Lida Lewis
PASSIONATE DESIGNER
EDUCATOR | THOUGHT LEADER
WELL Project Process (HKS Offices)
While at HKS, among many other things, I was involved with the process for WELL for 5+ offices domestically and internationally. Actually, involved is putting it mildly. When I arrived at HKS, no one there had ever engaged with the WELL Building Standard--I was inventing everything as I went from scratch. For those of you who've engaged with a rating system before--LEED, BREEAM, LBC, whichever--you know how daunting a task this can be!
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Adding to this complexity was that the budget, site selection, and design direction had all been selected before I was brought on board. With rating system in one hand, lease and plans in another, I dove into multiple projects simultaneously. Chicago, Miami, London, Ft. Worth, Denver, even exploring in the existing Dallas HQ, potential space in Shanghai, and others--I started mapping out what we needed, and a process for tackling the work in the future.
Site Selection and Investigation
Though chronologically out of order here as the leases were already complete, one of the lessons from the work I underwent on the offices was to parse out what it would be ideally beneficial to ask for before an LOI is complete.
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Existing spaces are absolutely eligible to pursue WELL certification, thus technically any space, at any time, can choose to pursue certification. When negotiating a lease or selecting a facility, however, there are many differentiators between spaces when looking through the lens of health.
To this end, I've developed a spreadsheet of questions, organized by 5 major categories, to enable project managers to interface with the building property management and engineers to identify areas for cooperation, and inform the LOI process. From building systems, to cleaning and maintenance strategies, policies, and more, the integrative nature of WELL means that there's a lot to pay attention to in the existing space. Even in new greenfield or brownfield sites, there's a lot to know. To pursue certification at all, and certainly to hit the highest levels of certification, identifying what you're starting with is a critical first step.
Plan Analysis
Where I started was with the plans. The team for HKS Chicago, for example, had already passed through schematic design and on into the beginnings of design development when I was able to dig in. Rather than have the team cross reference the design and WELL Building Standard (especially as none of the other team members were WELL APs), I chose to tackle the communication on this issue as you would with many other project parameters--with a plan review.
I developed a system to communicate what we needed to tackle effectively, particularly as our goals were high (Platinum), and the gaps between the current design and that goal numerous. I noted on separate sheets for each Concept area (at the time, in v1, that was 7) the items we had to do no matter what (our preconditions) and all of the options that could get us to Platinum. Within that, I noted in red any items that seemed to be sending us off the rails and needed to be addressed immediately, and in purple items that would need attention in future phases. In each, I offered far more than what reading the reference guide would provide. I commented on where we had gaps, and why, in plain language, and listed suggestions for each what we could do to point us toward Platinum certification.
Educating and Developing Solutions
To move the team forward from the comments I'd made in the plans, it became clear that in some areas some education on the subject matter was required. One such area was biophilia. A problem that persisted even after CDs, all of the teams in every office location had not taken into account the design needed to achieve this required precondition. Though partly political and a question of team empowerment, this was also tied to a lack of knowledge. I developed a highly visual presentation on Terrapin Bright Green's 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design to get our minds moving to productively address the issue.
What came out of this was relief on behalf of many members of the team who were incredibly interested in enlivening the white on white box that had been designed, and some great ideas on how to move our design forward. Together, we created a new design team that developed a mosaic of interventions that were appropriate to the current phase of the project (construction) and could utilize our artwork and graphic budget, as well as build community and a sense of ownership within the Chicago office.
Happily, most of these solutions ultimately ended up implemented in the space in some form. This increased morale among the staff, the majority of which had expressed a desire for a much more colorful space with many connections to nature.
Another success story was in the acoustic design of the space. Though all of the HKS office spaces were initially designed with only aesthetics in mind, the requirements of the WELL Building Standard, education on the many ways this could be addressed from myself and our acoustic consultants, and employee surveys which highlighted this as a key issue all converged to expand horizons, and the design solutions, in many of these spaces to include comfort, as well as aesthetics, in the final solutions.
One item still under exploration for myself and these teams is the question of how to address the material requirements of both LEED v4 and WELL (the HKS Office projects were targeting platinum in both). Unfortunately, despite HKS' multi year involvement with the Mindful Materials program, staff engagement with a thorough materials vetting process is still an ongoing project. I and others on the team participated in a very hands on review of the materials, initially selected only on visual criteria, to improve the health profile of the products to be installed in the office spaces.
This process was entrepreneurial, innovative, frustrating, inspiring, and one which pushed us into new areas of research and design. Overall, it reinforced the key reason why I continually engage with the ongoing conversations around sustainability in the built environment. First with LEED, and now with WELL and its expansion of the definition, sustainability, for me, is about making myself, and others, better designers.