60 Minutes spotlights the importance of indoor air quality

2023-10-31T14:50:00-04:00

For the Harvard professor, founder of the university's Healthy Buildings Program, our building design and public health officials have ignored indoor air systems for too long – that is, until the COVID pandemic hit. [...] "If you look at the way we design and operate buildings –and I mean offices, schools, local coffee shop[s] – we haven't designed for health," Allen said. "We have bare minimum standards."

Professor Joe Allen, who also does consultation work for developers, recently advised on the Amazon ‘HQ2’ project in Virginia from NBBJ. He and his colleagues at Harvard’s Healthy Buildings Program center their work around six research areas (Homes, Schools, Business, Materials, Climate, and Infectious Diseases), noting that humans spend, on average, 90% of their lives indoors. The project leverages studies and empirical evidence that have roots in 19th-century public health design and is now being aided by research into the effects of ventilation on the spread of COVID-19.

"All else equal, which building are you gonna go to? You have your choice right now: This building that put in healthy building controls, or this building that's designed the way we've always designed buildings, and is prone to being a sick building?" Allen told 60 Minutes, speaking about post-pandemic market standards.

A list of tools and resources compiled for designers by the program can be found here.

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60 Minutes spotlights the importance of indoor air quality