Join Nick Baker at Cambridge Architectural Research's first online Showroom. His talk is based on the recently published book Healthy Homes: Designing with Light and Air for Sustainability and Wellbeing by Nick Baker and Koen Steemers.
In 2015 Koen Steemers and I set out to write Healthy Homes: Designing with Light and Air for Sustainability and Wellbeing in response to a series of workshops organised by Velux. We were struck by the number of different areas of science which were claimed to impinge on the health and wellbeing of occupants.
These could range from interruption to the circadian rhythm by inappropriate positioning of windows, to allowing fumes from the toaster to permeate living areas – each specialist demanding a design response to avoid dire consequences. We observed too that many of the demands conflicted; providing good natural ventilation could also allow noise and pollution to enter the building, for example.
Our mission became then to make design recommendations addressing conflicts and weighting their relative importance, and responding only to evidence from the literature. This talk will describe the content of the book, and also discuss the process and difficulties of meeting our mission objectives.
Nick Baker is a physicist and specialist in environmental design and energy conservation in buildings. He has published widely on environmental issues including daylighting, thermal comfort and energy modelling.
This event is hosted by Cambridge Architectural Research. The RIBA is not responsible for personal data held by third parties.
