Sunlight House / HEIN-TROY Architects. Image Courtesy of VELUX
Can architecture shape comfort before mechanical systems enter the equation? As buildings account for nearly 40% of global energy consumption and people spend close to 90% of their time indoors, thermal performance has become one of architecture's most urgent concerns. Yet despite often being associated with insulation values, energy ratings, or mechanical systems, thermal performance begins with spatial decisions made long before technical equipment is introduced. Orientation, airflow, daylight, and the placement of openings all influence how a building absorbs, retains, and releases heat throughout the day.
Thermal performance is not only about reducing energy demand but also about maintaining comfortable indoor conditions in response to climate. Closely tied to thermal comfort—the way occupants experience temperature, airflow, humidity, and radiant heat—it influences health, well-being, and productivity as much as it does operational efficiency. Research suggests that healthy indoor environments can improve learning ability and productivity by up to 15%, reinforcing the growing relationship among environmental performance, resilience, and space quality.
At the Table with Nature Exhibit, ambiente 2026 Photo Credit: Jürgen Baumhauer
The well-known phrase "man is what he eats" (Der Mensch ist, was er isst), by Ludwig Feuerbach, asserts that the physical, mental, and even moral constitution of human beings is directly linked to what they consume. Today, this idea is widely internalized, with growing awareness around food, nutrition, and the impact of what we ingest on our bodies. Yet, this same level of awareness doesn't extend to the environments we inhabit, where materials continue to be treated as technical decisions rather than active agents in the relationship between body and space. Considering that a large portion of the global population spends around 90% of their time indoors, it is rarely discussed what actually composes these spaces at their most fundamental level: materials. Walls, floors, and finishes are often approached as technical or aesthetic choices, when in reality they can function as continuous sources of exposure to potentially harmful substances.
Health has become a central concern in architecture, planning, and design, driven by a growing awareness of how the built environment influences physical, mental, social, and environmental well-being. In 2025, this awareness moved beyond specialized building types or performance metrics and became central to architectural decision-making, informing how spaces are conceived, built, and inhabited across diverse contexts. Architects are no longer treating health as an external requirement but as an integral condition of everyday life.
The VELUX Group is launching the next step in its Action Leadership agenda as an experiment to explore how existing buildings can better serve both people and planet. The experiment builds on decades of demonstration projects and research into healthy buildings, including Living Places, which achieved an ultra-low carbon footprint and first-class indoor climate in an affordable and accessible way. The next step shifts focus towards existing buildings, from new build to renovation—named Re:Living.
Re:Living is a forward-thinking experiment to reimagine renovation to be more than a technical upgrade, and instead as a holistic opportunity to improve human well-being, support biodiversity, and reduce environmental impact. It's part of VELUX's long-term commitment to lead the building industry toward healthier, more sustainable practices, driven by a belief that simply reducing harm is no longer enough.
Beyond aesthetics, the design of our workplaces directly impacts our health. Studies reveal a clear link between poor light quality and limited access to natural views with increased sick leave. Smoke-free policies have been demonstrably effective, reducing smoking prevalence by 3.8% and lowering tobacco consumption by a significant 3.1 cigarettes per day for continuing smokers. Workplaces can either support wellbeing or be a detriment to it. Conscious office design can blend aspects of health in spaces to cultivate physical, mental, and social well-being.
The intersection of architecture and medicine profoundly shaped modernist design, where transparency, light, and air became essential tools in the pursuit of health. Emerging from the tuberculosis crisis of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the sanatorium evolved beyond a medical facility into a testing ground for architectural innovation. The necessity of fresh air, sunlight, and sterility transformed these spaces into prototypes for modernist principles, influencing spatial organization, material choices, and design philosophies that extended far beyond healthcare.
More than sites of treatment, sanatoriums embodied contemporary medical theories in built form. At a time when tuberculosis — often called the white plague — devastated populations worldwide, medical professionals prescribed environmental exposure as the primary therapy. Architecture adapted accordingly, producing buildings with expansive terraces, large windows, and streamlined interiors designed to optimize ventilation and maximize natural light.
The built environment significantly impacts public health, yet its potential as a tool for health promotion remains largely unrecognized. Historically, architects and urban planners have explored the connections between design and health, identifying foundational factors that improve a building's health performance. Built environment professionals possess compelling evidence on how spatial interventions can improve health outcomes, yet health practitioners often lack this perspective. Breaking down these silos is essential in the creation of spaces that promote occupant well-being.
