Design Must get Healthier

As our built world becomes more and more unhealthy, it is up to the educated and experienced design professional to lead the way in changing the norm and expectations. There is an extreme push in the construction phase of any project where costs are weighed and the low bid typically wins out. With that low bid may come products that are manufactured either in the US or in Asia to lowest standards allowable. Typically lower standards for lower pricing bring toxins into the mix. We all heard about the FEMA trailers full of "Chinese Drywall" that offgassed formaldehyde into the interiors of displaced Katrina families. With that came asthma, and other respiratory problems. The US standards of what we will accept in the way of Volatile Organic Compounds and Formaldehyde is disturbing enough. If test results were provided with this low bid application of drywall, then those standards were met. Since this happened, it was revealed in subsequent studies that many drywall products made right here in the US have the same standards as the drywall that offgassed in the FeMA trailers and created a public outcry. The US has the lowest standards in the world. We will accept a very high standard of parts per million of all of these toxins that make us all sick. Europe allows half of what we do. Japan allows almost half again of Europe. When people are Auto Immune compromised they have a hyper sensitivity that allows even less to be acceptable in their environments. The problem is that exposure over time can build up in our bodies and express itself in many ways. Many experts have talked about the foods that we eat, the interior products that surround us, and the air quality that we breathe in our homes and in commercial environments and how it has effected our standard of living and our breathing. If it is true, as experts predict and the cases of autism, asthma, and related brain and breathing problems is growing at alarming rates because of these two factors, designers have a huge responsibility in the years to come. Cases of cancers reported in Erin Brokavitch situations of toxic waste spills, were proven to have poisoned whole towns. There is little difference between the Volatile Organic Compounds that surround us, leach into our air, and our water and their future effect on how we will live or die in our lifetimes. This is not a scare tactic. This is a call to action for designers to be aware of problems that exist in the products that we specify everyday. The solution can be as simple as asking for test results for the products that we as designers are specifying. The lab test results will show how much offgassing the products do. Then we can decide with the client what we can accept for the population. If you have a client that has immune system problems, the requirements are more stringent. The more compromised they are, the more dilligent we must be in taking care of them. It comes down to why the postion of interior designer has health and life safety as part of it's responsibility. I challenge interior designers on this planet to be aware, be dilligent and most of all ask the questions about what we are surrounding our clients with. Without the knowledge of the offgassing possibilities of the specifications that we produce, we are blind and leading a death march. I do not choose to do that.