whether we end up designing them ourselves or not. So that’s quite an interesting conversation, how we can educate internal property teams on carbon literacy or this disjunction between net zero targets and daily operations.

Matt Morley

Very good. Well, it sounds really positive. So people are looking to follow along or see your news and updates. What’s your chosen format?

David Chenery

Yeah, LinkedIn is definitely best. That’s definitely the place to find me.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidchenery-sustainablehospitalitydesign/

What is Circular Design?

Definition and Importance of Circular Design

Principles of Circular Design

Benefits of Circular Design in Interior Design

Applying Circular Design Principles

Flexible Spaces for Adaptability and Reuse

Health risks of toxic chemicals and materials in building interiors

a short history of building materials

In the past, human shelter and the earliest buildings were simply made from naturally occurring materials such as clay, wood, or stone, organically sourced and all safe enough to go back into the ground at their end of life.

It was only the industrial revolution starting in the second half of the 18th century and the concomitant explosion in synthetic compounds - that in turn began to find their way into building materials - that the buildings designed to protect us from the elements around us first become a health risk in themselves (who knew!).

Slowly and almost imperceptibly, the toxicity levels in buildings and interiors continued to rise as the decades passed and the ‘chemical revolution’ proposed ever greater numbers of solutions for the construction industry… until we finally began to take defensive action in the 1970s - starting with lead!  

Today, building and interior materials have the potential to negatively impact human health and wellbeing if they are not properly chosen, installed, and maintained.

These risks can vary according to the life phase of a chosen building material but we recommend taking into consideration all phases of the material’s life for good measure.

To do so, we apply the concept of a Life Cycle Assessment to better track, moderate, and eliminate harmful toxicity from a construction and fit-out project wherever possible.

It is also worth noting that if the whole cycle of a material is taken into consideration, the groups at risk of exposure to such toxic materials expand beyond just the building occupants. 

The negative health effects of toxic materials have the potential to extend to those living near the factories where the materials are made, the workers using the materials during construction of a building or interior fit-out, and even those charged with disposing or recycling the material at the end of its life.

For this reason we believe it is fundamental to understand what impact building and interior materials can have on human health.

Here we will look at common sources of toxic substances in building materials; common toxic substances we want to avoid in building materials; the health risks of human exposure to such toxicity; authoritative ‘red lists’ of these harmful chemicals in building materials and what can be taken from the materials-related content of various leading healthy building standards. Let’s get it into!

Common sources of Toxins in building materials

Toxic substances can be found in an alarming number of building materials and products from flooring to insolation, carpeting, cabinetry, paints and coatings, furniture and fabrics, all manner of adhesives and finishes.

Careful analysis of all such source materials should therefore be instilled in a project’s design phase as early on as possible to implement a green procurement policy as part of the project’s DNA.

Asbestos, VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds), SVOCs (Semi-Volatile Organic Compounds), Lead, HFRs (Halogenated Flame Retardants), Chromate Copper Arsenate (CCA), and Phthalates are some of the most commonly occurring and detrimental building chemicals for our health.

Below we cross-reference the source with the type of toxic substance:

• Insulation Materials <> Asbestos, VOCs

• Paints <> Lead, VOCs

• Coatings <> VOCs, Phthalates

• Adhesives <> VOCs

• Furniture & Fabrics (e.g. upholstery foam) <> HFRs, VOCs

• Composite Wood Products <> Chromate Copper Arsenate, VOCs

• Flooring Materials <> VOCs

• Combustion Sources <> Lead, Particulates

• Cleaning Products <> Phthalates

Common toxins to avoid in building materials and products

Humans can be introduced to these chemicals through a variety of manners such as ingestion, inhalation, hand-to-mouth ingestion, skin absorption, breastfeeding, and even placental transfer before a baby is born. 

These potential avenues of human-chemical transfer from building materials are compounded when interior ventilation is poor, highlighting the increased importance of indoor air quality in the post-Covid home, workplace, gym, learning environment, etc.

‘Off-gassing’ is a common characteristic of such materials, describing the release of toxic particles into the indoor air over time, which if improperly ventilated can accumulate to unhealthy levels in building interiors.

That new car / carpet / furniture smell? That’s the first wave of off-gassing. If you can smell it, and it’s not a natural material, you’re witness to off-gassing. Best open a window!

It is essential to not only choose healthy materials and products, but to also monitor and maintain healthy indoor air quality to avoid health hazards. See our section on indoor air here.

Health Hazards of toxic building products and materials in interiors

Negative health implications arise from many building materials and products, including from legacy materials, so-called “high performing” materials, and even from operations-based sources such as chemical-based cleaning products used by facilities management in an honest attempt to make interior spaces cleaner and healthier. The irony surely cannot be lost on any of us! 

Although several legacy chemicals that were widely used in the past without proper understanding are now widely banned, many are still present in buildings and therefore remain a threat.

These chemicals include asbestos, lead, Chromate Copper Arsenate, and countless others yet legislation moves at such a slow pace compared to the release of new chemical compounds that we as healthy building consultants have to adopt our own strategies to help rather than relying on industry-wide legislation from above. 

Asbestos is responsible for over 200,000 deaths each year, the leading cause of mesothelioma, and is a known toxin and carcinogen.

Lead is an endocrine disruptor (or ‘hormone disruptor’) and can therefore affect reproductive systems, puberty, and child development during pregnancy. Lead can be ingested, absorbed, or inhaled and upon accumulation in the body causes highly detrimental health effects.

Chromate Copper Arsenate contains arsenic, which is associated with lung, bladder, skin, and liver cancer. In addition, it can be leached from wood structures into soil and expose children to contaminants, further increasing its danger. 

Halogenated Flame Retardants are commonly inhaled, ingested or absorbed through skin contact and have been found to disrupt endocrine function, cause neurological damage and even cancer. They have the potential to cause long-term health effects as they accumulate in our bodies.

VOCs and SVOCs are compounds that are emitted from materials and accumulate in interiors. VOCs can cause sick building syndrome, nausea, and central nervous system damage. Gaseous at room temperature, their negative health impacts increase considerably with poor ventilation and generally low indoor air quality. These compounds are commonly inhaled, and some VOCs are even considered carcinogens.

Phthalates are known endocrine disrupters, negatively affect reproduction and development, and are carcinogenic. Their health impacts also bioaccumulate, meaning they slowly build up over time and cause detrimental health effects.  

Red List Resources of toxic chemicals in building materials

There are several resources that can provide guidance on so-called ‘red list’ materials, or materials that have scientifically proven negative health impacts and should ideally be avoided in all building projects with a view to human wellbeing in interiors. 

The International Living Future Institute (ILFI) has a definitive and highly demanding material red list for example while health-oriented design practice Perkins & Will has its own precautionary list that provides information on unhealthy chemicals and materials they believe should be avoided.

Cradle 2 Cradle (C2C) sustainability certifications for a product or material can provide a resource for healthy materials. 

In addition, ingredient disclosures such as Declare, and Health Product Declarations (HPDs) can help guide and inform builders and designers on making health-focused choices by encouraging transparency from manufacturers.

In sum, there is no longer any need for this to be an endless laborious task, project teams can and should leverage the work done already by standing on the shoulders of giants and implementing procurement policies that prioritize products and materials with high recycled content, HPDs, Declare labels and so on. This then places at least some of the responsibility on the general contractor to contribute to such sustainability efforts.

healthy Building Standards on materials and avoiding toxic substances

The WELL, LEED, and BREEAM certification systems as well as the Living Building Challenge provide resources and guides for healthy material implementations. 

WELL, focuses on the human health implications of all building-related decisions, provides in depth research, guidelines, and strategies to avoid unhealthy products and materials within the built environment. As such it is a definitive research tool and guide for us as healthy building material consultants.

The US Green Building Council’s LEED and the UK’s BREEAM both encourage material transparency too of course, as well as encouraging healthy indoor air quality through low VOC emissions and proper ventilation. 

