As part of World Green Building Week (24–30 September 2018), RKD hosted Better Buildings to Help People Thrive at Belvedere House in Dublin.
The breakfast briefing & networking event saw Sean Hogan (RKD Sustainability Lead) and Mona Holtkoetter (International WELL Building Institute [IWBI] European Technical Lead) present WELL Version 2 to a gathering of some of Ireland’s most prominent construction and commercial real estate leaders.
The WELL Building Standard is revolutionising the way in which people think about buildings. It explores how design, operations and behaviours within the places we live, work, learn and play can be optimised to advance human health and well-being. Covering ten core concepts of health and hundreds of features, WELL is a flexible building standard and represents the future of modern design.
IWBI undertook a comprehensive expert peer review process which included three phases—a scientific, medical, and building expert review—culminating in the WELL Building Standard. WELL positions building design and operations as agents of public health. WELL measures, verifies, and monitors building features that impact health and well-being.
Now available to projects for certification purposes, WELL V2 is the response to the explosion of interest in the idea of buildings as health intervention tools. Better data, more research, additional evidence is demonstrating that the impact of our buildings and communities can be an even larger contributor to your health than had been previously realised.
The venue, Belvedere House, was previously refurbished by RKD.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Sean Hogan is a LEED AP, WELL AP and BREEAM AP (Accredited Professional). Since joining RKD Sean has gained extensive architectural experience on a variety of major projects including large-scale office and industrial developments, education and healthcare projects. He has most recently specialised in sustainable design and detailing. He has used the last five years of his time with RKD developing successful design solutions within a dedicated sustainability department supporting all project teams in the practice. He has succeeded with some notable achievements in sustainability such as Diageo’s Brewhouse No. 4 (LEED Platinum/BREEAM Outstanding) and developing a global standard for sustainability for Microsoft’s entire data centre fleet.
Mona Holtkoetter works for IWBI in the Market Solutions team. In her role, she supports project teams and clients looking to promote Health and Wellbeing in the European market. Mona’s background is building services engineering and she worked at an engineering consultancy for several years, focussing on sustainable and healthy mechanical design approaches. Mona is a Chartered Engineer with CIBSE and Engineers Ireland and holds LEED AP, WELL AP, and HPI Assessor qualifications. She is currently volunteering as the honorary secretary for CIBSE Ireland.