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011 Evalore: building wellness & sustainability
71 Plays5 years ago
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode 11
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to episode 11 of the Green and Healthy Places Podcast, in which we take a deep dive into the world of sustainability, wellness and community in the real estate and hospitality sectors. I'm your host, Matt Morley, founder of BioBlue EcoYachts, biofilico interiors and biofit nature gyms. If you see value in this type of content, please do hit like, share or consider subscribing.
Interview with Pablo Munoz, CEO of Everlaw
00:00:42
Speaker
In this episode, we talk to Pablo Munoz, co-founder and CEO of Everlaw, building wellness and sustainability consultants with offices in Barcelona and Madrid, Spain. Founded three years ago, it's a team of consultants, engineers, architects and energy modelers with an entrepreneurial spirit that immediately caught my attention.
00:01:07
Speaker
for their confidence, their willingness to take a risk and determination to make a genuine contribution to moving the real estate industry forward by applying what they learn at an international level to a variety of niches within their national sector in Spain that might otherwise not be able to access the benefits of the green and healthy building movement.
00:01:32
Speaker
In our conversation we discuss air quality strategies for indoor environments such as corporate offices, the integration of both green building and healthy building strategies in a project, their first timber office building in Spain called Whitty Wood, it's currently under construction, active design strategies that promote movement within an office building,
00:01:53
Speaker
their healthy home design principles applied to the well villa at PGA Catalonia, a residential golf resort in Spain, their own in-house air-first air purification certification, and their ever-law method that's intended to push their green and healthy building knowledge out into a more accessible price point for the Spanish market. We also look ahead to the next 12 months in our industry, and Pablo highlights the risks of well washing.
00:02:22
Speaker
whereby an increasing array of products and services are branded as being healthy when they may not have a genuine contribution to make to that world. Meaning a dose of scepticism is going to become increasingly important for those on the inside of the healthy building movement in order to protect its reputation.
Pablo's Professional Journey and Everlaw's Formation
00:02:40
Speaker
Well, Naramas, here's Pablo Munoz of Evelor in Barcelona.
00:02:48
Speaker
Pablo, thank you for joining us today. Welcome to the Green and Healthy Places podcast. To get things going, perhaps you could just give us a really quick introduction to who you are and also to the business ever law that you are CEO of here in Spain.
00:03:05
Speaker
Hi Matt, thank you so much. It is a pleasure for me to be here with you today. Of course, my name is Paolo Munoz. I'm an architect. I was licensed here in Spain, but I have worked for most of my career abroad. I first worked in London for a couple of years where I worked for a small architecture company.
00:03:29
Speaker
And then I went to New York where I pursued the Master's of Science in sustainability in the urban environment. And I worked for a pretty big consultancy firm in sustainability as well called Steel and Winter Associates. And then at some point I had the opportunity to come back to Spain and I founded Evelora with two of my co-founders.
00:03:56
Speaker
And now it's been, this has been going on for three and a half years, almost. I also teach at Collecio Architects, the architecture professional college here in Catalonia, in Barcelona, sustainability in architecture. And so what does your team look like today? You've been up and running now with the business for about three years, as you mentioned. What does your team look like today? And I guess I have to ask this one, but how has your team had to adapt
00:04:26
Speaker
with your offices, but also the way that they work over the last 10 or 11 months during the COVID-19 crisis.
Impact of COVID-19 on Everlaw's Work Structure
00:04:36
Speaker
Yes, we have a team made out of consultants, architects, engineers, also energy modelers. For the type of services that we provide, we need to have a pretty diverse background system for our company. And for sure, COVID has been a challenge for us as well as for everyone.
00:05:03
Speaker
We are right now working remotely for most of the time, but we also come to the office. There is a piece, there is a part of our work that's difficult to conduct when we are not connected. And also there is a part of seeing each other. There is a strength in that seeing each other and that is difficult to
00:05:30
Speaker
to match when you are seeing each other through a camera, right? There's a piece of commitment that is renovated every time we see each other and we talk about our projects. And so even though we're trying our best to not be at the office, there is part of our work that has to be conducted in a present way.
