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Healthy Buildings

Welcome to NRC-IRC's research on healthy buildings. From here, you may explore our current activities and past results in this crucial field of research, and find links to other research groups in Canada and beyond.

We Canadians live in an extreme climate, and as a result, we spend about 90 percent of our time in our homes, offices, factories, shopping malls, and other indoor environments. It is not surprising then that we are concerned about the effects that those buildings can have on our health. Healthier buildings would improve our quality of life, and might even help to extend it.

They would also make us more productive. The overall effect of absenteeism and lowered productivity due to illness in Canada has been estimated in the billions of dollars. An investment in healthier buildings for us to live, work, and play in would be a wise one indeed.

The aspects of buildings that seem most likely to diminish our well-being and contribute to disease — chemical and physical pollution of indoor air, mould growth, noise, and inadequate lighting — are all inter-related factors. To study any of these with respect to their effects on health requires a coordinated and interdisciplinary scientific approach.

NRC-IRC and in particular our Indoor Environment and Building Envelope & Structures Programs, have unique capabilities for undertaking just such integrated multidisciplinary healthy buildings projects. We have been committed to helping Canadians design healthier buildings for many years, and can draw on wide areas of expertise that are readily available from within the Institute and beyond. We are the home of the National Construction Codes, are closely involved in standards development, and have long experience in transferring technology to industry, so we are also knowledgeable about how to bring the results of our research into practice.