What makes a healthy home?
Ben Channon, Head of Wellbeing at Assael Architecture and author of Happy by Design explains what the current research can tell us about what makes a healthy home.
The stress of adapting to the Covid-19 lockdown has undoubtedly had an impact on many people’s mental health and wellbeing.
It has also brought into sharp focus how the design of our homes can directly shape our happiness, with many of us cooped up in the same space for living, working and playing for several months. I have personally been surprised by how many people have said to me in the past few weeks something akin to “if I wasn’t interested in the link between wellbeing and buildings, I certainly am now”.
This has shown through in the data too. A few months ago, Assael carried out a survey in which we found that two thirds of homeworkers said lockdown was harming their mental health, with 65 percent working from inappropriate spaces such as their kitchen, bedroom or living room.
But until recently, this connection between the built environment and our health and wellbeing has largely gone unnoticed. In 2018, I decided to address this by researching and writing Happy by Design: A Guide to Architecture and Mental Wellbeing, to help architects, homeowners and renters to improve the spaces around us.