HEALTH AND HAPPINESS

Too many contemporary buildings, particularly workplaces where people spend a significant part of their lives, are not only bad for the environment around them, they are bad for the people inside them. Their occupants are deprived of fresh air and natural light, and do not have personal control over the artificial substitutes for them. Nor do they even have a view to the outside. Designed only for efficiency, as defined in the narrowest terms, such buildings do nothing to foster any sort of community life. Many modern building materials and components are toxically polluting in manufacture and when installed, poisoning the environment and their occupants, creating 'sick building syndrome'. Green buildings do not use materials that are polluting to the air, earth or water, or to people, plants and other creatures. Such buildings and the materials they are made of would also be devised to be cleaned with non-polluting materials, unlike so many of the cleaning materials now in common use. Green buildings are pleasant, healthy places for people. Companies moving into them typically report a considerable drop in absenteeism. They report reduced staff turnover, which saves money on training, as well as improved productivity, often the most dramatic and profitable benefit, but also the most difficult to quantify. At the most basic level, people are healthier because they are in an environment free of toxic materials and fumes. Psychological and social dimensions are important too. People value a sense of contact with the outdoors and its ever-changing conditions, as recognized in the 'blue-green' laws coming into force in various parts of Europe, whereby all workers are entitled to a view of the sky and vegetation. People prefer it even more if they have control over personal comfort conditions. The concomitant recognition of people's enjoyment of fluctuations in temperature not only brings energy and cost savings, but has led to a long-overdue redefinition of comfort standards. These are now understood not in terms of constant ideal conditions, but of the pleasures of gently varying sensual stimuli.

Buildings: Commerzbank Headquarters, Cotton Tree Pilot Housing, Gotz Headquarters, Mont Cenis Training Center, Slateford Green, University of Nottingham Jubilee Campus