Can Architecture Make Us Sick?

And I worked on a lot of very large projects , mostly aviation , some public work , and at some point I thought maybe to change a career just because it was too big , too repetitive and I was looking to branch out and do something else .

But on the other side , I always was interested in health and wellness and I was witnessing how that field develops and I just kind of had an aha moment that I realized that there is this gap where nobody's looking really into health and wellness in the space , or how architecture in the future should be , or how it should develop to incorporate all the latest and

greatest ideas on health and wellness , and so I decided to focus on that .

So we appreciate your hard work on that and hopefully that will come to fruition before long . But , yeah , architecture and health certainly there's a long history of it , from you know gosh all the way back to feng shui and the Chinese .

You know teachings of , or or Asian , east Asian teachings about the space we live in and everything , and maybe you could talk a little bit about that , or is it ? There's so many things about the space then , then , what's in the space ? You know , like EMF and mold and toxicity there .

What is your focus on this , or are you including a little bit of everything ?

It was based on that and it was mixed of science and spirituality , and I believe we need to take the best from what was discovered in the past and just apply it to what we do now , not just discard it altogether .

You know magnificent architecture , the , the architecture itself almost contributes to the sense of awe and spirituality , whether it's a you know gothic cathedral or a you know beautiful mosque , or you know temple , or you know any number of any religion really . So architecture is certainly powerful on our , on our mindset , for sure . How else ?

Well , maybe first you could talk about that . How does it affect our mind or our wellness , as far as just our mental wellness ?

Oh , yeah , yeah , like architecture , like how a , um , how a well architected space can make me feel relaxed and comfortable , whereas you know something that's like maybe the , the windows aren't straight and the roof is angled , and it creates a sense of tension or unease or something like that . I guess that contributes to our mental health as well , right ?

Or just our sense of stress or something in the environment there , right ?

And anything that's square or anything that limits us or gives us the same space over and over again , uh , that's not healthy , because we need to kind of mimic the dynamic , mimic the diversity around us .

So what are you most excited about in this space ?

We have a lot of areas within the space dedicated to prevention of infectious disease and mostly that is because when we were born every person alive today when we were born , it was already known how to solve the problem of infectious disease on a big scale Not exactly every disease , but we knew it's a combination of vaccinations and hygiene and everybody accepted

it . And if you look at our , let's say , my home , you have a bathroom and you have a sink and a toilet and the kitchen and refrigerator and stove and all these things , they in some way dedicated to prevention , disease of aging , and we brush teeth and wash hands and take shower and use deodorants .

All that is prevention of infectious disease and it's built into our everyday life . But what about disease of aging ? I think a lot of people hope that they can be resolved by curing it .

But most of the infectious disease we cannot cure up to this day , we just decided that that's okay and we just financed the prevention of them and that's how we solve the problem . And when we talk about financial like the government financial it all goes to , uh , prevention and nobody's questioning and proportions of how much is even for covid .

You know how much money was spent on prevention of spread covid and how much was spent and how much effort medical community spent of curing it . It's unproportional , right , because it was civil responsibility to prevent the spread of it . It's obvious .

But somehow when we talk about cancer and disease of aging , the same logic does not apply and so much more funds and government money goes into curing it and not into prevention . Even we kind of know that the answer will be very similar we will . There's some types of cancer , some kind of disease we will not cure . We will just agree , live with it .

But we will very well know in the future how to prevent it and most likely prevention would be the cure . And yet , uh , at the modern day , uh , everybody is focusing on a cure . I think it's just in a reaction . You see somebody in suffering , you see somebody diagnosed it with something and we're trying to cure .

But it's like if you look at the history of medicine for a few hundred years , it would obviously be visible as an immature , because you have to uh , stop the cause , which is prevented , yeah , right .

