Wellbeing Interiors Q&A with Matt Morley

Matt Morley in a rare seated moment at the MONTOYA creative co-working space in Barcelona, Spain

What was your career path into wellbeing interiors and healthy building consultancy?

I spent almost 10 years working for a real estate developer, so from a head of marketing role I eventually moved over into a Real Estate Creative Director role in-house for a development called Porto Montenegro. We built an entire town on the Adriatic coast, basically. I

I’d be called in to work with an architect, financial analyst and the operations department to design and launch new business concepts such as co-working offices, outdoor gyms, business clubs, retail stores, beach clubs and so on.

‘Give me a space and a budget and I'll create the concept for you!’

How did you end up combining nature, health and real estate interiors?

That was where I learned my trade, in a sense, but in parallel with that I was developing this interest in natural fitness, connecting with the outdoors both during exercise and through interior design.

The difference between how I felt when I was exercising in nature vs an uninspiring indoor gym became ever more clear. The same goes for office environments, so I started bringing in plants, using a standing desk and using various healthy design strategies to improve the spaces I spent most time in

Your way in to biophilic design was a combination of real estate knowledge, interior fit-out experience and a passion for nature, in other words?

Yes, although I wasn’t using the terms ‘biophilic design’, healthy buildings or wellbeing interiors back then, it was far more instinctual. In retrospect, that’s what made it all feel so urgent, my energy levels were so directly affected by the spaces I spent time in. I just didn't feel healthy in certain homes, offices or gyms. What could I do to change it?

I started hacking away at the subject, gradually realising that there was a whole school of thought largely led by the US around how to actually do wellness real estate and wellbeing interiors in a more structured way, as evidenced by the WELL Building Standard for example.

How did that lead to you setting up a health & fitness consultancy for hotel groups?

I set up my first company, Biofit, specializing in creating green and healthy gyms and wellness spaces. I now advise hotel groups and corporates around Europe on creating innovative fitness facilities and wellness activity programs for guests.

That was followed in 2019 with my second company, Biofilico, with a much broader scope, really going back to where I was before, creating a range of interior concepts but with an eco and wellness twist.

We also offer healthy building certifications and expert advisory to project teams on larger development projects or corporate offices.

What about this relatively new term of ‘Wellbeing Champion’, what does that involve?

More recently I’ve started playing the role of a Wellbeing Champion on bigger projects alongside developers, architects and HR teams, representing the voice of occupant health in other words and promoting strategies that can positively impact the wellness benefits of a building or interior.

What career path do you recommend for those who want to work in wellness interiors?

I had my own very particular way in to wellbeing interiors, there are others who have done very well having migrated across from a building engineering background, a sustainability consultant background and of course architects. All of them have a passion for working with nature though,

My particular angle on wellbeing interiors is through environmental design and the lived occupant experience combined with a strong real estate and corporate sustainability strategy perspective, that’s my magic sauce if you like!

What different responses are you seeing in the world of workplace wellbeing now post-COVID?

It’s quite hard to generalize at a country or regional level, possibly even at an industry level. I tend to think more in terms of brand culture and how a particular brand or organization applies their culture or mission and values to their response.

What I am seeing is more creative businesses such as fast moving tech startups and generally more youthful dynamic company cultures, and especially those linked to health and wellness, have all been early adopters of new more flexible approaches to working from home and flexible hours in general, where it’s about results rather than hours clocked up in front of a screen.

Contrast that with more traditional businesses that are pushing for return to the office no matter what.

From my perspective, there have to be some concessions at a building level. A structured approach I recommend goes beyond tactical, knee-jerk reactions such as ‘do we need plexiglass screens in between desks now’ or do we need more cubicles.

What about ESG in real estate? Is that relevant here?

Right, so the savvier companies are adopting an ESG strategy approach: Environmental, Social and Governance. Investors, pension funds and the like are all looking for ESG credentials in the businesses they back, creating pressure from above.

Then from below, HR teams are saying they want a healthier work environment for staff now. Bring those two together post COVID and suddenly we’re talking about indoor air quality in C-suite boardrooms in a way that wasn’t imaginable just two years ago.

Now everybody wants to know about indoor air quality and how an office environment can connect to a corporate ESG or CSR strategy.

It's been a really difficult year on so many levels and yet there does seem to be this amazing opportunity to slingshot off the back of all of this to a healthier built environment in the near future.

ESG reporting has just gone right to the top of the agenda and so if there is a silver lining to all this, for me it's that there are so many opportunities now to if not reinvent but certainly upgrade the the workplace environment in particular but also our homes and gyms, health centres even retirement homes.

How do you help workplaces evaluate or measure wellbeing interior interventions?

It’s typically a combination of qualitative and quantitative data, something like indoor air quality, for example, is very much quantitative, so installing air quality monitors around the workplace.

You can do a deep dive analysis of what's going on today, make a number of changes, effectively applying various biophilic design principles oriented towards improving the purity of the indoor air that we're breathing, things like changing the ventilation fan filters, removing any nasty materials and fabrics or upgrading certain pieces of furniture and replacing them with more natural alternatives.

Is it all about interiors and furniture or do building management policies have a role to play?

It’s definitely worth thinking about things like an eco-cleaning product policy and green procurement strategies so that going forward, anything that's coming in or bought for the workplace has been approved and signed off in terms of being chemical free and not off gassing nasty stuff into the indoor environment.

From there, you set up your indoor monitors and off you go, you've got data being produced on an hourly basis with a monitor on each floor and each key work zone that then gets analyzed in the cloud and you're set up for life.

How can an employee workplace survey help with wellbeing design?

Employee satisfaction within the workplace, done anonymously, can help us in identifying some of the softer stuff such as noise pollution, thermal comfort, bad odours, and so on all of which ca affect concentration levels negatively and therefore they damage the business in terms of productivity.

Open-plan offices are certainly not dead but clearly there are different types of work going on in the workplace that require different environments, such as solo deep work where you need to really zone in and focus, or more collaborative meetings that are all about engaging with others and bouncing ideas around creatively.

What type of a space does that require and how can biophilic design foster or promote the right outcomes?

You have also created a number of office recharge rooms in the past, what is the concept there?

In a sense this also answers the question around performance metrics for wellbeing interiors in the workplace. I did a project in London’s Canary Wharf to create a biophilic workspace or creative meeting room right by the water called The Wardian Case - Vitamin Nature space.

It was full of plants and we did a scientific research questionnaire with the University of Essex, and it was all about productivity, concentration levels, stress levels and a feeling of vitality.

Everybody spent at least an hour in the space, and we found across the board, positive responses on productivity, stress levels and concentration.

Office recharge rooms that use biophilic design are a really interesting way to convert a small space or unused office space into somewhere that can help with mental wellbeing during the work day, especially for creative workers.

Post COVID there's a real need for a focus on mental health in the workplace, making Biophilia a real trump card to play because connecting with nature has this amazing calming influence. It's instinctual!

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