Buro Happold awarded first WELL certification in Poland

The International WELL Building Institute™ (IWBI™) has awarded our Warsaw office WELL Certification at the Gold level.

This prestigious honour, the first to be awarded to any project in Poland, was given to the building for meeting the IWBI’s WELL Building Standard™. The standard focuses on improving the health and wellness of people in the buildings where we live, work and play.

Taking an innovative approach, the office design focused on ensuring the health and wellbeing of our employees. Subsequently, the space has become a ‘living lab’ where cutting-edge office design ideas can be tested.

Buro Happold has applied innovative technical solutions in several areas including:

  • Visual comfort – the new healthy office features dimmable LED lighting with pre-programmed light level for every workstation
  • Clean air – Buro Happold has ensured generous volumes of fresh air supply based on CO2concentration
  • Optimised temperature – a highly efficient system allows for thermal comfort with full control of temperature in 30 zones.
  • Design for wellbeing – the office is an enjoyable space which uses natural colours and materials
  • Extensive monitoring of water and energy use – aiming at reduced levels of consumption
  • Re-use of a significant part of the existing interior features – resulting in a positive impact on the budget and the environment.

The lighting and acoustic performance of the office space were key to the award of this certification. The office exceeds European best practice in terms of occupant satisfaction. According to Comfortmeter methodology, 66% of employees are happy about sound levels (compared to a best practice benchmark of 59%), and 85% of employees are satisfied with the lighting solutions (exceeding the European best practice benchmark of 78%).

We are delighted to have achieved WELL Certified™ Gold for our Warsaw office as recognition of our focus on the health and wellness of our own employees.
Ian Booth, Partner

Buro Happold receiving the certification: (l-r) Hauke Jungjohann, James Bruce, Magdalena Markowska, Zbigniew Czajewski, Jan Cieśla, Ann-Marie Aguilar, Ian Booth, Katarzyna Chwalbińska-Kusek, Robert Winterhager

Warsaw office director and partner Ian Booth, commented: “Buro Happold provides solutions that are end-user oriented. Our new office is proudly being used as a showcase for health and wellbeing in an open-plan office environment. The survey results also demonstrate that people feel good in our space, proof that the project has been successful. We are delighted to have achieved the WELL Certified™ Gold certification in recognition of our focus on human health and wellness.”

The certification is based on seven categories of building performance— Air, Water, Light, Nourishment, Fitness, Comfort and Mind. Created over seven years of rigorous research and development working with leading physicians, scientists, and industry professionals, the WELL Building Standard™ is a performance-based certification system that marries best practices in design and construction with evidence-based scientific research.

“We congratulate Buro Happold for achieving the first WELL certification in Poland,” said Rick Fedrizzi, Chairman and CEO of the International WELL Building Institute™. “Buro Happold has demonstrated outstanding leadership, supporting healthier people through better buildings and helping to advance this movement in Poland and globally.”

WELL is grounded in a body of evidence-based research that explores the connection between the buildings where we spend approximately 90 percent of our time, and the health and wellness impacts these buildings have on us. To be awarded this certification, the Warsaw office underwent rigorous testing. A final evaluation was carried out by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI), the third-party certification body for WELL, to ensure the office met all WELL Certified™ Gold performance requirements.