00:05:57
Speaker
Thinking about the indoor environment within the office, are you monitoring air quality, for example? Have you had to install these sort of plastic privacy panels or desk dividers to break up your office space?
Office Design Adaptations During COVID
00:06:10
Speaker
What kind of changes have you applied using your knowledge of, for example, the well-building standard and applying it to your own home office environment or your own corporate office environment?
00:06:22
Speaker
Right. So the first thing was the protocols, right. And we sort of have to set the way we use the office. So and how often we go to the office, we try to not be all at the same time at the office.
00:06:38
Speaker
How is the schedule when people use the office? That was the first thing that we had to think about. But independently from that, we also adapted the office so that when we are using it, we are safe. The first part was ventilation. And this is related to
00:07:00
Speaker
the importance of the inequality in the office, right? It is funny, we've been talking about it now for three or four years. That was the, that's sort of how Ebalora started. We started talking about the importance of taking care of the built environment we live in and the importance of the indoor spaces.
00:07:22
Speaker
And now with COVID, we finally have realized how important that is. And it is one of the positive things of COVID, right? And so one of the things that we do at the office is we measure the quality of the air we're breathing and one of the indicators for the potential of having COVID in the
00:07:45
Speaker
environment is the co2 and it is an indicator of how many people are using space at the same time so we try to.
00:07:54
Speaker
ventilate and we have a system that ventilation is connected to these to those earth quality sensors so that we can make sure that ventilation is high when it has to be and we also have a space so that it needs a desk we have separation from each other the same thing happens in the main in the main medium room where we have
00:08:23
Speaker
physical barriers to separate from each other when we have a meeting, right?
Demand for Healthy Indoor Environments Post-Pandemic
00:08:30
Speaker
That's one of the things. We also have air purifiers so that the air quality is optimal. Are your air purifiers, have you integrated something into the air conditioning, the HVAC system, or are they standalone sort of domestic air purifiers like a Dyson system?
00:08:49
Speaker
So in our case, we have the purifiers are standalone, they are on the floor. Because the system we use for the air ventilation,
00:09:05
Speaker
the system or the heating system did not allow for incorporating those systems. You mentioned the idea of there being perhaps more awareness now and if there is any let's call it a silver lining or some positive
00:09:22
Speaker
Change to come from what we've all been through over the last year, but but an increasing awareness amongst the wider portion of the population about what indoor environmental quality is about healthy indoor environments. Where are you seeing growth? If you are, where are you seeing the growth or increase in interest for your your products and services coming from?
00:09:49
Speaker
Well, if we are a company that provides services on very on one side and also health and wellness on the other, integrating those two sides of architecture into the building industry. We have certainly seen growth in consultancy for both in the way that
00:10:16
Speaker
On one hand, we're seeing that people are finally more aware and more interested, more aware of the impact that has spending a lot of time in buildings, right? Like over the last year, we spent so many days just stuck in our apartments, in our homes, that we finally realized that it had an impact on our physical and emotional well-being.
00:10:44
Speaker
And I think that's working in our favor in the way that finally not only clients that are people that want to buy a house or want to build a better home for themselves, but also companies are integrating finally half into their projects. But also, I think we cannot forget that this is
00:11:09
Speaker
At the end of the day, this is a sustainable sustainability crisis in a way. It is an environmental crisis. It's not very clear what the origin of the virus is, but most experts agree that it has to do with pushing too far the limits of where humans meet nature and getting to areas where we were not supposed to be.
Integrating Nature in Urban Settings
00:11:39
Speaker
And so I think in a way this is also helping us realize that we need to do something, we need to build in a better way. When it comes to my sector, to architecture, okay, we need to build better, we need to build in a more efficient way, in a better way for the environment. I think it's interesting that that relationship with nature and how it can be both positive, it can bring health benefits,
00:12:05
Speaker
But clearly, as you say, there can also be huge risks in not treating or not respecting nature in the right way or
00:12:14
Speaker
or taking it for granted that it will only bring good because clearly there are certain situations such as certain animals and certain markets in China or wherever where we can put ourselves at risk. But to get into that, the idea of reconnecting with nature in urban environments.