As with so much in the world of healthy buildings and healthy interiors, the two concepts are in fact inextricably linked - enhanced indoor air quality and a healthy materials procurement policy go hand in hand.

As mentioned previously, the Living Building Challenge, part of the ILFI standard, focuses on choosing responsible materials and provides an impressively researched Red List of materials to avoid. 

Contact us to discuss your healthy building materials enquiry.

Bamboo in sustainable buildings and interiors

sustainable building materials and interiors

the case for bamboo

Welcome to episode 51 of the Green and Healthy Places podcast, in which we explore the themes of wellbeing and sustainability in real estate and interiors today.

I'm your host, Matt Morley, founder of Biofilico healthy buildings and in this episode i’m talking to my good friend Manuel Diaz Cebrian about his role in creating a new bamboo industry in Mexico.

Manuel was previously a Director at the Mexican Tourism Board in London where he managed the country’s image throughout Europe, repositioning Mexico as a cultural and culinary destination to beat.

He is now Director of Special Projects for Marbella Design Week and is launching into the world of sustainable entrepreneurship by agitating for a Mexican bamboo industry to rival that of nearby Colombia.

We discuss bamboo’s sustainability credentials, it’s various applications in sustainable buildings and interiors, its social impact benefits for indigenous peoples in Mexico, the influence of Bali’s Green School on bamboo-friendly architecture and architecture collectives around the world, and mucho mas.

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Matt Morley

So you're doing really interesting work around sustainable bamboo. And it's one of those materials that has a wide understanding to some extent, but I think there's also a lot of confusion.

So why don't we start with that piece around the varieties of the bamboo as I know that it's basically a grass, but how many different varieties there are and which ones are most relevant for sustainable buildings and interiors in your opinion?

Bamboo as a sustainable building material

Manuel Diaz-Cebrian

Absolutely, I'd have to tell you, first of all, my introduction to bamboo was as a gardening ornamental plant. When I went to Bali for the first time, I was so impressed to see and stay in a hotel that was built completely of bamboo; I didn't know that sustainable bamboo had all this potential to support a structure such as a hotel building for example.

So then I came back to Europe, and especially in Mexico nobody knew that much about the potential of bamboo so I started to look at its business possibilities in Europe and North America where it is less well known.

Varieties of sustainable bamboo material

There are more than 1600 kinds of bamboo. You could imagine that the varieties will differ according to climate, to their kind of soil, altitude, etc. Every single kind of bamboo developed in different climates and characteristics of soil. But they're among these there are possibly seven used widely used in sustainable construction of buildings.

Its strength is how fast it grows, as you mentioned earlier, many people do not really understand its possibilities as a sustainable materials for interiors or buildings, OK maybe you as a healthy building consultant yes you know more than others but actually very few people know that bamboo is not a tree it is a grass.

It can grow one meter in height each week once it is 3-5 years old and it could grow up to 30 meters in height, with a width of 20cm-30cm.

Reducing the carbon footprint of buildings interiors

Matt Morley

So that brings us into the discussion around sustainability and bamboo being a fundamentally sustainable material for buildings and interiors. I know there's also some interesting information around its carbon footprint in particular, we're all I think now finally paying far more attention to the carbon footprint not just of our buildings, but also the interiors, in fact of the interior fit-out - or how much carbon are we embedding into the buildings and interiors that we're producing.

So, how does that work in terms of preventing deforestation, which I guess is to some extent explaining its advantage as a sustainable material right?

Manuel Diaz-Cebrian

So bamboo stores its own water, it’s moving up and down inside the tubes of bamboo basically, its roots are not very deep. Bamboo recovers the nutrients it needs from the soil, it is capturing carbon rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. The carbon can stay locked away for 30-40 years like that. It depends on how you use it and dispose of it.

Reducing deforestation via sustainable materials such as bamboo

Talking about deforestation, obviously no single species is a complete solution to the problem so bamboo can play a role with a multi-crop strategy to ensure biodiversity and regeneration of soil. It is less advisable to have entire jungles dedicated to bamboo alone as a mono-crop strategy.

Primarily, bamboo is going to give the soil the nutrients it needs for healthy development and regeneration. Bamboo is a tool to help us regenerate our forests in an intelligent way, it ha a role to play in that process.

I know we had to stop the forest in the forest state in our jungles and wood, but there's already a lot of plant that has been damaged. And bamboo comes as a resource to regenerate those areas that have been already destroyed.

Growing sustainable bamboo materials around the world

Matt Morley

Can bamboo only play that role in certain geographies and latitudes around the world? What are its limitations in terms of locations?

Manuel Diaz-Cebrian

It all depends on the altitude in the soil, from the climate on the humidity. Obviously the Chinese and the Asians developed it most aggressively and bamboo is a native plant from that area but it is also found in Latin America for example, as well as Indonesia of course.

In Japan, bamboo is considered a very fine material while in China it is less prestigious, almost a symbol of poverty because it was so readily available.

Now we know that sustainable bamboo can also be grown in Mexico, it’s just a matter of culture, learnign how to care for it, harvest it, treat it and turn it into sustainable building and interior products.

For example bamboo is often treated with borax to prevent bacteria killing the bamboo. It’s a successful treatment that may involve submerging the bamboo in borax for instance.

Examples of bamboo in sustainable interiors

The applications of bamboo are what we can do with it in real estate and interiors, so it can be a materials such as flooring and panels. It can be used as a tubular product for construction as in that format it has the highest capacity for being a load-bearing material in structures.

So, that gives the bamboo a certain strength, because actually in the industry of the construction or index industries, we produce them, they are the metal, tubular things because they the tubular form resist a lot of impact and way bamboo has this form and strain by nature.

And you can see this example in Bali and many in many pavilions of examples from Belize is this very well known Colombian architect, he's been actually building up pavilions and churches of bamboo in our in his natural form Joseph tubular that you will have seen and supported with engineering techniques.

uses of bamboo for architects and interior designers

Matt Morley

So you mentioned the the same tubular shape that provides inherent strength to the material. So when you in terms of those characteristics, when you're talking to architects, when you're talking to designers, what characteristics are of most relevance?

What are the things that that can ultimately make it so useful? And how is it applied in different ways not just in a tubular form but I know I've seen it come through and flooring into effectively tiles so you get into flooring tiles as an alternative to wood.

Manuel Diaz-Cebrian

The possibilities are endless! I'm gonna give you a lovely example - you could produce fabrics you could produce food, you could produce jewellery, even juices and food. So really you could use the whole thing in different ways. to produce fabric is very popular now in India, the number one country producing bamboo textiles.

Bamboo is has a great future because it's durability number one and number two the hardness and number three the rapid growth. Those three factors are the most important factors to consider all the time. It can be used in kitchens, in flooring both indoors and outdoors. Once you engineer bamboo you can create different textures, colors, and usages.

For example, there is a hotel in in the Netherlands in Amsterdam called Hotel Jakarta mainly made from bamboo combined with other woods.

Why is important for the architects or the people in the construction industry to use bamboo. Well, first of all, for the three characteristic as I mentioned earlier, there's durability, strength and agility and obviously the hardness but the other one is just to support the sustainability of this resource. The more demand, the more we can support a boom in bamboo.

What is preventing bamboo from becoming a more widely used sustainable material?

The problem we have is that people are still very non aware of the opportunity for bamboo. I’m involved in creating a network of growers of bamboo in Mexico, for example. Obviously, compared to Asia, in Latin America, the industry for bamboo is very small. But this is more because we didn't know the potential, or how amazingly profitable it could be.

Because obviously, we didn't know how to use it or what to do with it as a sustainable material. We want people to learn how to take advantage of the durability of the material and the demand for it in treated form. That is what' is missing at the moment in Mexico.

