Austin, Texas—Why aren’t all educational buildings healthy? That’s the driving question behind the Healthy Building Summit, an annual two-day workshop hosted by Tarkett, a global leader in innovative and sustainable flooring solutions.
“We saw a gap in interdisciplinary collaboration around healthy buildings, especially in educational settings,” said Jonathan Stanley, Tarkett North America’s director of education and government strategy. “The global pandemic highlighted the urgent need for healthier buildings, revealing issues like poor indoor air quality and mental health concerns.”
The Healthy Building Summit, Stanley explained, was designed to address these problems and drive positive change through deep collaboration. This year’s event, held here, brought together more than 40 professionals within the education sector—including workplace strategists, institutional leaders, facility and construction experts, behavioral health design specialists and architects—to discuss a myriad of topics around the theme “Spaces of Connection.”
Through super sessions, panel discussions, small group work and storytelling, the group explored how the built environment impacts mental health, user engagement, behavior and a sense of belonging—aiming for a comprehensive understanding of health.
“Health encompasses both body and mind,” Stanley said. “As we journey through the many facets and principles of a healthy building, we must continue to be mindful of the impact the built environment has on the soaring crisis of mental health. As we still grapple with the mental health effects of the pandemic years later, the importance of human connection and its effect on performance is clearer than ever.”
Sessions at this year’s summit dove into topics like how the brain responds to environmental influences, intentional design as a form of advocacy, the culture of space and how biophilic design enhances spaces of connection and belonging. The summit also welcomed a high school student’s perspective on priorities of well-being and engagement.