One significant element to put on top of the priority list for a construction when making decision is the occupant’s health. For that the WELL building standard of measuring and certifying certain building attributes to meet a performance threshold requirement comes into play. The attributes are air, water, nourishment, light, fitness and comfort which influence the general wellness of occupants. The WELL standard puts those variables into great advantage in a manner that improve occupant’s health.
What is WELL?
WELL describes a set of standards, the very first of its kind for a green building construction which primarily focuses on the health of the people who live in a building. It is used to measure and authenticate the integral elements of a built environment or construction which are critical to occupant’s health. Such elements are air, water, nourishment, light, fitness and comfort. The program centres on scientific and medical approach to create a healthy built environment for building occupants. It lays down some protocols and standards for achieving an eco-friendly construction- a balance between the environment and occupants.
It is applied to various building types including commercial buildings, complexes, condos and personal homes in real estate. A WELL building is considered a value added property that commands more value in the real estate marketplace than a conventional building type. All in all, it creates a set of standards for productivity and performance threshold to ensure the best practices of building construction and design. The standard are intended to improve air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind.
Why WELL Building Standard?
In a bid and quest to harnessing the environment to add values to human existence through improved occupant wellness and health, the standard operates on the practice of setting and designing up a construction to meet a minimum requirement scientifically and medically proven to ensure improved occupant’s wellbeing.
It is broken into segments with each segment intended for different purposes. Each aspect of WELL is applied to different processes or stages of a WELL project. The Space and Core and Shell compliants features of the program focuses on fitness, patterns of sleep, nutrition, mood, performance and productivity. The version one aspect of the program capitalizes on institutional and commercial construction projects. Adding to that, the features are grouped into project structure where we have WELL for:
- New and Existing Buildings
- New and Existing Interiors
- Core and Shell
Each of those categories focuses on certain types of building with the features varying from one category to another.
The Concepts of the WELL Building Standard
WELL as a performance- based program works on the concept of measuring and certifying the elements of a built environment to meet performance requirements, hence it capitalizes on variables such air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind. In a in simple and short terms. Those variables for the concepts of the program.