In a nation as diverse as India, the healthcare landscape presents wicked problems and plentiful opportunities. The country's hospital infrastructure has been increasingly strained in the areas of accessibility, quality, and equity, especially with a snowballing population growth. While urban development expands amidst these constraints, architects have been able to position innovative design solutions as mediators, also sealing the gap between urban and rural healthcare quality and accessibility in India.
Imagine stepping into an environment that fully understands you, knows your habits, and actively works to support your wellbeing as an occupant. Air quality might be monitored and managed, and occupant circadian rhythms might be tracked to suggest ideal states of productivity. Workplace designers have been considering occupant wellbeing and health in their designs for offices of the future. Hypothesizing what time ahead may contain, there is a strong case to be made for sentient architecture and interior design being disruptive forces in how we interact with our work environments.
For decades, the construction industry followed a familiar rhythm: design came first, materials followed. The pressing need for sustainable buildings has shattered this routine. Material selection is no longer an afterthought, but a critical decision made at the outset, with the potential to dramatically reduce a project's environmental footprint. This shift is even more crucial given the construction industry's appetite for raw materials – a staggering 3 billion tons extracted annually. To navigate this new landscape, digital material libraries and data-driven evaluation are emerging as powerful tools, creating a culture where materiality takes center stage to shape a more sustainable built environment.
While not entirely dependent on one another, the relationship between architecture and mental well-being is an important topic, as designers and architects can contribute to creating a more enjoyable environment for everyone. From strategies to enhance mental health in shared workspaces to the ways in which architecture can contribute to preventing cognitive decline, understanding the potential impact of environmental neurosciences and the ways they apply to architecture is an essential skill for our profession.
Recent statistics suggest that if someone lives until they are 80, around 72 of those years will be spent inside buildings. This makes sense if we bear in mind that, when not at home, humans are working, learning or engaging in fun activities mostly in enclosed, built settings. Contemplating current events, however, this number is expected to grow. In an increasingly chaotic and uncertain world, marked by the ongoing effects of climate change and the global pandemic, the desire to stay indoors in a protected, controlled and peaceful environment is stronger than ever. Architects face an important challenge: to create comfortable, productive and healthy interiors with well-regulated parameters, considering factors like indoor air quality, daylighting and biophilic features from the initial stages of design. Of course, this involves choosing materials sensitively and accordingly, whether it be by avoiding certain health-harming components or by integrating non-toxic products that soothe and promote wellness.
What is architecture? Is it grand designs with complex structures, defying the laws of physics? Is it simple, everyday buildings that, when put together, create the urban fabric? In the mid-18th century, Laugier introduced the concept of the Primitive Hut, a structure, essentially a home, designed and built to meet the primitive man’s basic needs: shelter from the elements and nature. Any structure that meets these requirements would be considered authentic architecture. However, since then, our needs have evolved and are much more elaborate, especially when it comes to our homes. They need to provide shelter, security, thermal comfort, and space. Our homes have to be economical, environmentally friendly, and have access to the internet, among many other prerequisites. So what would the ideal modern human’s home, and thus true architecture, look like?
The Science of a Happy Home Report, carried out by Resi first in 2020 and then again in post-pandemic 2023, sought to discover exactly what elements people believed made up the ultimate happy home. The results were six prominent qualities: a home that is adaptable to meet our changing needs, a home that allows us to connect and build relationships, a home that mirrors our personality and values, a nourishing home that provides the conditions we need to thrive (i.e. air quality), a home that helps us relax, and a home that offers security and makes us feel safe. These needs, however, aren't being met for the majority of UK homes, and that's where Resi comes in.
IKEA’s research and design lab SPACE10 has published The Healthy Home report, the second release in its Future Home report series. The report explores three main themes concerning domestic environments: how our homes protect us from harm, restore our bodies and minds, and enable us to grow through life’s stages. The research aims to evaluate the ways in which homes can positively contribute to and support the rhythms and flows of life. It was developed in collaboration with Morph to develop the visuals supporting the findings.
In this fourth feature, we met with co-chairs ofdesign for Health architectArif Hasan, former Visiting Professor NED University Karachi and member of UNs Advisory Group on Forced Evictions, and architectChristian Benimana, Senior Principal and Co-Executive Director atMASS Design Group
According to the latest survey carried out by the World Health Organization - WHO, in 2019 there were more than 700,000 suicides worldwide. In Brazil, records approach 14,000 cases per year, that is, on average 38 people commit suicide per day. In this context, “Yellow September” was created in Brazil, the largest anti-stigma campaign in the world that encourages everyone to actively act in the awareness and prevention of suicide, a topic that is still seen as taboo.
