Understand the significance of materials and health in the built environment
On this three-week course, you’ll gain insight into how the materials we use for building impacts our health and the environment.
You’ll explore the relationship between living organisms and our surroundings as you unpack the harmful effects that chemicals have. With this knowledge, you’ll better understand the communities and populations that are most vulnerable.
By the end of the course, you’ll be able to implement these teachings into your design and advocate for creating a healthier built environment.
Explore the routes of chemical exposure
As you investigate different industrial chemicals, you’ll gain an understanding of how we get exposed to them and how chemicals enter the body.
Unpacking the classes and types of chemicals that affect human health, you’ll learn what happens when chemicals get inside our body and the types of chemicals that might be affecting you.
With this knowledge, you’ll learn how to transform building products and make a change to healthier materials.
Explore environmental health and vulnerable populations
As you learn how to make positive changes, you’ll unpack the physical, environmental, and socio-economic factors that make change more challenging for some populations.
You’ll research the vulnerable populations and systemic injustice related to toxicity and environmental health.
Delve into life cycle and circular design solutions
You’ll explore the life cycles of materials to understand how chemicals might persist.
Finally, you’ll look at designing for circularity and product optimisation, such as the Cradle to Cradle certified approach.
Guided by the experts at Parsons School of Design’s Healthy Materials Lab, you’ll finish the course with an understanding of the pathways to healthier environments.
This course is designed for anyone interested in health and sustainability in relation to building.
It provides an introduction to the topic, but is applicable to anyone who works in the industry, or is simply passionate about the health of populations and the environment.
