Most homes are not built with human health in mind. In fact, many are actually contributing to negative health outcomes and overall poor health in occupants young and old. But what does a “healthy” home look like? What features should be incorporated and what should be avoided?
This is what the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) set out to solve nearly four years ago. But the history of IWBI and its effort to create a standard of wellness in the built environment dates back to more than a decade ago.
Building toward a new standard
In 2014, IWBI introduced the WELL Building Standard, the world’s first building standard to focus on enhancing people’s health and well-being through the built environment. At the time, most building standards like LEED, BREEAM and Living Building Challenge focused primarily on sustainability and the built environment's impact on the planet. WELL, however, focused exclusively on the humans who occupied those buildings.
While it was on the roadmap to eventually include residential buildings, the WELL Building Standard was initially optimized for commercial and institutional buildings. After 2020, however, when much of the world shifted to being more home centric, it catalyzed IWBI to prioritize the development of the residential standard.
The first step was to organize a WELL for Residential Advisory––a group of experts who would help guide the expansion of the evidence-based WELL Building Standard to the design and construction of single-family homes worldwide.
“A healthy home is the foundation for people to live their best and healthiest lives,” said Liz Miles the vice president of residential at IWBI. “Unfortunately, most homes across the world are not built with health in mind, and we really observed a dawning of awareness since the outbreak of the pandemic on the connection between home and health.”
Following nearly two years of gathering industry input, market insight and expert recommendations from its WELL for Residential Advisory, IWBI launched a global pilot program with 25 diverse participants who enrolled nearly 30,000 residences into the program. To date, three projects have earned the WELL for Residential seal and several others are nearing completion.
Standardizing but with flexibility
Exploring WELL Standards in action
