Information for Architects, Builders, Engineers, and Contractors (AEC)

This Section Is Dedicated to the Architects, Builders, Engineers, Contractors, and the Worlds of AEC Relating to Health in the Built Environment

When considering the impacts that the built environment has on human health, the field of architecture is critical to provide solutions to ensure that the buildings can provide proper health for the inhabitants.

The professionals as Architects, Builders, and Contractors (AEC) need to understand the many layers of health and have an overview of how the built environment impacts human health – physically, emotionally, and mentally or psychologically.

While the fields of architecture and medicine will be those doing the research, evaluations, and providing solutions as the supply of these issues, the public will be those who demand these changes. And therefore, it’s also critical to make sure that these professionals recognize their clients’ needs and utilize best practices for proper solutions.

It’s important to state that a focus on health in the built environment does not immediately denote that current buildings are unhealthy. However, with modern-day building materials and methods, it’s also critical to re-evaluate the complex processes and building systems. It’s also important to note that building health in the past has not had extensive integrations between the health and medical professions, which the Architectural Medicine System (AMS) is advocating.

And this means that new integrations avail new processes and working with new professionals that historically have not existed. This addition can provide deeper insights towards better health and wellness, and as such, requires an open mindset to new processes and protocols.

A key to the success of these integrative solutions is to recognize the importance of systems. To help in providing more clarity as to how these built environment issues can be evaluated, and the roles that each professional can provide in this process can be seen in the following flowchart:

 

This chart shows the process of each professional working together to provide evaluations, processes, and solutions. This new framework of processes can help to define how these systems can function, and what role each professional will have to provide these solutions.

There are two key components on this chart that should be discussed first, and that is the new professions of the Architectural Doctor and the Healthy Building Inspector.

And this leads to the Healthy Building Inspection, which can help to provide analysis that both the architect/builder and the doctor/health professional can utilize in providing solutions.

The roles of the architect, builder, and contractors have in this process are an absolutely critical role in providing healthy solutions in the built environment.

While this system may begin with an initial inspection process as a building Rx to be prescribed by a doctor, the resulting Healthy Building Inspection will provide essential data for the AEC professionals to accomplish their work.

The Healthy Building Inspector can provide this building analysis, which can provide information and data in evaluating the cause of the occupant’s health issues and diseases.

While it may be a new concept for the AEC field to work with doctors and medical professionals, the advent of the Architectural Doctor can help be an important liaison in this process. And working with this new Healthy Building Inspector can also provide a bridge to span the gaps that may exist in this process.

The Architectural Medicine System (AMS) can support this process utilizing the Architectural Medicine Software Solution – ARxMD. In this manner, this software can provide a process that the AEC professionals are familiar with, as the software provides an interface with building-related information. As the ARxMD software progresses, there can be options for integrating this data into common architecture and building software to provide more congruous procedures for the AEC fields.

While these systems require new education and training for AEC fields to include in their building processes, the Architectural Medicine System (AMS) can support these procedures.

You can read more about this in the book Architectural Medicine – Building the Bridge to Wellness, available in print and ebook on Amazon or on our website here.

More information about the Architectural Medicine System (AMS) can be found at this link, and an overview of ARxMD – the Architectural Medicine Software Solution can be found at this link.