Matt Morley

So I think that's what I find so interesting about what you're working on here, this project of effectively creating or reinventing the bamboo industry for a country like Mexico. So as I see it, you've got effectively three levels, right you have the producers, you have the crops, you need the space, you need the fields, you need the farmers to produce it and look after it.

Then there's the processing / treatment piece in the middle. And then a final piece, which is around the sales and communication and the distribution of where it goes to the end consumers which we've just covered some that bit in the middle, between the growers, and those who purchase the refined product. What does that what does that look like?

Or what could that look like in Mexico who's doing that refinement of the raw material and turning it into a product? Or how could that look in a in a new industry in Mexico?

Manuel Diaz-Cebrian

Let me go back to something as important mentioned, John Hardy created the Green School, which is the School of Bamboo in Bali years ago. He fell in love with bamboo. And they discover all the boundaries of this material. And then through the years, they created the Green School of bamboo in order to educate people on its potential. So it started being a school for children, and then became a school for architects.

John's Hardy daughter is a famous architect now too, she's the one that came back to the roots of her father, now she's one of the most popular and famous architects focused on bamboo buildings construction. The Green School has educated a lot of architects worldwide.

Interestingly, these architects and their word of mouth has created a lot of small collaborative groups that are now dedicating their lives to work and teach people what to do with bamboo. why it was important to harvest to harvest it, why where you can do it, how you could go with the bamboo not necessarily being rich, but actually how do you use it.

There is a famous architect in Mexico, she is working on a program that is started in Thailand about how to build your own house using bamboo? How incredible is that - teaching people to grow bamboo and build their own house with the material they have grown.

Social impact and sustainable bamboo

One of the reasons I’m getting into the bamboo industry in Mexico is because obviously the countryside in Mexico, Latin America is kind of cool. So bamboo is certain areas that are tropical, have been achieved those, they the coffee industry, I know the industry has really damaged our jungles and on our land tremendously so integrating bamboo into the selection of natural resources that you could use in a particular habitat partially resolves that issue rather than damaging the soil further.

So the whole idea is for indigenous people get a benefit from harvesting the bamboo, make the main number more profitable. And also not only for the construction, or use it as well as decoration items, for chairs, for lamps, all the stuff in red to get the added value of the bamboo. Because not everything is used on the construction, some leftovers are thrown away. The whole idea is to teach people how to take the benefit from the whole bamboo stem.

Colombia is the most advanced country already in this industry as they started years ago but Mexico has great potential too!

How are you helping to create a sustainable bamboo industry in Mexico?

First of all, you got to create the union of producers of bamboo, because they're kind of separated at the moment, it’s all very disparate and spread out, nothing brings them together into an industry yetto unify a price point, control quality, how it is treated, promote this new sustainable building interior resource to local architects and interior designers, etc.

Matt Morley

Really appreciate how you've described that kind of playmaking role of putting it together piecing the different elements together so that you create what is hopefully going to be a long term project around a sustainable alternative to building with less and less sustainable building materials.

So I think it's got so much merit if if someone wants to read further into the subject if they want to explore the topic a bit deeper. Is there what's uh, is there a recommended resource? Or where would you say we could go to kind of learn a bit more?

Manuel Diaz-Cebrian

Well, I have to tell you actually, I've been researching bamboo, I mean, ideally, in a professional way for the last few years. Because as you know, I'm the director of special projects for Marbella Design.

We gave a talk two years ago to architects and designers in Marbella and we started educating our guests about bamboo there. Many did not know the roof of the airport terminal at Madrid Barajas is made of bamboo for example!

I'm going to Paris in two hours just to see a pavilion that Simon Velez has built made of bamboo. So it's more and more and more that you're seeing this.

Last year, I invited Dr. Pablo van der Lugt to speak at Marbella Design Week, author of the book called ‘Booming Bamboo’ that I recommend to architects and interior designers interested in sustainable interiors or building construction. This is something of a bible in fact. I give a copy to every single person I meet who wants to learn more about the wonders of bamboo!

Show notes:

https://www.greenschool.org/

https://hoteljakarta.com/

https://designweekmarbella.com/en/home/

https://boomingbamboo.com/

Benefits of Biophilic Design in Schools: From Nurseries to Universities — Wellness Design Consultants

Nurseries, schools and universities can leverage healthy building strategies to facilitate learning - here we cover the role of biophilic design, healthy materials, indoor air quality, light and restorative spaces

How can wellbeing design be used in schools?

The cultivation of a healthy learning environment goes well beyond curriculum, teaching staff, physical activity and the canteen menu - by implementing evidence-based design inspired by biophilia and healthybuildingprinciples, we can create educational spaces maximized for learning and happiness. Biophilic design can significantly improve emotional well-being by reducing stress levels and promoting overall mental health. Incorporating natural elements such as plants, water, and natural light into educational spaces is crucial for enhancing student performance and well-being.

How do we do this? By leveraging the latest thinking around healthy materials, indoor air quality, light and set pieces known as ‘restorative spaces‘.

Children are especially sensitive to **environment

Using Healthy Materials in educational environments

If no expertise on sustainable, non-toxic, and natural materials is delivered to a project team during the design phase, materials can find their way into an interior that will negatively impact the health of building occupants.

This happens primarily through off-gassing of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and the emission of toxic chemicals into the air through the processes of natural

sources of pollutants in nursery and school buildings

Unhealthy materials have the potential to increase indoor air pollutants, which have been found to decrease cognitive functioning and therefore diminish student productivity. The hotspots for such issues tend to be insulation materials, flooring, paints, adhesives and furniture.

We focus on the internal make-up of building materials and their health impacts, a research process facilitated by Health Product Declarations (HPDs) that provide a clear, concise overview of a product's ingredients.

Deploying a Healthy Materials strategy in a nursery, school or university can:

• Reduce negative health impacts from toxic chemicals

• Improve indoor air quality

• Reduce symptoms of Sick Building Syndrome

Paul Chevalier School, France - an example of a healthy learning environment using biophilic design

Enhanced Indoor Air Quality in nurseries, schools, universities

Indoor air quality has a tangible impact on human performance and if not properly established, maintained and monitored, can negatively impact learning and productivity

After steps have been taken to reduce pollutants coming from materials and surfaces in a space (see above), proper cleaning and ventilation practices should be incorporated to maintain good air quality.

Numerous studies have linked cognitive success, absenteeism rates and Sick Building Syndrome symptoms to indoor air quality and ventilation rates (see here).

Ventilation and indoor air quality

Higher ventilation rates are associated with lower rates of absenteeism and Sick Building Syndrome symptoms as well as improvements in test scores, while poor ventilation rates were found to decrease attention and increase school days missed.

One study showed that higher ventilation rates led to 1.6 fewer days missed, while another demonstrated that students had higher scores on math, reading and science tests when the classrooms were properly ventilated (Allen / see sources below). 

In summary, deploying an enhanced indoor air quality plan in a nursery, school or university can:

• Increase attention rates

• Reduce Sick Building Syndrome symptoms

• Decrease absenteeism

• Improve student test scores / cognitive function

The importance of lighting design in nursery, school and university settings

Consideration around natural light as well as electric lighting solutions is an important factor in creating a healthy indoor environment for learning, both for its biophilia benefits and added focus through details such as task lighting solutions. Incorporating ample natural light in educational settings enhances student performance, well-being, and productivity. Maximizing natural light can create a bright and inviting atmosphere, improve overall mental, physical, and emotional health, and contribute to energy efficiency and ecological sustainability.

Daylight and biophilia

Daylight connects students to the natural world, fostering a closer connection with nature. Natural light has a positive impact on students' mental health by reducing stress and promoting emotional balance.

In addition, enhance exposure to natural light as part of a biophilia plan synchronizes us with our body’s circadian rhythms, which when optimized has been shown to increase worker performance (Allen / see sources below).

Task lighting (e.g. smaller format table lamps) is another tool to boost learning environments for activities such as reading or writing, which rely heavily on visual performance.

