Healthy Buildings
How Indoor Spaces Can Make You Sick―or Keep You Well A New York Times and Fortune Magazine Best Book of the YearA revised and updated edition of the landmark work the New York Times lauded as “a call to action for every developer, building owner, shareholder, chief executive, manager, teacher, worker and parent to start demanding healthy buildings with cleaner indoor air.”
The world was brought to a standstill by a virus that spreads almost exclusively indoors, revealing a simple but long-ignored truth: your building can make you sick–or keep you well. Updated with the latest research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the new edition of Healthy Buildings provides evidence-based strategies for making buildings the first line of defense against airborne disease.
Joe Allen and John Macomber dispel the myth that we have to choose between energy-efficient buildings and good indoor air quality. We can—and must—have both. At the center of the great convergence of the green, smart, and safe building movements, healthy buildings are key to business success and vital to the push for more sustainable urbanization that will shape our future.
Where to Buy
A New York Times Book of the Year
A Fortune Book of the Year
An AIA New York Book of the Year
Norman Foster
ArchitectThis book should be essential reading for all who commission, design, manage, and use buildings — indeed anyone who is interested in a healthy environment.
Tara Parker-Pope
New York TimesIf we’ve learned anything from the coronavirus pandemic, it’s that clean indoor air is essential to healthy living. But it’s not just about getting rid of viral particles. Dr. Allen has led research showing that poor indoor air quality dulls your brain, dampening creativity and cognitive function… This book is a call to action […] to start demanding healthy buildings with cleaner indoor air.
Jill Lepore
The New YorkerAllen and Macomber want to establish national standards, and they make a series of precise and persuasive recommendations for everything from insulation and window shades to water filters and vacuum cleaners.
David Z. Morris
FortuneThis exposé of the widespread under-ventilation and pollution inside modern buildings arrived just as shared indoor space became truly deadly. Though there’s now light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel, these insights and guidelines for improving indoor air quality should play a huge role in post-pandemic reforms.
Marcella Ucci
Buildings & Cities[A] lucid and passionate outline of why now is the time to acknowledge the huge and unrealized potential for buildings to make a positive contribution to the health and performance of their inhabitants, the economy, society and the planet.
Andrew Robinson
Nature[This] detailed, important study is welcomed by architect Norman Foster. But it speaks to everyone.
Rebecca Henderson
John and Natty McArthur University Professor, Harvard Business SchoolHealthy Buildings is both hugely important and a great read. By the end it not only completely persuaded me that improving the health of our buildings is a fabulous economic opportunity and something that could change the lives of millions of people—it gave me a very good sense of where to start.
Cristina Gamboa
CEO of the World Green Building CouncilHealthy Buildings urges us to shift to a ‘health-first’ mindset in relation to our built environment. Its unique insights help close the knowledge gap around healthy buildings, reveal their important role in global sustainability, and provide practical guidance for our homes, offices, and schools.
Christoph Reinhart
Director of MIT’s Building Technology ProgramThe engaging conversational style of this comprehensive book makes it an ideal read for any busy building owner or executive who wants to learn about the new science of healthy buildings.
Tom Burton
Chair of the Energy and Sustainability Practice, MintzIn this new era of ESG responsibility, every CEO must consider our built environment to fully meet stakeholder expectations. Allen and Macomber’s multidisciplinary, accessible approach unlocks the secret to future human health and productivity in the very buildings in which we live and work.
In The News
Employers Have Been Offering the Wrong Office Amenities
Workplaces need fresh air, not foosball tables and coffee bars.
What Makes an Office Building “Healthy”
As employees return to offices, the authors suggest a framework companies can deploy to keep people safe without crippling their businesses and our economy, as well as a series of indicators to measure their progress.
Is Staying In Safe?
Indoor life has its dangers, too, but building-design specialists have big plans for us.
We Need to Improve Indoor Air Quality: Here’s How and Why
Upgrading buildings’ ventilation, filtration and other factors would not only decrease COVID transmission but also improve health and cognitive performance in general.
Healthy buildings can help stop Covid-19 spread and boost worker productivity
Any C-suite executive looking to lure workers back into the office has likely spent more time thinking about indoor air quality and ventilation over the past year-and-a-half than at any other point in their pre-pandemic life.
Better ventilation would create a healthier workplace — but companies have to invest
A growing coalition of epidemiologists and aerosol scientists say that improved ventilation could be a powerful tool against the coronavirus — if businesses are willing to invest the money.
The office monitor workers will find more common in the Covid era is surveilling the air
Harvard professor Joseph Allen says there’s one safety measure offices can’t overlook. Healthy workspaces rely primarily on the air employees breathe, and research going back years before the pandemic shows that improvements in air ventilation and air quality lead to increased cognitive function and work productivity.
Wash the air, not (just) your hands
A better solution, for Covid and other ailments: improved ventilation — bringing more outside air into buildings and better circulating air. And filtration — cleaning the indoor air. Many, if not enough, schools and businesses have adopted them. And they work in all kinds of buildings, from homeless shelters to high-rises.
New federal ventilation guidelines mark next step in fight against COVID
It’s the first time such a standard has been created at the national level.
See JPMorgan Chase’s big bet on the future of the office
Deepak Chopra and Harvard’s Joseph Allen helped shape this 60-story tower.
Is Bad Indoor Air Dulling Your Brain?
While we tend to worry about inhaling viral particles like the coronavirus, new research shows the air quality at work may have subtle effects on cognitive function.
Covid gives us a chance to fix indoor air pollution forever
The pandemic taught us the benefits of ventilation in stopping the spread of the virus. But keeping our indoor air clean has plenty of other benefits
The Air Investigator
For Joseph Allen, the pandemic has made the connection between indoor air quality and human health clearer than ever.
This invisible Covid-19 mitigation measure is finally getting the attention it deserves
Two-plus years into the Covid-19 pandemic, you probably know the basics of protection: vaccines, boosters, proper handwashing and masks. But one of the most powerful tools against the coronavirus is one that experts believe is just starting to get the attention it deserves: ventilation.