The Beauty Of A Healthy Building

Live from the Texas Society of Architects 2017 Expo and Convention, we're proud to bring you a series of episodes exploring "the multiple dimensions of beauty" through interviews with some phenomenal architects, builders, and consultants. This episode features an interview with Dr. Jules Elkins of The University Of Texas at Austin and The East Wall Consulting. Dr. Jules ElkinsDr. Elkins’s research and teaching is in environmental health, and healthy indoor environments. She is particularly interested in low-dose chemical exposures, especially during the period from preconception to early childhood. Her interests focus on how exposures can be practically and cost-effectively reduced or prevented based on evidence-based models of what interventions measurably work. Specific projects and work includes exposures in schools from poorly ventilated classrooms, exposures from proximity to highly trafficked roadways, and maternal and child exposures from the food they eat. Dr. Elkins is particularly interested in the concept of the Healthy City. Given that we increasingly live in an urbanized world, how can we design away our environmental health problems, and what are the evidence-based outcomes from such design, considering both health and economic metrics? Dr. Elkins also speaks and consults on constructing healthy buildings. This includes choosing healthy materials, optimizing healthy design, and evidence-based outcomes of exposures in indoor environments. This work ranges from green buildings to building for clients with chemical sensitivities.Big thanks to the Texas Society of Architects and our sponsor Bautex.