Healthier Living Environment

We spend over 90% of our time indoors, yet buildings are typically designed to meet energy performance and safety targets while overlooking human comfort and wellbeing. Poor indoor environmental quality (IEQ) can lead to respiratory diseases, stress, sleep disruption, and impaired cognitive function.

In Calgary, these challenges are amplified by the city’s unique climate - intense solar exposure, dramatic temperature shifts, and seasonal wildfire smoke - all of which affect indoor air quality, thermal comfort, and visual comfort. Standard design practices often fail to mitigate these extremes, and architects and planners currently lack the human-centered data needed to create spaces that are truly resilient and supportive of occupant health.

Our research asks: How do Calgarians from diverse backgrounds and housing types experience comfort and wellbeing in their homes? We’re developing evidence-based frameworks and tools to help designers and policymakers move beyond code-minimums toward healthier, more resilient living environments.

We are currently recruiting MDR students for this project. Learn more and apply here.

Transdisciplinary Framework for Designing Healthier Living Environments with community-led approach

This transdisciplinary project develops and validates a novel survey instrument to evaluate comfort and wellbeing in Calgary homes. Our approach integrates building science, human psychology, urban policy, and community-centered design into a single holistic framework.

The validated survey will provide Calgary-specific data on how climate, housing design, and individual factors interact to affect wellbeing. This evidence will help architects design more comfortable, healthy spaces and inform municipal policy toward resilient, human-centered building standards.

Collaborators:

Media Coverage: Transdisciplinary project explores how homes can better support well-being