Designing for people – Acoustical Comfort, Neurodiversity, and the WELL Building Standard

Within shared spaces, like offices, educational buildings and so on, you will always find people with diverse personalities, working patterns and needs. Acknowledging this diversity and catering for the range of ways occupants perceive and respond to their environments should be a primary consideration for all involved in designing these spaces.

Here, the WELL Building Standard v2 is worth noting. A resource that is grounded in research exploring the connection between buildings and the health and wellness of those who live and work within them, it is an ideal starting point for architects working on projects of this type.

This session of CPD Live is titled ‘Designing for people – acoustical comfort, neurodiversity, and the WELL Building Standard’. Focussing on the relevance of sound and acoustical comfort to this topic – and drawing on the contents of WELL – our speakers will shed light on an issue that has not always received all the attention it deserves.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this presentation, you should be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the diversity of personalities, working patterns and needs across the general population
• Explain why acknowledging this diversity should be a primary consideration for those involved in designing shared workspaces
• Explain how the WELL Building Standard v2 approaches the issue of designing with neurodiversity in mind
• Outline the acoustic considerations that need to be addressed when designing shared workspaces with neurodiversity in mind

(PROJECT INITIATION AND CONCEPTUAL DESIGN PC25, PROJECT INITIATION AND CONCEPTUAL DESIGN PC28, PROJECT INITIATION AND CONCEPTUAL DESIGN PC33)

Speakers

Adam Mundy, Global Design Director, Geyer

Adam Mundy is creative by nature, driven to innovate and achieve excellence. Adam is always passionate about challenging the norm and converting the vision into a reality through conceptualising and problem-solving. Adam brings insight into key trends and drivers impacting the built environment through business strategy, design philosophy and future innovations. As Global Design Director for at Geyer (a company of Placewell Group), he is responsible for driving project design strategy, offering clients a competitive advantage through the latest thinking in design solutions.

Alan Heath, Head of Sales (APAC), Woven Image

Alan has over 25 years’ experience specialising in workplace, beginning his career with Steelcase, the world’s leader in research and development for workplace solutions. During his dalliance in the furniture world, Alan’s passion for workplace strategy was ignited by the co-creation process with designers and end user clients in Australia, Asia, Europe and USA to resolve, and bring to life, ‘activity-based working’ (ABW) solutions. More recently, he has been immersed fully in the world of workplace transformation as a workplace strategist advising clients through transformation processes and change programmes.

Today he is the international sales manager with Woven Image and implementing a strategy to rationalise the portfolio to fit a ‘total floor plate’ story and transforming engagements from product focused to acoustics advisory. Alan’s mantra is simple: People should be at the heart of any workplace strategy. Humans drive innovation when involved and engaged in digitally integrated environments. Connecting the people, the place and the business process from the bottom is the factor for successful change. And change is constant!

Devan Valenti, Senior Manager and ESG Lead, Asia Pacific, International WELL Building Institute

Based in Sydney, Devan is Senior Manager and ESG Lead for the Asia Pacific team at IWBI, providing technical and market development support to stakeholders across the region. With a career in sustainability spanning three continents, he has managed major initiatives like the largest overhaul in Green Star’s history. Devan focuses on leveraging the WELL Building Standard and ESG drivers to deliver successful outcomes in the global health and well-being movement.

As an experienced acoustic consultant with seven years in the field, Vaishnav specializes in acoustic and audio-visual design for projects across Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. His work focuses on architectural acoustics, façade acoustics, and noise control.