Green ArchiTEXT

Can JUST label bring social justice to building materials? | GreenBiz.com

By Molly Miller

What is the human toll for our purchases? Do the organizations we support care about their employees? Do they support the local community? How is their money invested?

These are some unanswered questions leaders in green building design say we have not addressed as we have developed ways of evaluating green buildings through certifications, such as the International Living Future Institute's Living Building Challenge (LBC) and the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED certification.

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At the Living Future's annual conference last week in Seattle, Jason McLennan and BNIM founder Bob Berkebile launched the JUST label, an extension of the Declare label that addresses social justice and equity issues, such as as diversity, worker rights, health care and employee happiness, occupational safety and stewardship practices, including investments and community involvement.

Both Declare and JUST are part of a push for greater transparency for products materials in green buildings. READ MORE >>

via www.greenbiz.com

MIT Collaborates with AIA to Research Solutions for Healthy Urban Futures

By Irina Vinnitskaya

American Institute of Architects (AIA) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU) have announced a research collaboration to support AIA efforts through the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), Decade of Design, a measure focused on improving the health of urban communities.  As the global population continues to shift toward urban environments, urban conditions of the past century have become too outdated to address the increase in population and pollution.  In order to advance the state of city livability, professionals in the design and planning fields must reconsider how urban environments need to be designed to work optimally in regards to social, economic and health challenges.  MIT’s collaboration with the profession-based organization of the AIA allows the school’s research to reach the professional world for application and development. READ MORE >>

via www.archdaily.com

The Well Building Standard: Marrying Science & Technology to Architecture (via Clinton Global Initiative)

Buildings That Heal

By James Smith

Pedestrians walk through the Winter Garden Atrium in the World Financial Center in 2011 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

No doubt you have personally experienced the benefits of a well-designed building—just as you have also been troubled or frustrated by one that is designed poorly, even if you couldn’t put your finger on why. Research shows that the design of a building could affect your health or even be an aid in your healing process.

Age-old design concepts aim to provide better living and work environments. Basic design principles include natural lighting, proper ventilation, and something as simple and obvious as a good view. A lot of these principles have been ignored over the past 50 years, mostly for financial reasons, lack of interest, and simplistic beliefs such as “bigger is better.” READ MORE >>

via www.theepochtimes.com

Health + Wellness 2.0: From Home to Therapeutic Cities | Gensler

By Chris Jerde

In a TEDx presentation this year, Dr. Anthony Atala demonstrated a laser printer that “printed” a kidney transplant using a patient’s own cells. Meanwhile, futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that humans will soon be injected with robots the size of blood cells to fight off diseases before they spread inside the body. This is just a glimpse into a not-so-distant future when bio-scientific and technological innovation transform how ailments are diagnosed, treated and cured. Coupled with the rising demands of an aging global population, the developments will result in a health and wellness industry that hardly resembles what it is today.

I think that the environments of health and wellness will reflect these developments dramatically. The home will soon become a focal point for health services delivery, while mega-facilities will bridge hospitals to research labs to expedite care innovation in urban settings. And everything will be informed by greater knowledge of how the human body and brain react to those environments. There’s an amazing opportunity right now to recreate the experience of health and wellness in ways that the well, the sick and every person in-between can appreciate. READ MORE >>

via www.gensleron.com

Sustainable places: where the healing can begin

PHOTO: The Challenge Series

By Kaid Benfield

Can an urban place be located and designed so that it nourishes and heals?  Mark Holland, one of the key principals involved in the planning and certification of the highest-rated development in the LEED-ND pilot program, thinks so. 

(The project, by the way, is Vancouver’s Southeast False Creek, which served as the athletes’ village for the most recent Winter Olympic Games, and now has become known as Millennium Water.  But that isn't today's subject.)

Holland is one of the founders of the Healing Cities Working Group, whose foundation statement explicitly connects human health and well-being with physical place:

“The healing process in the human body is the ability to rebuild, repair and regenerate cells, tissues and organs. Regeneration draws upon the body’s innate intelligence to heal itself.

“What would it then mean for a city to be ‘healed,’ and eventually to reciprocate and be healing and heal itself, its inhabitants and visitors?  Furthermore, what methods and processes would support cities to facilitate healing in the context of sustainability planning?  How might the built form and natural spaces of the city nurture and develop its residents' holistic health – to include addressing physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual needs?”

READ MORE >>

via switchboard.nrdc.org