It was found that a group of third graders who had access to focus lighting for a year had a 36% increase in oral reading fluency, while a group without focus lighting had only a 17% increase (Allen / see sources below).

Circadian lighting

In addition, the type of artificial light has been proven to have an impact - a study found that blue-enriched light causes higher levels of concentration, alertness, and cognitive performance, as well as higher test scores for students (Allen / see below). 

In summary, such lighting strategies as part of a biophilia plan can:

• Improve student mood

• Increase learner alertness and concentration

• Increase student cognitive processing speed and performance

• Improve learner test scores

Restorative Spaces in nursery, school, university settings

Classroom design and orientation can be just as important as the elements that function within the space. The incorporation of small restorative spaces that have been deliberately created using the biophilic design concept for example can help relieve stress and mental fatigue amongst students, providing a modest mental refresh. 

WELL Certification and restorative space design

There are many ways to designarestorative space, and the WELL Building Standard (see more on that here) aims to provide guidance on what can be most successful, using its evidence-based design approach. While the creative design work still needs to come from us, leveraging research data and scientific rigour is a key part of the process in order to deliver tangible results once the space is completed.

Integrating outdoor spaces into school design can provide students with access to natural landscapes and green roofs, fostering sensory interaction with the environment.

According to the WELL ‘Mind’ concept, restorative spaces should include natural elements**/ biophilic design** and have thoughtful lighting, sound, thermal and material choices. In addition, an element of privacy and the inclusion of calming colors, textures and forms is beneficial for recharging and refocusing. See our Biofilico design example image above for this.

Simply creating a place of quiet and calm can have an impact on student performance. For example, a French study found that test scores decreased by 5.5 points for each 10 dB increase in noise levels above the average noise level (~50 dB) (Allen / see sources below).

Biophilic design not only supports mental health but also contributes to the physical health of students by reducing stress and promoting overall well-being.

Schools and learning environments can, if not designed thoughtfully using healthy interior design principles, cause low level stress for students and even increase mental fatigue, so the incorporation of places or respite and restoration are key to providing kids and students with a nourishing place to perform their best.

In summary, the integration of biophilic design in restorative spaces can:

• Relieve mental fatigue and stress

• Recharge and rejuvenate

• Promote increased learning and academic success

• Provide a nature connection

Biophilic Design in learning environments such as nurseries and schools

Biophilic design has been shown to improve cognitive function through increased memory, concentration, creativity, and productivity—all key factors in learning environments. See more here.

A recent study looking at the impact of biophilic design on learning spaces found that the reduction in student stress was much greater in a biophilic classroom when compared with control. In addition, learning outcomes were greatly improved—math test score averages increased more than three times higher in the biophilic design classroom over a seven-month period.

Finally, 7.2% more of the students in the biophilic learning environment tested at grade level when compared with the control classroom (Determan). This study provides encouraging outcomes between biophilic design and improvements in student learning outcomes, wellbeing, and the potential for success.

In addition, the Attention Restoration Theory (ART) correlates increased nature exposure to a faster recovery from mental fatigue and stress (Jimenez).

The use of biophilic design to enhance learning environments connects to many of the strategies mentioned above—such as the incorporation of natural elements in restorative spaces or materials, and the use of daylighting to enhance learning capabilities. Occasionally these lines can blur but only because the biophilic design concept encompasses so many healthy design strategies within it.

In summary, biophilic design principles in learning environments can:

• Improve cognitive functioning and productivity

• Enhance creativity and memory

• Increase test scores and improve learning outcomes

• Reduce stress and provide restorative benefits

Overall, the atmosphere and personality of learning spaces has the potential to positively influence student performance. Healthy material choices, indoor air quality monitoring, lighting, and the incorporation of restorative spaces and biophilic design are tools available to us as healthy interior specialists, so we believe they can and should be deployed to full effect for this purpose!

SourcesAllen, Joseph G, and John D Macomber. Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity. Harvard University Press, 2020.

Barbiero, Giuseppe, et al. “Bracing Biophilia: When Biophilic Design Promotes Pupil’s Attentional Performance, Perceived Restorativeness and Affiliation with Nature.” Environment, Development and Sustainability, 2021,https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01903-1

Determan, Jim, et al. “THE IMPACT OF BIOPHILIC LEARNING SPACES ON STUDENT SUCCESS.” Oct. 2019.

Jimenez, Marcia P. et al. “Associations Between Nature Exposure and Health: A Review of the Evidence.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18.9 (2021): 4790. Crossref. Web.

Biomimicry and Biophilic Design: Biodesign Insights by Danielle Trofe - Wellness Design Consultants

the potential of mycelium as a healthy building material / examples of biophilic design that are truly sustainable / biomimicry as a leading light in the new field of sustainable design

Welcome to episode 43 of the Green & Healthy Places podcast, brought to you by Biofilico healthy buildings & interiors.

In this episode I’m chatting to Danielle Trofe, a biodesigner with her own studio in New York who also lectures in biomimicry for The Pratt Institute and Parsons New School. Danielle is a part of the green building movement herald, promoting sustainable and biophilic design.

Danielle’s MushLume collection of lampshades made from organically grown mushroom mycelium and hemp have featured in the seriously cool, eco-luxury 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge amongst other projects and she is a leading proponent of biofabrication - that is using naturally grown materials in product design.

Our conversation covers all of these ‘bio’ terms that may understandably be new for many of you, we also look into the full Life Cycle impact of a design product from production through to end of life, we discuss how biophilic design can when delivered poorly equate to a largely superficial greenwashing of the interior design process, and we introduce the topic of green chemistry, that is research and development around new bio-based materials that designers such s Danielle can then introduce into future product development.

Conversation highlights

• biophilic design allows us to connect to nature indoors, reminding us that we are still part of nature

• a label of ‘nature-inspired’ doesn’t necessarily mean a product is good for both people and planet, poorly delivered examples of biophilic design may in fact be harmful to the environment

• biomimicry as a movement is emerging as a rigorous framework for creating design that takes into consideration both our own health and that of the planet.

• I think a lot of the biodesign field is really about taking action, it’s not just the study of it but rather how we can actually start making goods that help restore balance back to our ecosystems.

https://danielletrofe.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielletrofe

https://twitter.com/DanielleTrofe

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FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS COURTESY OF OTTER.AI (excuse typos)

Matt Morley

Let’s begin with some terminology, specifically ‘biodesign’ and ‘biofabricated design’. How do you describe those two concepts to someone coming to this subject for the first time?

Danielle Trofe

In this past decade, or maybe even a little bit further, biodesign as a term has kind of come out in two different fields, one in the medical field and one in the design field. It’s serving a purpose as this catch all term that incorporates biomimicry, biofabricationbiophilic****design, to help those who don’t really know what each of those different facets really means. So that we can all kind of have the same conversation.

What is Biofabrication?

Biofabrication is what I do, it's about using a living organism to actually grow a product or design for you. So you're typically extracting something from nature or not, you can actually grow in a lab and and use that living organism to do the producing for you. In this case, I'm not not doing the manufacturing, the organism is actually doing that, for example mycelium - the roots of mushrooms - but also bacteria, algae or kombucha.

What is biophilic design?

I refer to Biophilic Design as the visual copying of nature and natural elements. We all have Biophilia, we all instinctively connect to nature in different ways, biophilic design is about tapping into that emotional state, that very native energy that we all have inside of us. Biophilic design has been shown to improve cognitive performance and provide health benefits. It allows us to connect to nature indoors, reminding us that we are still part of nature.

What is biomimicry?

Biomimicry goes a bit deeper by looking at Nature’s forms, processes and entire ecosystem, so it has these three different levels in other words. The aim is to draw out these principles to integrate them into human design to address any design or engineering challenge. Biomimicry involves understanding how nature overcomes similar challenges to the engineering challenge encountered. It leverages nature's evolutionary problem-solving to solve technological challenges.

