Standards, codes, and laws.

The difference between WELL AP and LEED certification is that WELL concentrates on the people, and LEED focuses on building performance. The answer to the question of which is more important than the other in the built environment design is that LEED and WELL are complementary and not contradictory.

Understanding how LEED and WELL align is essential to delivering cost-effective, successful sustainable, and healthy building projects. -By Julie Berreth. The World Green Building Council’s publication Building the Business Case: Health, Wellbeing, and Productivity in Green Offices cites both WELL and LEED case studies with impressive outcomes. We, as designers, can’t only focus on how buildings impact the outdoor environment and forget about the well-being of people who spend most of their time in the spaces we design. Based on the study we did for blog#2 (traditional medicine and alternative medicine), I argue that LEED is the “Traditional medicine” and WELL is the “Alternative medicine” (with the difference that WELL is based on facts and science as well as LEED). So we can’t say one is more important than the other because they both complete each other, and a design without WELL or LEED is not a successful design, in my opinion. Especially in today’s generation, sustainability should be the first thing we have to think of in designing built environments.

It’s the same as paying attention to custom, standard, and logistics simultaneously with paying attention to values. They all complete each other, and without one, the design will be incomplete. We are designers, and we should design for people and not just for codes and standards! Our design and solutions show how we see people. Designing based on what the code says is not a “wow.” The “wow” is when you know the codes and then look at the people and design FOR them.

Thin concludes that both are important in the practice of “adaptive reuse in multiple scales.” Adapting to the environment and past requires you to adapt to both WELL and LEED in design to connect the past, present, and more sustainable future.