Kavita Kumari (London, UK), Andrew Parkin (Birmingham, UK) and Loreta Brazukas (Brisbane, Australia) have all been selected by the International WELL Building Institute™ (IWBI™) to receive a 2019 IWBI leadership award recognising outstanding members of the WELL Accredited Professional and WELL Faculty community. They join a group of honourees from around the globe who are leading the charge to revolutionise the way we think about our buildings, communities and organisations, and the impact they have on our health and quality of life.
The WELL program has grown significantly over the past year, reaching over 3,600 WELL projects and 460 million square feet across 58 countries. The 2019 award winners have played an instrumental role in WELL’s progress through impactful engagement, feedback and support.
Cundall has been part of the Health and Wellbeing movement for a number of years, starting with its London Office being the first WELL Standard project in Europe in 2017. The company has used this project as a live laboratory to gather feedback to inform design for other WELL Standard projects and its own offices, as well as developing cutting-edge tools such as Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) monitoring and the recently launched
Productivity Mapping toolkit.
Kavita Kumari, Associate
Kavita joined Cundall in 2000 as a Graduate engineer and has cultivated her passion for helping clients create healthy workplaces throughout her career. Now an Associate, she has led the sustainable design of benchmark projects in London including the fitout of Cundall’s
One Carter Lane office (Europe’s first WELL Gold accredited building) and the
Crown Estate’s HQ at 1 St James’s Market (Europe’s first WELL Platinum accredited building). She is also leading on 21 Moorfields, a new £100m flagship development for both the developer, Landsec, and the tenant, Deutsche Bank , that will be the first in the UK to simultaneously achieve a number of prestigious industry certifications and ratings including WELL, FitWel, BREEAM, LEED, IEQ, Design for Performance, NABERS, TM54, WiredScore and Smart Building.
Commenting on her IWBI award win, Kumari said:
“I’m so proud to have been recognised by the International WELL Building Institute in this way. More and more businesses around the world are prioritising workplace health, wellbeing and productivity amongst their corporate goals, and it’s great to be able to help them achieve this through the WELL Building Standard.
“While many companies set these targets at a Board level, they don’t know what they look like on a practical level. Often, they aren’t aware of how they can optimise their workplaces to ensure the comfort and productivity of their staff. A holistic approach can involve technical solutions like monitoring CO2 levels or designing a desk layout to maximise natural daylight at each workstation, but it can also involve consideration of chemical-free cleaning products or the quality of coffee facilities on offer.”
As Cundall’s Global Head of Acoustics, Andrew Parkin has been involved in writing a new ISO standard for Acoustic Quality of Open Plan Offices, was Principal Technical Author for the FIS Guide to Office Acoustics and served as Chair of the Association of Noise Consultants (ANC) from 2014 to 2016. He is also on the Advisory Panel for Sound in relation to the WELL Building Standard and worked alongside Kumari on the One Carter Lane project as well as leading the sustainable design of benchmark projects in Birmingham including Cundall’s office on Colmore Row, and the headquarters of international skin care company, Beiersdorf – both WELL registered buildings.
Commenting on his award win, Parkin said:
“I’m a great believer in a holistic and pragmatic approach to acoustic design, and it is great to be recognised by IWBI in this way. We’re leading the way in implementing technical acoustic solutions in the workplace and testing the effect on workplace wellbeing and productivity.
“The link between a good acoustic environment for workers and their productivity is common sense and it is good to see that this is now permeating into design. Encouraging and rewarding those who design for people has to be the way forward.”
Loreta Brazukas, Senior ESD Consultant
Loreta Brazukas, joined Cundall in 2018, and has dedicated her career to developing sustainable engineering solutions in the built environment. She is an expert on Green Building design and regularly runs workshops for architects, engineers, developers and contractors, to facilitate sustainable solutions in all stages of design, construction and operation.
She has been part of WELL Faculty since inception, has helped to make the WELL Building Standard more accessible in Australia, and is also involved with the revival of the Living Building Collaborative in Brisbane.
Commenting on her IWBI award win, Brazukas said:
“I feel so honoured to have been recognised by the IWBI and so grateful to be part of this community and ever-growing movement. It has been really inspiring to work with people and project teams who truly care about health and wellness. Now that we’re starting to see projects being occupied in these spaces, it’s great to hear the real responses from those occupying them.
“I have always prioritised health and wellness aspects of Green Building Rating tools and so I was very excited when WELL first came out and was so comprehensive. It’s been a great tool to use to help design spaces with health and wellness at the forefront.”