From May 2021, all HLM Architects’ concept designs will be enhanced by utilising a new digital tool to ensure they are creating healthy environments
After more than three years in development and testing, HLM Architects has launched HLM_Healthcheck, a digital tool that assesses how emerging building design concepts are likely to perform by measuring the quality of the environment for the people that use them.
The software provides designers with desktop access to projected environmental sustainability knowledge over a building’s lifetime. It enables very early design concepts to be tested for their impact on people’s health and wellbeing without complex three-dimensional modelling.
HLM_Healthcheck uses best practice from a range of established environmental design guidelines, including CIBSE, BREEAM, and WELL to instantly identify if design adaptations are needed to ensure that the places and spaces we create will have good access to views and daylight, not overheat or have poor air quality, mitigate noise pollution and provide a connection with nature and to other people.
It will be available to the HLM team from today and it marks a significant step in the business’s campaign to achieve RIBA 2030 Sustainable Outcomes on all projects by 2025. HLM_Healthcheck is one of three digital tools that make up the Thoughtful Design Toolkit which has already been shortlisted for Innovation of the Year at the BCIA Awards.
Together this toolkit provides data-driven analysis that puts people at the heart of design decision-making.
Philip Watson, Director and Head of Design, said: “The Thoughtful Design Toolkit addresses universal challenges that clients and designers face in the creation of the built environment. We asked ourselves the question: what if we had a tool that quickly enabled us to test whether early-stage concept designs would support people’s health and well-being and create environmentally sustainable buildings? We now have the answer: HLM_Healthcheck.”
For more information about HLM_Healthcheck and our Thoughtful Design Toolkit, go to our Digital Innovation page at:
