WELL Building Standard™ Technical Lecture

Despite progressively more client requests to incorporate occupant health and wellbeing aspects into our designs, did you know that there are only seven WELL certified projects in the UK?  In response to last year’s AIA-UK member survey, in which an interest in more technical lectures was expressed, we sought to explore the WELL Building Standard™ a bit further.

On the evening of 10 September 2019, ISG plc hosted 25 AIA-UK guests for a technical lecture.  Dr. Magdalini Makrodimitri, of Norman Disney & Young's London office, presented the rating system and focussed on the preconditions and optimisations (that’s WELL-speak for prerequisites and credits) that would most affect architects and their design processes. The attendees represented a good cross section of our industry, with architects, contractors, and quantity surveyors all present, which made for interesting discussion from various viewpoints of the industry.

The sheer cost of certification was a major talking point, although it was noted that in the newest version of WELL, WELL v2, these costs have come down considerably.  This was thought to be the major barrier to uptake for WELL v1.

Dr. Makrodimitri noted where each precondition and optimisation alighted or surpassed UK and BREEAM requirements, which was a helpful illustration of where design teams would need to go above and beyond standard practices to achieve WELL points.

Please contact AIA-UK treasurer, Anna Foden, at treasurer@aiauk.org if you would like to contact Dr. Makrodimitri regarding the WELL Building Standard.