Matt Morley

I think it’s very clear that you’ve mastered those concepts, it’s often so difficult to give a succinct description of concepts like biophilic design, yet you just managed to do it! Part of your work is in fact in education isn’t it? Besides being a designer you are also a teacher on biomimicry?

Danielle Trofe

Yes, correct. So I’ve been teaching biomimicry and biodesign at the Pratt Institute and the Parsons New School in Manhattan. I try to help orient students with an understanding of what this new field of nature inspired design is all about. That’s really what it is, it is a very new field, that is still unfolding, these terms are really being birthed at the moment, we continue experimenting with them.

Terminology can also vary from region to region. I know in the UK and in Germany, there are different terminologies for biomimicry for example. Everyone involved in this field is collectively trying to come up with a language to be able to talk about these particular topics such as biophilic design.

Matt Morley

There is so much discussion now around healthy buildings, healthy materials and wellness interior design on one side, with concerns over the sustainability of our buildings and interiors, the impact of our built environment on the planet, on the other. It looks to me like biodesign bridges those two worlds of wellness interiors and sustainable buildings.

It is not contributing waste, nor damaging the environment, and at the same time biodesign products are non-toxic, so these bio materials are inherently healthy and help contribute to an Indoor Environmental Quality plan.

Danielle Trofe

Yes… but with the caveat that it is done correctly! So let’s talk about that. Yeah, there is poorly delivered biomimicry, biofabrication or indeed biophilic design, right? You could create something that looks exactly like a tree. But if you’re using materials that can’t be recycled, that take tremendous amount of energy to create or that are mined unsustainably, you’re not really completing the holistic viewpoint of what biomimicry is, or hopefully in the larger sense, bio design.

My point is that just because it can fall under that label of nature-inspired, that doesn’t necessarily mean that a product is good for both people and the planet. The issue is that there’s nobody really there to judge what is or isn’t a high standard of biophilic design, for example.

So we’re kind of evolving together to be able to evaluate our own designs. Even if you are taking inspiration from nature, do you have the understanding and the tool set to be able to authentically factor in a products complete life cycle assessment, including where it’s coming from, how it’s affecting humans / nature during its use phase and the end of life disposal?

Whether that’s biophilic design, bio design, biofabrication or biomimicry, one thing that really stands out when you work in these fields is that there’s a greater framework for ensuring that a design meets all those needs throughout the process, from inception to production and end of life. This framework ensures that the number one thing and biomimicry is life can do, life creates conditions conducive to life.

That’s where I feel biomimicry as a movement is emerging as a more rigorous framework for creating design that really does take into consideration our health and the health of the planet.

Matt Morley

You’re practicing what you preach as you apply those same theories in your own products. And so that, in a sense leads us into the MushLume Biofabricated Lamps discussion. Why don’t we talk a little bit about how you have created a case study in a way of how to implement these ideas in a product-led business.

Biofabricated lamps

Danielle Trofe

Sure. Yeah, so about eight years ago, I started working with this amazing material that was coming out of upstate New York that was created by Ecovative - a mushroom mycelium material. And so for anyone who doesn't know what Mycelium is, it is the roots of a mushroom.

So just like an apple is the fruit of a tree. Mushroom is the fruiting body of this network of mycelia that live beneath the forest floor. And nature is the big recycler you know, it decomposes all dying and decaying matter in a forest or in an ecosystem. It connects all plants and an ecosystem actually is nature's communicator, it shares information, can warn other plants of impending danger, distributes water within a forest, shares nutrients underground… It really is this incredible organism that is one of the largest terrestrial organisms on the planet. There's one network that's known to be a couple 1000 years old in Oregon and stretches several football fields long.

Mycelium and hemp as healthy materials with positive health benefits

We take this mycelium and instead of extracting it out of nature, like we often do for most of our goods, we are we are inoculating it in a lab and reproducing it, then once it is in a liquid form we combine it with hemp and let nature do what it does best - grow! For that we put it in an environment that it wants to grow in, allowing the mycelium to bind to the hemp over a course of just a few days. You will see this white matte structure that actually solidifies all of the hemp.

The hemp is just used as support material for it to grow into, and also food as well. So cellulose, it wants to digest the cellulose. To give an understanding of the application of a lampshade, we create these forms, we pack them with the substrate that's already been inoculated. And then we just leave them to grow, we're not even adding additional water or energy into the production process!

Our largest lampshade, which is a 24 inch diameter dome takes about a week to grow. And if you think about this timeframe, to be able to use wood, you know, you're looking at anywhere from 25 to 100 years of a tree growing out in nature, and then you're harvesting this and you're putting all this energy into being able to process the material to use it.

We isolate mycelium in a lab, transport it a very short distance, and then let it grow in the course of just a few weeks. So you can already start to see the life cycle impact there.

The other most important part which is something that we're not as familiar with, but we're starting to understand its value now, is at the end of its life, the mycelium product is just going to decompose!

Biodegradable at end of life

Traditionally, in the last couple, maybe last 100 years, we've really wanted things to last. We want things to last as long as possible, we want them to be super durable. But we're starting to find out and especially since the invention of plastics that these might not be the best concepts. And rather than using materials that we're not quite sure how they're going to break down to an elemental form and affect our own bodies. We know exactly what's in these lampshades and they are going to actually add nutrients back into the soil rather than pollutants. So that's a completely different concept to a lot of our traditional goods.

And often people are like, Well, is it gonna break down in my living room but it's actually a very inert material. We do bake it at the end of its growth cycle, that's mainly to damage the cells enough so it won't continue to grow in your living room. It won't spore, it won't shoot off mushrooms. It's a completely stable, inert material in your living room. There's nothing that's going to break it down.

What's more the lampshades have this incredible soft feel, almost like a lamb's ear. So it's something that you actually want to touch. And there's not many lamps out there that inspire you to interact with it. And of course, that makes it a conversation piece, being able to talk with your guests at the dining room table about the light fixture that's overhead.

Matt Morley

You are rightly pointing out how long a lampshade really needs to be with us, where's that sweet spot between durability and being biodegradable. I wondered whether the lampshade had anything inherently suited to this particular medium. Could you have done any other number of things but you randomly selected the lampshade? Have you got an entire collection of products in your mind eventually?

Danielle Trofe

Yeah, so that's an excellent question. Part of the story is that Ecovative at the time was working mainly in packaging. So using the material to displace Styrofoam, which is a fantastic use for it.

We reached out to them, ordered samples and we wanted to start working with the idea of using it for a lampshade and it was kind of a crazy idea at that level eight years ago, and it ended up being one of the best use cases for it because of the material's properties. So to give everyone a better idea - when fully grown, it's very lightweight, it almost has the density of Styrofoam, but has a much softer exterior coat, which is actually the mycelium.

We can actually tune the material and kind of play with a little bit with its coloring. So yeah, we do have some that are not completely white. And that's the other thing about them. Once it's grown, the Mycelium is white, naturally. And that's how we leave them. So there's not any paint that's added to them. That's just the natural form that the mycelium takes.

Mycelium as an alternative to plastic packaging

It's great for packaging for single use packaging but it has limitations in terms of you a product like a chair or stool that is going to get bumped around, rubbed, scratched or knocked over. But for an object that's hanging above you suspended from the ceiling or perhaps a table lamp that's not always being touched, then that's a perfect case for using mycelium.

There were a number of years of us getting over shipping issues, modifying the form so that when they ship they don't crack or break, and they can be installed easily by the end consumer too. So there were huge learning curves of bringing this biotechnology to a place where you could commercialize a product.

I used to grow everything in Brooklyn, New York, I had a studio space here, and I would grow each one by hand. And just over this past year, year and a half, we move production to a company out in California who now grows all the lampshades for the studio. So we're able to finally expand past my own capabilities.

