Opening Note - The Era of Holistic Preventative Design Is Here
By Howell J. Malham Jr.
Founder, GreenHouse::Innovation
The 20th century officially ended on March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
In a matter of weeks, longstanding social norms that governed every aspect of life in America vanished.
While new norms – mutual, unspoken expectations about what we should and should not do in our market society whenever we venture outside of our homes – are just beginning to emerge, one thing is certain: If we want peace, equity and prosperity in an era with a host of complex social and environmental challenges that are unique to this century, we must optimize the workplace and the work culture for health and wellness.
We call this emerging theory holistic preventative design, and we see its beginning across corporate America in part because of the rampant disruption wrought by COVID-19 and the longstanding issues of social inequality and injustice that the pandemic brought into sharp relief around the world.
This theory stems from the Work, Wellness & Space project, a partnership between GreenHouse::Innovation and communications firm Greentarget in collaboration with Learn Adapt Build (LAB)/Amsterdam. Since the beginning of 2020 – in varying methods and formats dictated by the enormity of this year’s disruption – we’ve spoken with subject matter experts across an array of industries, including commercial real estate, architecture, urban planning, healthcare and mental wellness. Their thoughts at this pivotal moment inform our views and theory.
Because many challenges remain unresolved, we contend that a logical starting point, particularly if some sense of normalcy returns post-COVID, is adopting a preventative approach to design in order to significantly reduce threats to the health and wellness of the workforce – and to the environment upon which that workforce relies for its well-being.
While healthy, sustainable development as the UN defines it is essential, it falls short when it comes to addressing and contextualizing new, complex needs of work culture across all industries; it is a critical social component that requires the most work in the present configuration of business in America and, consequently, where there can be the biggest impact for systemic change.
The best designed and most well-appointed workspace in the world won’t make a bit of difference if adverse environmental and social conditions are conspiring to undermine the health and wellness of tenants and their respective work cultures.
If we want to significantly reduce these threats and eliminate the stress they place on our economy, we must consider more than form and function. Feeling, the third F, in all of its expressions, must now be on the table – the feelings of individuals who comprise the workforce, specifically how they feel at work, wherever “work” is, online or off, in a traditional or nontraditional space.
Such a shift will require LEED and WELL and additional types of certifications for buildings with new criteria. It will also increase the demand in the profit-based sector for licensed clinical social workers. And don't be too surprised when you read about a new role in the corporate C-suite: chief social worker.
Starting today and over the next several weeks, we’ll report on some of the most significant trends around the issues of work, wellness and space in the eyes of some of the world’s foremost experts. We’ll also identify points of conflict preventing change as a primer for larger conversations now and in the future.
These conversations are, however, a beginning – an important, necessary and inevitable one that is bringing the curtain down on the 20th century in terms of how we should be thinking about our relationship to the environment – physical and natural; the animal kingdom – especially as another novel influenza virus was discovered in China as I write this; and, not the least, our relationship with another: the neighbors next door and throughout this ever-shrinking, ever-spinning world of ours.