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What is Building Biology?

Building Biology has come from the German word Bau-Biologie which has been translated as "the relationship between buildings and life".

Many buildings designed and built today are being constructed with little to no thought at all for the occupants' health. Mould, water intrusion, building material damage and decay, foundation and structural damage are some of the more commonly found problems in today's high standard buildings even before they have been finished and the owners can move in.

Add to this the pollutants from our new and modern building materials and we have a walls / roof in a day with all the latest fashionable additions, using minimal space, built to the highest standard as cheaply as possible type of building that has an adverse effect on our health in almost every way possible.

Another concern with today's building designs is that they require the use of mechanical devices to maintain the air quality, moisture and humidity levels, and temperature comfort levels. These can be noisy, energy inefficient and prone to breaking down as well as being completely useless when the power goes out.

Using 25 main principles and a number of design, construction and material guidelines, Building Biology considers and covers all possible aspects of the interaction between each building and the occupants as well as the interaction between the building and the environment it is constructed in. These range from the impact a building site will have on the proposed building through light and noise concerns, natural or passive heating and cooling, the toxicity levels, sustainability, embodied energy and durability of the materials used in the buildings' construction and finishing, the provision of low energy ventilation and air exchange to provide a suitable healthy indoor air quality, improving the quality of drinking water and reducing general water and energy consumption, the use of harmonic proportions and colour to enhance the occupants' sense of wellbeing, all building associated waste minimised and managed, all the way to the potential health impacts of natural and technical electromagnetic fields and radiation.

A Building Biology Consultation can assist you to create a building both residential or commercial, that:

    * Is Non-Toxic to the occupants
    * Is Ecologically Friendly
    * Is Energy Efficient
    * Has a superior Indoor Air Quality
    * Has reduced Mould problems
    * Reduces Electric and Magnetic Field Exposure
    * Improves the Health and Well-Being of the occupants
    * Has a higher Resale Value

A Building Biology Consultation will collect your ideas and performance expectations for the new building (or renovation), all aspects of the building and surrounds will be discussed, sites checked and recommendations made as to the type of site that would be ideal for your building, and material use and design concepts discussed to determine the best outcome for your proposed construction.

Within your price constraints every effort will be made to help create a building that is as healthy as possible.

You are free to choose as many or as few of the Building Biology recommendations as you wish; every effort will still be made to produce as healthy a building as possible.

Over time a well designed Building Biology building will have reduced operating costs, and with rising health concerns, this type of building should also minimise occupant health problems.

The other branch of Building Biology that needs to be mentioned is in environmental inspections.

Building Biologist can where qualified, inspect you current building for poor IAQ concerns, mould contamination, electrical and magnetic concerns including those from the use of mobile phones and other wireless transmissions, gas leaks and other VOC chemical emitters, as well advising on pest control methods etc..

There are two Schools of thought regarding Healthy Buildings.

Both try to eliminate Toxic Building Materials.
Both advocate the use of alternative products and designs.

One school of thought tries to eliminate as many pollutants as possible from the construction process and creates an energy efficient and well sealed interior that needs mechanically ventilated and cleaned air. The other school of thought combines energy efficiency and environmental sustainability with an Indoor Air Quality that is self sustaining and considered healthy, while at the same time, also considering the buildings impact on the environment at large.

Building Biology can be defined as: The study of the impact that the man-made environment has upon the health of people and the application of this knowledge to create healthier homes and work places.

In other words Building Biology is about the holistic interaction particularly between man-made structures and the health of all life and living environments. Building Biology goes beyond the concepts of sustainable and solar/ energy efficient design by focusing primarily on the impact that buildings can have on the health of their occupants.

Building Biologists study the links between Health, the Environment, Building Design and Materials.

The first concern of a Building Biologist is for the health and welfare of the building occupant whether this is a residence or workplace. It is about improving these environments thereby improving the health of the people who occupy them.

This is no more than a summary of how much Building Biology differs from the other "healthy" building philosophy's and guidelines but it serves to indicate the depth of the study Building Biology uses in reducing the impact to health that our buildings or 'built environment' can have on our health and wellbeing.

In the 1970's, the German Healthy Building - Healthy Living Society dedicated itself to the task of collecting and organizing the current body of knowledge used by Building Biology and Ecology.

This included a vast body of research data and field reports from a large variety of scientific studies and thousands of publications worldwide.

The work is an ongoing project with individual researchers and various institutions around the world conducting further development and research work.

Professor Anton Schneider is probably the world's foremost expert in this field. He started his research in the 1970's and is the founder of the first 'Institut fuer Bau-Biologie und Ecologie' in West Germany. There are now Building Biology and Ecology Institutes in a variety of countries including England, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Sth America, New Zealand and the U.S.A.

To be a Building Biologist means to become active in pursuing the creation of buildings that fit the natural environment they are designed for, it means to be part of a philosophy that sees this planet as somewhere to inhabit and dwell rather than something to control and exploit.

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