There is increasing awareness and understanding of the connection between human health and the built environment.
Air and water quality, biodiversity, noise levels, and access to public transportation and active travel options all influence our mental and physical health and well-being.
Social, economic, and technological advances are now enabling the biggest changes in several generations to how places are designed and used, ushering in a new era for placemaking.
In environments designed for work, living, leisure, retail, travel — or created to provide essential services such as schools and hospitals — people want improvement on what they have experienced before. Getting the design right is key to creating these new, healthy places.
Almost every building or infrastructure project has the potential to deliver better outcomes for our health. Often benefits such as improved well-being and productivity, a more biodiverse and sustainable environment, and enhancing the desirability of an area, can be achieved without significant additional investment.
Through our approach to design, we can help deliver these benefits to end users and communities, as well as to the workforce operating and maintaining infrastructure assets.
Designs focused on people
Buildings and infrastructure influence the social, economic, and environmental outcomes that drive the quality of people’s lives. That’s why our designs are focused on the end users.
A systems approach
Buildings, public spaces, and infrastructure assets are all interdependent, and this built environment is closely connected with the elements and ecologies of the natural environment. When parts of the system are stressed or fail, negative chain reactions can be set off, with humans among those to suffer the effects. Strong and balanced systems enable people to thrive.
Optimized digital solutions
Across the built and natural environments there is now a wealth of data that can help us to understand the interplay they have with human health and wellbeing. By harnessing this data and applying the latest digital solutions, we can design places with the right outcomes in mind.
We consider a full range of factors known to affect environmental and human health, from the macro to the micro level, and relate them to each project.
Intelligent Content provides a managed library of information-rich, parametric BIM objects that can be reused instead of recreated, and optimized with each successive use. A team of experts creates and quality-checks all objects, reducing model development time and enabling the rapid prototyping of designs.
STEPS was the first solution to map people in motion, from transportation interfaces to stadium evacuation. STEPS realistically simulates pedestrian movements to test design layouts and operational plans. It enables users to understand how people will act in daily situations and in emergencies.