Biofabricated materials as a future trend

You're really seeing not just the general public, but the industry start to buy into Biodesign. Early on when we started to work with this material, nobody really knew what mycelium was, it was kind of a new term but the conversation has really shifted in the last five years so people know what Mycelium is.

There's all these startups around the world now working with mycelium whereas when I first started, there was maybe a handful around the world. We're talking single digits. So it's really been larger than just one studio or just a few companies. It's now so many young startups, working around biomaterials because they see the value in creating new products that are not going to necessarily pollute the planet or provide a negative impact.

Algae as a healthy material in design

Matt Morley

The other big player then, that I think deserves a mention in our conversation is algae - another biomaterial often mentioned in the same breath along with mycelium. Are you working with algae based materials too?

Danielle Trofe

Yeah, just when I started working with it, and it was for a completely different project, I ended up closing the studio to shift focus a little bit but we do work with it, for example an algae-based pigment to color the lampshades. We're collaborating with artists and designers to paint on our lampshades using algae ink. A start-up in Colorado has developed a new ink pigment derived from algae, which is fantastic.

There's also the Biodesign Challenge, which is a nonprofit organization that has a worldwide competition for young students to be able to create Biodesign applications and then have them be judged by professionals within the field. And there's been so many startups that have come from just these kinds of competitions, and you're really starting to see this field being driven by people that are under 30.

I really I do believe it's the generation underneath mine that is really going to power everything in terms of sustainability because they've inherited something that generations before did not - there has to be action. So I think a lot of the biodesign field is really about taking action, it's not just the study of it but rather how are we can actually start making goods that help restore balance back to our ecosystems.

Matt Morley

You collaborated with the 1 Hotel brand - they arguably reinvented what ‘eco luxury' could mean in hospitality. Can you talk to us about that project to help them create an example of biophilic design in one of their suites using your mycelium lampshades?

Biophilic design with natural elements in hotels

Danielle Trofe

Yeah it was fantastic. Working with 1 Hotel, that really was the project that elevated our lampshades to the next level, we did around 130 lampshades in this huge cloud in the presidential suite at the 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge. Biophilic design in hotels can support positive health benefits for guests.

Just working with 1 Hotel as a partner, it was really fantastic. We share the same values and be able to create different kinds of opportunities where the public can participate. So for instance, we had an exhibit where people could come in and see the lampshades being grown for the hotel. One of the things I realized is to hear the conversation that we’re having now, it’s really difficult to not physically see and feel the material, or watch the growing process. Demystifying that experience was really valuable.

The images that we got from that project really captured the possibilities of what our MushLume lampshades could do and have inspired a few other hotel installations since then too. We have grown from that as well I think, those images really did solidify that this is not just a case study. This is not just a single project but a commercialized product - that differentiation was huge. From there, we could move beyond this small niche to compete against big lighting brands, while also supporting positive health benefits through biophilic design in hotel suites.

Vertical gardens

Matt Morley

You've also got a vertical garden product that looks to be essentially a sort of an upright, vertically oriented planter for multiple plants. I'm wondering if you've got more things in the pipeline. Where do you go from here?

Danielle Trofe

Yeah, so the vertical garden was actually originally a hydroponic vertical garden. So that was the first product I ever created. And we launched that back in 2012. And it really kind of grew into a couple of installations with BMW.

The vertical garden now exists in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. So if you go to their Visitor Center, you can see it there. And it's something that hasn't completely come to full realization, mainly because I started getting into the lighting and that kind of took off. But it's something I do want to bring back and one of the main reasons this was lagging is because at the time there weren't the tools to be able to create those planter pods. They look kind of look like Alien eggs, if you will.

So we created them out of thermoformed plastic which went against everything that I as a designer and as a studio believed in. So we've kind of been in this holding pattern to get to the right material and the right process to be able to recreate this. And that's actually being done right now, with much more sustainable materials.

For example we're looking at upcycling food waste into ceramic planter pods. So that's definitely something that's happening in the future. We hope to actually come out with a full product and not just an installation.

As for future, it's a good question. I recently became a mom. So a lot of things have really shifted. You know, even a fetus can contain over 100 Different manmade chemicals at that stage yet it's extremely difficult to find healthy materials or healthy interior products aimed at babies. That's the next thing I want to get into - green chemistry, and being able to actually bring products that are not toxic to our environments.

Green chemistry to develop new natural materials

Matt Morley

So the green chemistry thing for those who perhaps not clued up on it, that’s really where the nature-inspired R&D is taking place that then facilitates people such as yourself as a designer, to create the bio products you envision, that then are sold to bio-friendly businesses like 1 Hotels with their biophilic design in the bedrooms. Green chemistry is a crucial part of sustainable design, focusing on creating products that are environmentally friendly and efficient. It can help create products that mimic natural forms and patterns.

If you haven’t got the green chemistry, providing you with what you need - the tools and materials to create the products - then the products can’t materialize yet. These products can enhance human well-being and connection with the natural world.

Equally, if there isn’t also the consumer demand, the end market there to make it all into a viable business proposition, then the products either don’t materialize or remain prototypes and concept designs. So we have this delicate dance required to push the industry forward…

Danielle Trofe

Exactly - what you’re doing with the Green & Healthy Places podcast is also helping these fields to advance, by communicating these ideas to a wider public. We need to popularize the basics of what Biodesign is about, biomimicry, biophilia, all of the ‘bio whats’ to our industry and beyond, to consumers because ultimately consumers are driving the demand for these bio materials and bio products as well.

Clients are asking for things that are more sustainable. And they’re also starting to ask the questions. Well, where does this come from? How was it made? Hopefully ‘where does it end up?’ will be the next question that they’re going to ask…!

https://danielletrofe.com/

Danielle’s products are available in Europe through https://www.grown.bio/

Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons

This week we’re in New York talking to Jonsara Ruth, Co-Founder & Design Director of the Healthy Materials Lab and Associate Professor at Parsons School of Design.

Jonsara received a Masters of Architecture from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA in Industrial Design from Rhode Island School of Design, she also has her own healthy materials design collective called Salty Labs.

The Healthy Materials Lab is all about placing health at the center of real estate architecture and design. They aim to raise awareness about toxics in building products and create educational online resources for designers and architects that further that cause.

I recently completed their 4-part Online Certification Program to become a Healthy Materials Advocate and cannot recommend the course enough, whether you work in this industry or are simply curious to understand more about buildings and the materials that go into them, both good and bad.

It’s far easier not to look under the hood, right? To trust that developers, architects and contractors have our best interests at heart… I hate to burst your bubble but that just ain’t so, nowhere is this more acute than in our homes, offices and Jonsara explains, the worst offender of all, the affordable housing sector.

Jonsara speaks with the precision of a Professor and the conviction of someone with a very clear mission in life, so listen up people, this is a good one.

If you enjoy this episode, hit like or subscribe for next week’s release.

See our 9-point guide to healthy buildings here.

CONVERSATION HIGHLIGHTS

• Our central objective really is to remove harmful chemicals from the built environment that are prohibiting people from living healthy lives.

• Just a few thousand years back People were building shelter exclusively out of what was around them - natural materials like wood from trees, clay, stone or water.

• It turns out the building products that we primarily build with now contain chemicals that are often very toxic to human bodies. They can now be found in almost every building product in a conventionally built building.

• I know this all sounds like a horror movie but of course a lot of this is invisible and that's why it's really important for us to know more, especially as designers and architects - to know enough to not include these materials that contain chemicals in the buildings that we're designing.

• Climate change, environmental health and people's health are completely interrelated. There's no way to separate them.

• I see more and more people being inspired to make change and taking on the challenge of what that means.

