Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity

This book felt like an ad for the book I thought I bought. I was expecting much more technical substance about what we know and don't know rather than an extended assertion that buildings affect health, that these impacts can be quantified, and that they represent (unsurprisingly) a market opportunity. This reads a bit like a business book. For perspective, I'm a scientist who did my postdoctoral training at the Harvard School of Public Health -- ironically, it was my bad office space there that really got me thinking about ventilation, sound, and temperature control in offices. Infectious disease transmission is my research focus, although I've been fascinated by air quality since middle school. I was reading this book mostly because I've been trying to help my urban highrise become healthier, I'm planning a new lab space for my group, I'm designing a very high-elevation Passive House in a region prone to wildfires and radon, I'm doing a bunch of consulting on COVID-19 transmission, and I'm always thinking about how to model respiratory viral transmission and lung immune responses better. What I was hoping for was (1) much more scientifically nuanced discussion of how air quality and other building features affect health (should also say HSPH also taught me how psychologically harmful bad architecture can be), with rough estimates of effect sizes of different harms in different populations, and (2) much more on the actual commissioning and monitoring of buildings, and challenges to do this. In short, I was looking for much more careful epi and industrial hygiene. It is very hand-wavy, and instead of plugging companies, I wish they'd talked more about sensors. The book is also very U.S.-focused (e.g., no mention of Passive Houses anywhere, but lots on LEED and other inanities). I wish I'd looked at primary sources and bought some texts on industrial hygiene instead. That said, this book seems like a somewhat helpful orientation. My recommendation is mostly to skim it.

A pivotal text, if not someday referenced as the foundational text, which gives definition and traction to the healthy building movement. Allen and Macomber eloquently outline nine foundations of healthy buildings, why barriers and split-incentives have prevented adoption of healthy buildings, why we should invest in them, and what the tangible results of healthy building are.The book is laden throughout with facts and sources, which is absolutely refreshing from the perspective of this MEP consulting engineer. The text allows the reader to develop an independent opinion on healthy buildings and the recommended strategies based upon sound research. While it’s got a heavy dose of facts and sources (20 pages of sources at the end), it is an easy read and flows from the first page to the last.My perspective on chemicals, and the process used to approve these products for public use has forever been changed.The authors defines and introduce key strategies for healthy buildings. Some, if not most, strategies introduced within the book will need further development and definition by experts within each field, but it lays a clear foundation and gives a much needed “heading” for the building (and health) industry as we embark into this movement.For individuals, not in the building industry, wondering if this book is worth the read, I’ll reference one sentence from the book: “...the person who manages your building has a bigger impact on your health than your doctor.”-Sam, engineer at a national MEP consulting firm

Using buildings to promote health should be a foundational idea for this century.But yesterday, Dr. Allen was quoted at a school board meeting where I live as telling the system's engineers that just 4 air changes hourly in our classrooms would be fine during the pandemic — and nothing else needs to be done with rooms in our schools. We had already gotten some ventilation improvements, but we had been trying to get second air cleaners in at least 300-400 rooms, so that all spaces would have at least 5 air changes of clean air. Then Dr. Allen's endorsement of less clean air, during the pandemic, was used as a justification to do as little as possible.So I decided to buy this book to compare Dr. Allen's written word to what he was quoted as telling my school district.I learned some cool facts, like it would be great to have 30-40 CFMs of outdoor air being brought in per person — whereas my kid's school building only has about 4 CFM per kid in some in some rooms. (Hmmm....)I learned there are over 200 scientific studies documenting "how the school BUILDING influences student health, thinking, and performance!" And how the ASHRAE indoor air standard is more like a bare minimum for indoor air — which should be a lot higher — along with a finger-wagging warning that "acceptable is not acceptable."Then I read the part about thermal comfort, and how it really hurts productivity and cognitive ability. And at that moment, I had a flashback to the meeting when school officials said that Dr. Allen had told them all they would need to do is open the windows. (I mean, why buy a $300 air cleaner so that special ed teacher wouldn't have to teach in a coat and gloves? And those shivering kids? Whatever!) So why is there a chapter about thermal comfort in this book, if it's not important in our schools? So many contradictions.There's such a stark difference from what's being recommended in this book and what my school officials were saying about Dr. Allen's comments last night. I can't square it up, so one star from me.Also, excusing the poor air quality — just to get kids back into the buildings (where they should be) — just made it that much harder to advocate for things this books says would be a good idea in the long run. I mean, he basically already told my school district that minimal was, in fact, acceptable, so why bother to do more ... even if you can and even if you have the resources to do so.

Great work by the authors in putting so very many concepts out there in an explained manner.

Great read for as we prepare for a post-Covid approach to building design design and management.

This book couldn’t have come at a better time! Essential reading for anyone who has anything to do with the built environment.

