Designing spaces that prioritise wellbeing: are we building better, or just talking about it? 

Winston Churchill’s famous observation that “we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us” is often quoted in the construction industry. It’s a simple idea, but an important one. The places we design affect how people work, live and feel every day. 

The difficulty is making sure that principle stays alive during the process of actually delivering a project. We all know the examples:

• An open-plan office intended to encourage collaboration, where poor acoustics make it difficult to concentrate. 
• A residential scheme that performs well against its targets but doesn’t quite connect with the community around it. 
• A healthcare environment designed for efficiency that feels clinical and impersonal to the people using it. 

The industry isn’t short of knowledge about wellbeing. We know the importance of daylight, ventilation, acoustics, thermal comfort and inclusive design. There is plenty of research to support the decisions we make. 

The harder question is what happens to those priorities once a project moves from ambition to delivery. 

Where wellbeing gets lost 

Wellbeing shouldn’t be something we consider at the beginning of a project and then assume will somehow make it through to completion. 

Projects change, costs move, programmes tighten, design decisions are revisited and different teams have different priorities. This is where the gap between what we say we value and what we actually protect can start to appear. 

Value engineering is a good example. When savings are needed, the easiest things to challenge are often the things that are difficult to put a straightforward financial value on. 

Acoustic performance is one of them. Saving on sound insulation might make sense when viewed as a line on a cost plan. But for the person using that building, unwanted noise can have a much more tangible impact. 

The same applies to ventilation and air quality. Simplifying a system might reduce capital cost, but that decision doesn’t disappear once the project is handed over. It can affect comfort and the experience of the space for years afterwards. 

Daylight can be compromised in less obvious ways too. A change to a layout, partition arrangement or window configuration might seem relatively minor on a drawing, but it can make a noticeable difference to the people occupying the space. 

Then there are materials. A cheaper alternative might satisfy the specification, but what does it mean for durability, emissions, maintenance or simply how the building functions as it gets older? 

And inclusive design deserves particular attention. Meeting the minimum requirements is not necessarily the same as creating a building that works well for everyone. 

None of these decisions are necessarily dramatic in isolation. That’s partly why they can be overlooked. Their impact becomes clearer when you consider the building five, 10 or 20 years later. 

Making better decisions earlier 

Protecting wellbeing doesn’t necessarily mean spending more money. It can often means making better decisions earlier. 

The earlier architects, engineers, surveyors, project managers, sustainability specialists and clients are able to challenge and test decisions together, the more opportunity there is to find solutions before compromises become embedded in the design. 

It also changes the way we should think about cost. 

The question shouldn’t just be: “What does this save us now?” . It should also be: “What does this decision mean for the people who will use the building, and for the building’s performance over its lifetime?” 

Those aren’t always easy questions to answer, but they are important ones. 

A decision that saves money during construction can create additional costs later through maintenance, adaptation or poor performance. More importantly, some consequences can’t be neatly captured in a cost plan at all. You can’t easily put a price on a workspace where people can concentrate, a home that feels comfortable, or a healthcare environment that helps people feel less anxious. 

That doesn’t mean every wellbeing consideration should automatically win. 

Projects involve genuine constraints and difficult choices. Sometimes compromises are necessary. But those compromises should be conscious decisions, rather than the accidental result of wellbeing being less visible than cost, programme or technical compliance. 

Making it everyone’s responsibility 

Wellbeing also shouldn’t belong to one discipline. 

It’s not solely an architectural issue, or a sustainability issue, or something to be dealt with through a particular certification. The decisions that influence how a building is experienced are made across the project team. 

That is one of the advantages of bringing different disciplines together early. At Frankham Group, our architects, engineers, surveyors, project managers and sustainability specialists can challenge decisions from different perspectives and, importantly, understand how those decisions affect one another. 

That collaboration can help identify potential problems earlier, when there is still time to do something about them. 

For me, that’s where the conversation around wellbeing needs to move. Not from one standard to another, or from one checklist to another, but towards asking whether the things we say matter at the start of a project are still being protected when the difficult decisions arrive. 

Because a successful building isn’t simply one that meets the brief, stays within the programme and satisfies the regulations. 

It should also work for the people who use it. 

We already know a significant amount about how to create healthier, more comfortable and inclusive places. The challenge is less about discovering what wellbeing means and more about making sure it remains part of the decision-making process all the way from concept to completion. 

Perhaps that’s the real test of whether we are building better: not what we say we value at the start, but what we are prepared to protect when the difficult decisions have to be made. 

If you are interested in finding out more information on the principles of designing for people and wellbeing, download our Healthy Buildings Guide.