GUEST / JONSARA RUTH / HEALTHY MATERIALS LAB

• https://healthymaterialslab.org/

• https://healthymaterialslab.org/learning-hub/e-learning-online-certificate-program

• https://healthymaterialslab.org/learning-hub/the-affordable-housing-guide-program

• https://www.linkedin.com/company/healthy-materials-lab/

• https://www.facebook.com/healthymaterialslab/

• https://www.instagram.com/healthymaterialslab/

• https://www.saltylabs.us/

• The New Coal - Plastics & Climate Change, by Beyond Plastics

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FULL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS COURTESY OF OTTER.AI (excuse any typos)

MM

Jonsara, many thanks so much for joining us on the show today. Could we start with a quick description of the Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons and its main objectives are?

JR

Yeah, sure. It's great to be here, Matt. Thanks for inviting us. I'm happy to represent our fantastic team of collaborators at the Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons.

You know, our central objective really is to remove harmful chemicals from the built environment that are prohibiting people from living healthy lives. That's the big, big picture.

We believe that if we can, as designers, architects and building professionals, put people in the center of our minds, when we make every design decision, then that changes the way we think about design, and it also puts people's health and environmental health at the forefront.

It changes the way we think about building products and the environment and changes the way we think about the whole process of designing our specific focuses on affordable housing, and people living in affordable housing.

The way that we do that is by providing education to designers, architects and building professionals and even faculty who are teaching the next generation of designers and architects so that they can understand how to design healthier buildings and homes as well.

We do that with courses, short courses, and programs that allow professionals to use these programs as their continuing education credits, so that they can build this right into their practice.

We have two robust online programs. One is specifically about affordable housing. And the other one is more generally, for anyone who is interested in the built environment and making it healthy. We also provide resources and tools and examples for designers and architects to make it simpler to build healthier.

A lot of the work that we're doing is to translate information from examples and from disciplines other than design into actionable knowledge within the building industry. So there's a lot of work being done about the Toxics included in building products. And a lot of that work is happening in science, or in public health, or in material research, or in environmental justice, advocacy.

We are constantly calling upon all of these different perspectives, and interpreting that into useful knowledge for designers and architects, and then putting it into, hopefully, really easily accessible formats through our website, live events and recorded education programs. Our goal is to really make make radical change in the building industry so that everyone can live healthier lives.

MM

It really can be like opening Pandora's Box, once one starts to get into this topic of healthy buildings and healthy materials, there's so much to get one’s head around and so much to research, having trusted sources of expertise becomes fundamental to accessing the right information and for us as designers and real estate professionals to get to the best possible answer as quickly as possible.

If we take a step back, just for perhaps those who are less aware of the risks and dangers of toxic chemicals in our built environment in the buildings around us, what are the main sources of those chemicals? How are they released into the air? What are the risks at stake in these unhealthy buildings and interiors?

JR

Yeah, the sources can be anything in the built environment. We live in a physical world that is made up of materials. I like to think about it historically.

Just a few thousand years back People were building shelter exclusively out of what was around them - natural materials like wood from trees, clay, stone or water. They were mixing these things together to make shelter.

Healthy materials vs unhealthy building products

In the Industrial Revolution there's this huge surge in manmade synthetic products that are primarily based in the fossil fuel industry. There was all this discovery going on about how to take to make synthetic products act a little bit more like natural products, and they were doing it quickly, without much regulation.

Sources of chemicals in indoor environments

Well it turns out the building products that we primarily build with now contain chemicals that are often very toxic to human bodies. They can now be found in almost every building product in a conventionally built building.

That can range from flooring materials, to wall materials, insulation materials, even to the paint on our walls, much of which is synthetic, acrylic, which is plastic. It’s almost like we're living in a plastic bag.

Almost every single material that's used in the built environment is a ‘product’ with a list of ingredients, like you might find in packaged food products.

Negative health impacts of unhealthy building materials

There's been research in the last 25 years to look at the ingredients that are in building products and identify their link to human disease. And it turns out that a lot of these chemicals are linked to human diseases as common as asthma, or diabetes, obesity, or even nerve disorders, autism, attention disorder in children and so on. Then there are the carcinogens and hormone disruptors as well.

So there's a long list of effects that these chemicals in building products can have on human bodies, and the especially vulnerable or children, because their organs are still growing, then their whole bodily system is affected, or older people who are have immune compromised systems are overly affected or pregnant women are, you know, gestating fetuses who could be affected.

Harmful chemicals released into the atmosphere

They can be released through VOCs / volatile organic compounds, or SVOCs, which are gaseous, so they can be emitted, they're invisible gases that release into the indoor environment and then we breathe them in. That's probably one of the most common ways that we can be affected through through inhalation.

Building materials also decompose over time. And as they decompose, they have like microscopic particles that move into the air and and cling on to dust and that dust can also be inhaled. Or it actually can even be ingested.

If we're eating, our mouths are open. We're sitting on a sofa, there's a little bit of dust on the sofa that gets onto our pizza, we put the pizza in our mouth, or some some kinds of chemicals actually can be absorbed through the skin.

So Bisphenol A, for example, has been found on cash register receipts, there's Bisphenol A there so the people working in a grocery store are more vulnerable than all of us, because they touch them every minute, but if we also touch that cash register receipt, we can absorb that Bisphenol A through our skin, which then acts as an endocrine receptor, a hormone disruptor in our body.

I know it all sounds like a horror movie but of course a lot of this is invisible and that's why it's really important for us to know more, especially as designers and architects - to know enough to not include these materials that contain chemicals in the buildings that we're designing.

MM

So this is where we start to build up the argument for how one can can improve the health credentials of our buildings, to do better than has been done in the past. But first we must, I think, define one element you mentioned around people and environmental health or rather how our health as humans, and the health of the environment and the planet around us are interconnected. Can one draw a line between the two? Is there in fact, no clear distinction between them?

Life Cycle Assessments of materials and building products

JR

You know, Matt, I think it's all related, it's impossible to separate the two. The way we think about this is through the full lifecycle of a material.

Take luxury vinyl tile (“LVT”) if we look at the origins of that material, or rather product made up of many different materials, unlike real wood for instance.

If you have LVT, it's made up of many different materials. And there's some great research, which traced all those different materials, so we're looking at vinyl and where all those ingredients come from, and tracing them back to their origins, we find that just in the mining of chloride, and in the manufacturing of vinyl it is extremely harmful to the environment, and to anyone living near those facilities.

So if we think about where plastics or petroleum, fossil fuels are refined, there are communities who unfortunately do not have much choice about where they live, and their housing is located right next to these refineries. And so those people are exposed to the plastics refinery on a daily basis, 24 hours a day.

It’s just one example where there's a link between the environmental pollution affecting the land, our soil and water systems, it's emitting huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, which we know is a major emitter of greenhouse gases, which then go on to cause climate change.

Then there's the people who are living right there, next to that factory, who are affected by that same air pollution. And then if that LVT makes it into their homes, then they're affected by the chemicals that make LVT pliable, soft, so now they're in their homes.

It’s really just following our imagination, asking “how is something made?” “Where is it made?” “What does it affect?” You can see how climate change, environmental health and people's health are completely interrelated. There's no way to separate them.

There's this great report that just came out in October called The New Coal - Plastics & Climate Change, by Beyond Plastics.

The summary of their findings show that plastics production might be even more negative impact on the climate than burning of coal. And the plastics production is a lot about building materials. It's a lot about making the places that we live, which then go on to negatively affect our human health, like we talked about before they can be, they can disrupt our hormone systems, as well as disrupt the climate, the atmosphere.

Biophilia

MM

We're using this People or Planet distinction as if they were somehow two separate concepts. But in fact nature is a bridge between them - it’s a false dichotomy. I often think of biophilia as being the bridge between those two. Once you accept that, once you see the bigger picture of us being at one with the natural world, then there is no distinction to make.

Healthy interior consultants in the design process

If we then look at how the practical realities of integrating some of these concerns into the design process, when we're talking about real estate developers, architects and designers, who are then giving health, both human and environmental health, a seat at the table, so that it becomes part of the design process of building or refurbishing, what does that look like in practical terms? Is it just about having a healthy interiors consultant on the team?