I don’t often write book reviews these days but every so often a book comes along that is so important or moving that I feel the need. ‘Healthy Buildings’ is one of those and it should become the go to reference for anyone maintaining, refurbishing, designing, owning or just working in buildings – so that is just about everybody. Clearly in the light of COVID-19 it is a very timely book.It starts with very personal introductions explaining how the authors got to where they are and the work that led to this book. I liked this approach as it helps to frame the ‘why’, why is the subject important and why do they care enough about it to write a book, which as I know is a huge commitment on top of your day job. Throughout the book is highly informative, extensively referenced and yet easy to read. I really like the style of the book when explaining scientific concepts, captured in the phrase; “environmental media, which is the annoying public health way of saying air, water, or dust”.A lot of the issues discussed have been known about for a long while, but either hidden away, dealt with peripherally or separately in silos, which is part of the problem we face. This book brings them all together in an integrated way and presents enough hard evidence on the value of addressing health in building design, refurbishment and operation to convince even the most hard-nosed real estate investor. It is interesting how much evidence there is that is either not known about or has been systematically ignored, something that the authors bring out using the story of a C-suite executive from company selling air filters asking if there was any evidence of the health effects of PM2.5. There is a huge evidence base but surprisingly enough, a senior executive from a company that has an interest in being on top of that particular subject didn’t know about it. That is a sad commentary on the ‘captains of industry’ that we have in the built environment sector.The book brings home the clear message that our collective health is not something that comes solely from random events, or is managed or influenced solely by medical professionals, but instead is highly affected by the buildings we inhabit for 90% of the time and hence by building designers, owners and operators. It also makes the overwhelming case on the effects on productivity of higher levels of ventilation. The 3/30/300 rule quoted in the book is a good ready reckoner, at least for office buildings: 3 units of cost on utilities, 30 on rent and 300 on staff, so a small gain in productivity is worth far more than the usual energy savings. All of this fits with the thinking about multiple, strategic non-energy benefits of energy efficiency which I have often talked about. The strategic (and financial) value of improved productivity far outweighs energy savings and we need to be selling productivity improvements that as a side benefit can bring energy savings. There is a twist to this, making a building healthier, for instance by increasing ventilation rates, will increase energy use but this could be very worthwhile from productivity gains. It also of course improves the returns from any energy efficiency measure e.g. heat recovery and it can improve the case for onsite-generation and/or storage, so we need to factor all these things into better business cases for holistic projects that incorporate health related benefits, productivity benefits and energy efficiency benefits. We need to think about the energy baseline we are comparing to – the current situation or the new situation with increased ventilation.The book once again reminds us of the importance of language. Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is a known concept but actually IEQ, Indoor Environmental Quality, may be a better metric as it covers all aspects of the indoor environment not just air quality. It also reminds us that design codes or building regulations are minimum performance standards and may be far from the ideal. Who really wants to perform at the minimum level? But we design and operate buildings at those levels, or even below, all the time.As well as a treasure trove of evidence and tools that can be used to sell healthy buildings to decision makers, as well as operationalise healthy buildings in real life situations, the book offers suggestions and tools for doing just that. As I have said before, capturing and valuing all the benefits of building upgrades is critical for making the business case stack up, and the health and productivity benefits are ones that are the largest and yet the most often ignored. Like energy efficiency there is massive potential for cost-effective improvement in the health impact of buildings and exploiting that potential is critical for addressing massive health problems in all societies, just like exploiting energy efficiency is for addressing the climate problem. This issue seems to be being neglected in a lot of the ‘build back better’ conversations which seem too focused on the real and important energy efficiency benefits. Health benefits may get better traction with governments, especially in the COVID world we now inhabit.I am sure this is a book that I will come back to time and time again. We are now taking inspiration from it as we develop new ideas and service offerings about integrated health and energy retrofits.

The book postulates that technology is now available to improve the health and productivity of the occupants of a building. As an example they mention just reducing the particulate (PM2.5, PM1.0) concentration in the air in a building in one of our cities can significantly increase our health. Studies has shown that it also increases productivity. Imagine increasing the productivity in a building in India which has 1000 people whose software/engineering work is outsourced from a large corporation. 10% increase in productivity would be significant increase to the bottom line.

Für so ein "trockenes" Sachbuch geradezu extrem interessant und gut recherchiert geschriebe. Exzellente Beispiele zeigen iie sehr ein gutes Raumklima die wirtschaftliche Leistung von Unternehmen und auch den Lernerfolg von Schülern und Studenten steigert. Das sollte unbedingt Resonanz bei den Entscheidungsträgern in Politik und Wirtschaft finden.

This book explains well the issues regarding healthy buildings, in particular regarding air circulation. Excellent read, and good advice.

A very well written and thought provoking book. Should be required reading by ALL those involved in office buildings.