What is the WELL Certification?

Promoting health and wellness in housing design

In our industry, there is a veritable alphabet soup of acronyms and certifications. Today we'd like to spotlight one of them: the WELL Certification, which Jane and Liezel have both earned. In a nutshell, the WELL Building Standard assists architects to design buildings that support health and wellbeing based on extensive evidence-based practices.

The WELL program is organized into ten concepts: air, water, nourishment, light, movement, thermal comfort, materials, mind, and community. For each of these categories, there are guidelines for design. What does this look like in practice? For example, the light concept includes guidelines about electric light quality and occupant lighting control. These are the sorts of details we take into consideration in our designs, particularly our designs for senior living and permanent supportive housing.

The WELL certification is an important and incredibly useful resource and we congratulate Jane and Liezel for their accreditation!