And as with uh , infectious disease , half of it is hygiene , something people do every day , brushing your teeth , taking the shower , washing your hands and my question is it okay ? What is that for disease of aging or for longevity ? What kind of hygiene do we need to do ? And how do we need to change our space so we can live longer and prosper ?

So my , my project is a research of what that is , because I don't have an answer , but I'm sure that the answer would be half in some kind of therapies that I know , some doctors working on it , some researchers , but the other half would be in the space and in hygiene and everyday routine people would do .

Yeah , certainly what you're saying has been echoed by many of the experts we've had on this program and elsewhere , in that the chronic diseases that represent 80% of our healthcare costs and expenditures are best treated with prevention and we're not doing enough for that , and lifestyle is a way to prevent them , and the environment through our architecture is the way

we do . It is another way to do it that we can add on . Now , although architecture and longevity and health is really at the cutting edge it's very , very new , although it shouldn't be , but it is we can look towards other models in other areas with architecture to maybe get some insight .

For example , we've talked off camera a little bit about the LEED program . In other words , it's a certification for sort of environmentally sound thing in architecture and you get certification .

Maybe you could speak a little bit about that and then possibilities Will there be a health longevity certification or there may be one already that you mentioned before as well .

So any building built would qualify for lead , at least silver . There are four levels silver , gold , platinum but every building would be at least lead . That's that's now building code . So it took 25 years to get to the codes but now it's pretty much standard and there are some things there like water filtration , air filtration , that would also affect people .

But there is another rating . It's called WELL W-E-L-L . It's very similar to LEED , but it's more focused on operations on the building , not in construction , and it is looking at the health and wellness and I I love it .

I think it's great first step and I would recommend to incorporate it in any new building or renovation office and it also looking at the water quality and air quality . But uh , it's a younger system . It's just published first time , maybe seven years ago , so it's not that well known . There was a conference in Long Beach just two weeks ago .

I actually went and I published a YouTube story about the conference . But one of the interviews I took with the organizer , I asked her how do you evaluate wellness of the occupants ? How do you know if your rating system actually affected people in a positive way ? And she said we do surveys .

We do surveys and we maybe tap to people's iPhones and get some information and I believe this is great . This is definitely better than nothing and this is the first step . But truly we can do better and it can be done when you can actually do blood work and specific testing to see how it affects people .

And with that , conventional medicine is very hard because if you are , let's say , you take the test and if you're okay for your age , it's hard to say what to do because you're just okay . But if you look at their age reversal or longevity medicine , there is a lot of testing that gives you your biological age versus your physiological age .

And if you , let's say , install water filtration system or you have some other artwork and you do the test before and after and you would see an average person occupying the building if they became younger by the test , if they became younger by the test .

So I think that testing it's more convenient to prove that your design or your idea is actually affecting people , because you can get numerical results going beyond just testing .

Well , the WELL system , what are some of the things that gets right ? In other words , what , what are things that's good about it ? You know that it , I mean , I guess it's good that it's . We're even asked having a good conversation about architecture and health . So what is the ?

What are some of the rules or the , the recommendations of the well system that you think are are correct and are beneficial , that are that they really that are doing good currently ?

Also , the daylight , the sound , quality of the views , quality of space in itself , acoustics . So they do very comprehensive testing on all these things .

You cannot have any fast food and be well you cannot have . Uh , even your vending machines can only carry healthy snacks . And uh , my office I used to work for , we did well certificate and uh , we had to . We all used to provide . I don't drink it , but they provided coca-cola and other sodas for free .

And they said you can , but you have to do very small size . You cannot do the average size , you have to do tiny , small ones . So it would prevent people to drink so much , but you don't get any points . But if you want to get your credit high score , then you cannot provide it at all .

So they're very specific and they require to have a washing machine , dishwasher , so you can actually bring your own food and all these things . They also ask you for daylight , for skylights , for uh fresh air , so people would have be able to uh individually control the temperature uh-huh , all these things are done very well .