JR

What we're doing at Parsons is to develop a curriculum and courses to help educate the next generation of architects and designers to understand their choices better. So that's beginning, but in terms of professionals who are building buildings, now, there's more education necessary. We're involved in that effort to educate professionals to know better, but we also know that the process of building a building and the day to day demands upon an architect or designer are so extreme that often consultants are needed, yes.

the road to healthier buildings

You know, it takes time and resources to examine our choices more carefully. If we think about using healthier building products, and making healthier buildings, we actually do have to examine our past experience in our past choices, and we need to examine it pretty closely. That is where I think consultants come in.

I think we're also seeing that larger architecture and design firms are beginning to hire in, in house experts in material health, a lot of our students, our graduate students, and our researchers who have worked with us at the Lab, then move on to work in architecture and design firms, and they become the resident expert.

Healthy building standards

There are credentials to achieve, you know, you there are BREEAM in Europe, there's LEED, there's all these different certifying bodies which help people navigate the system. But some of those criteria would maybe not be aggressive enough. And so it's really important for folks to have genuine knowledge, not just to follow guidelines.

MM

I think that's one of the things I took from your four part online certification course - was that you didn't shy away from just showing how complex and thorny, this whole process is, really exposing that and being completely transparent about it, rather than trying to write the textbook and assume that’s the end of the debate.

So with that course, who's your main audience?

JR

Yeah. I mean it's really directed, primarily directed at designers and architects, and, but also at anyone in the building industry. Because we know that contractors, for instance, and developers, and owners of buildings, even maintenance workers, have a huge impact on the way that building is built, and the way that building is maintained.

So anyone involved in making choices for the building products or materials used in buildings, are the potential students of this course. That’s the big objective is, is just like you said, for people to understand that it's not straightforward, that it takes real thought to do it right, we have to weigh our choices, we have to make compromises always and make priorities about buildings. And so what we're trying to do is educate a way of thinking we call it material health thinking.

Architects and design professionals have been taking our course, and we're seeing, at least locally in the US, that we were watching practices actually shift to healthier ways of building, which is phenomenal.

Our next frontier is really to educate, to provide education that's appealing to building contractors. Because at the contractor level, that's where a lot of substitutions happen, you know, the architect and designer can write in a specification for a healthier building product, but then there might not be the money. And then the owner might say, Well, we, you know, we can't spend that much. And then the contractor will say, well, we'll just substitute it for this. And all of a sudden, you've lost your healthier building. Or at least you've lost strides on that. So that's our next frontier is to really to recruit more, more contractors and more maintenance folks in buildings to take these courses and even developers to take the courses.

MM

What is it about affordable housing that makes it such an acute problem in terms of the health or poor health credentials of these buildings?

JR

One of maybe the most obvious reasons is because affordable housing is generally built with cheap materials. And those cheap materials are generally the most unhealthy. Most of the cheap materials that are available today. are synthetics based in plastics, so based on the refinement of fossil fuels, which then are made into materials that are then made into the building products.

If you can find something that's $1 a square foot, well, let's use it for the poor people in affordable housing, and that's the thinking process and we're trying to change that. And to say, actually, we need to use healthier materials for people who don't have a choice about where they live.

Their homes might be located hated near factories or near toxic waste dumps or near highways where there's just a lot of exterior pollution. And then they go inside and their flooring is polluting their house too, they're being polluted in their external life and in their interior spaces.

And then often also people who are living in affordable housing are working in factories, and they're working on construction sites, and they're working in places where they're exposed all day long to harmful chemicals.

And then some of those chemicals are on their, their clothing, and then they bring that clothing home, and then the children in that household are exposed, doubly or triply.

So that that's the reason we've focused because we focus on affordable housing, because people who are living in affordable housing, our have all kinds of more risks and hazards of being exposed to harmful chemicals than than others.

So it's really important that at least we build homes, for low income people that are healthier, you know, let's start there. And, you know, try to give everyone a chance to live a thriving healthy life.

MM

It was a real eye opener for me, I'll be very honest, I think probably been guilty of falling into what is, in retrospect, a fairly white middle class privilege perspective on what I do, which is, trying to help in my own way to create healthier interiors. And it's far easier to have those conversations on premium new build or high end refurbishment projects in central London, with big pension funds behind us and plenty of cash.

There's still topics of discussion and debate around budgets but the numbers are on a completely different scale. And that section of your course really brought it home to me in a lightbulb moment, I just thought, oh, wow, there's this whole other side to this debate, which is, okay, how do we make all this happen when there aren't these big budgets available? How do you how do you crack that?

JR

That's a really great question. And that's where we dig into the details. I mean, that's where we really have to dig into the strategy for the financing of a building. We might redirect funds to materials, you know, adding a little bit of material and adding a little bit of budget to material cost. And what we're finding is that actually, material costs is less of an issue than labor costs anyway.

If this knowledge is brought to the table, then there are other ways to think about those budgets. So it really becomes more of an economic issue with folks in the other white collar folks in the office is like rethinking how they're, they're aligning their budget.

So for instance, if there's a developer who's building housing in five different cities, and there's an architect or designer who's specifying the materials in those cities, if they specify a particular flooring material, for instance, in each of those five buildings over 1000 units, rather than maybe 100 units, then the price differential goes way down. And then you can work it out with the manufacturer, who will often lower the cost. And so then it becomes much more cost competitive.

MM

When you look, say 10 years down the line from where you're at today. And considering where we've got to, what has been done and what has yet to be done. Are you optimistic for the future of healthy buildings and materials?

JR

We're suffering through such hard times right now, our workplace closed again today, like we did in 2020. And there's so much hardship, really, and, you know, we think about the climate crisis and the challenges that we need to overcome in order to slow the temperature rise. And so there's so much to say that we shouldn't be optimistic. But I can't afford not to be optimistic. I'm an optimist. Otherwise, I think I couldn't do this work. I do believe that we can make the shift.

More people who've taken the course or who understand the issues are inspired to make change, they're not discouraged, I see the opposite, I see more and more people being inspired to make change and taking on the challenge of what that means.

I think there's also been more and more economic arguments for the same - political and economic arguments often drive change. And so I think there's more and more legislation also, but we really as designers, and architects can make these changes that can make have mass, mass impact in the in the most positive way.

MM

Thank you for your time, we will link to the course in the show notes. How do you typically recommend people to engage website? Obviously your main? Yeah, weigh in? Do you do LinkedIn, Instagram, what are your channels,

JR

So www.healthymaterialslab.org is our website and on the Learning Hub, you can find the courses and register.

The registration is through the New School, which is where Parsons School of Design and where Healthy Materials Lab is houses. We're also on LinkedIn, and on Instagram and on Facebook. Our handle is at healthy materials lab. S

I hope more folks, join us there, come to our website, you'll find in addition to our courses, you'll find examples of healthier materials that you can specify. You can find tools and resources that will help you get there faster, and ultimately, a four course program which will give you all this knowledge that Matt is mentioning, after having taken the course.

So actually registration is open now through the end of January for the course and then it will close and not open again until the summer. So if you're listening, I encourage you to to Register now for the for the course at healthymaterialslab.org.

Healthy materials in sustainable interiors

What are healthy materials vs sustainable materials? How can buildings and interiors integrate circular materials to reduce environmental impact?

We advise teams on the selection of materials for real estate development and interiors projects, typically as part of a wider sustainability plan or ESG strategy for example. Contact us to find out more.

What are healthy materials?

A number of innovative products and materials now exist in the marketplace that promise added wellness benefits, be it in a home, office or hotel. This is in a sense an evolution of a previous shift towards sustainable, natural materials.

The Covid crisis has only served to bring all of this into the mainstream public's attention as there is now a far greater appreciation of hygiene and the concept of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) nowadays, especially with the rise of the Well Building Standard.