The temperature , uh-huh , all these things are done very well . I would say , if you look at the , what mainstream medicine would teach you to do ? They have everything incorporated . It's just this uh , ideas of health and wellness go , go beyond the mainstream that are not there but obvious , because they have to be mainstream to to be right .

They cannot bring controversial things in there .

Now , what do you think it could do better or where does well ? Are there any recommendations that you don't agree with ? Or what would you like to see in a ? What would you like to see in a better well system or a new system ?

Second , I think we're really missing on our social aspects and people don't socialize a lot and they're very lonely and we really need to focus on that and I think the space should have any any healthy , good space whether it's your home or it's office or it's a hospital should have different , various places for groups to socialize from one person Some introverts ,

you know they need to be alone Two people , three , five , you know , 2,500 . We need to be able to gather in different size groups and I don't think that aspect is , uh , really developed there so so a lot of a lot of opportunities .

A well is good , but it could be a lot better , uh with with new things on it and , of course , all the ideas that go uh , in regards to longevity and hallmarks of aging and all the therapies we're talking about , from like ice showers to infrared saunas , to meditation rooms and all other ideas you would find on longevity conferences .

I think they should be at least listed there and given to people as an opportunity to incorporate in the space .

Certainly the well , the well program uh is uh really , really is in this space and is a great opportunity , it sounds like , for improvement . Any other things at that conference that really resonated with you ?

That's called Kaufman Protocol , because to me it just kind of helped to put everything in order and it can really compare , let's say's say , vitamins , supplements and what you can do at home , right , uh , you can compare like , for example , uh , magnesium as a vitamin versus a meditation , versus a different lighting system for you to help go to sleep , so you can

kind of gauge different things and have one common kind of protocol to compare them . But I really love what she's talking about . I would love to follow her ideas and apply them to the architectural space .

Um , earlier you mentioned about , uh , your youtube channel that you're that you're setting up what . What sort of thing ? What do you hope to accomplish with that and what sort of things do you have on it ?

And the second um are the tours , because a lot of spaces uh , people don't really see them . For example , american institute of architecture , they organize tours , uh , every year . The best houses that've been developed by architects , they open for one day and you can tour them .

And so I did these tours last year and I did yesterday of Saturday , two days ago actually and so I am trying to evaluate them from standpoint of health and wellness , basically looking for any ideas that's incorporated that I believe would contribute to the well room , well space and um to highlight them . Or how was it done , how , what is the research ?

I also went to japan a few weeks ago and I did a few tours of airbnbs and hotels there , also from health and wellness standpoint . So that's the idea for the channel . So half would be unboxing of items you can bring in the house and half would be examples of nice , good architecture , nice spaces , highlighting what there can be seen of uh .

Used as a well area , it can be incorporated in some people's spaces .

As far as , from the health and wellness perspective , that they get wrong ?

There are accommodations for for different groups , and then upstairs they also had a steam room . So there was a lot of healthy ideas there . What I would say missing is , I think , relationship to the sun .

Ironically , that's what Egyptians got right , right when they had the temples building to the sun path and nowadays sometimes I go and they could have had a small balcony up on the roof facing sunset or sunrise .

And , uh , the day , the light that we have , electrical light that's very white and it's not red , it doesn't help us right and doesn't kind of prevent us from sleeping , and perhaps even taking vitamins or supplements wouldn't come , you know , compensate for that . And the opposite .

Looking at the sun , because sun has a certain color in the morning and at night that help us set our circadian rhythm and fall asleep better in a natural way . Right ? So just having a little place for meditation where you can go and see that sunrise or sunset , if possible , I think could contribute to health .

Not necessarily orienting the entire building , no , but just have a view . You know , sometimes putting a window , a little small balcony , in a certain orientation so you could get out and see it if you want , if you feel tired or if you don't feel like sleeping or too stressed , I believe that would be very helpful .

But sometimes it's not difficult to add , it's just totally missing from .