Whitty Wood Project and Certifications
00:12:33
Speaker
I know that you've been working on a wood, primarily timber built construction project in Barcelona that's been getting quite a lot of
00:12:40
Speaker
press attention recently. Could you just talk us through what that looks like and describe that project? Because I know you're going for both LEED and WELL, so both the healthy building and the green building certifications on that one. Yes, for sure. This will be the Whittywood building, and as you said, it will be the first timber building
00:13:04
Speaker
few offices in Belgium, Spain. It will be a five-story building in the district of Podano, which is sort of a technology district. It's the area in Barcelona where most offices, new offices, have been built. And it is a very cool project. We're very, very excited about it because, as you said, it is not only going for lead certification. Lead is one of the most renowned
00:13:32
Speaker
green building standards in the world together with green would be the UK version and it is the US version and it looks into all aspects of stability and not only does it look into making sure that the building doesn't consume too much energy I mean that the energy efficiency of the building is for sure a very very important part
00:13:58
Speaker
And in this case, we are using district heating system that's available in the area that already makes the building very efficient in that area. And of course, solar panels for example take for electricity production will be available in the building. And so also a building envelope that's very sophisticated so that we can decrease the energy demand of the building
00:14:27
Speaker
for both the winter and the summer. So not only that, but also we're looking at using sustainable materials. We're looking at using materials that do not come from very far away and that are produced in a sustainable manner. Often we're looking into making sure that they are using a circular economy system for production
00:14:56
Speaker
We're also looking at water consumption. In fact, one of the really cool things about this project is that there will be a water collection system and then the water will be used for both irrigation and also for bathroom use.
00:15:12
Speaker
So, and those are one of the things that this building includes, but what makes also this building very cool is that we are pursuing lead together with wealth. Wealth is the most, in this case, the equivalent of lead, but in the health and wellness area. It is the most, it is in America now in this case, and it is based on six years
00:15:39
Speaker
of medical and scientific research. And so the strategies that were proposed are not random. They are based on very, very specific parameters that have been proven to improve the health of the people that spend time in those buildings.
00:16:00
Speaker
And in this case, we're talking about the air quality of the building. We're talking about the quality of the lighting. We're making sure that the lighting doesn't interfere
00:16:12
Speaker
with this circadian rhythm of the people that spend time in the building. And we can talk more about that because this might sound a little too scientific for some people. We can talk more about the circadian rhythms later. But with Wallace looked at in a very holistic way,
00:16:34
Speaker
It also has to do with acoustic comfort, with thermal comfort, with the perception that we have of the building. And so with biofilia, which is the strategy of integrating nature into the interior side of the building. So I think it will be a very, very interesting project we're very excited about.
00:16:54
Speaker
And have you had to do anything in terms of how did you address, for example, the nutrition and the fitness components of the well certification?
Achieving WELL Certification in Fitness and Nutrition
00:17:03
Speaker
Because I know this can always be have slightly more challenging in some ways because there just might not be space for a fitness room or a gym facility or there might not be an onsite food or restaurant facility. How have you how have you addressed those chapters of the well certification?
00:17:24
Speaker
That's a challenge very often, but it is interesting because people sometimes think that fitness also has only to do with being able to integrate a gym facility in the building, but sometimes it has to do with the way we use a boat.
00:17:42
Speaker
For example, if we place the staircase in an area where it can be seen, where we are promoting the use of it instead of using the elevators, and we make the use of the staircase
00:17:58
Speaker
something that's appealing to people, let's say with art pieces or music or with colors or even nature. And we are also, we're helping people to be more active. And so that's one of the strategies that Well addresses.
00:18:18
Speaker
Then the nutrition part is a little more challenging here as well because there is no restaurant in this building. And in this case, one of the main things that we are looking at is the vending machines. We're making sure that the food offered in the vending machines is only healthy food.
00:18:41
Speaker
Nice. Yeah, I think you just have to look for whatever opportunities are available, right, depending on the size of the project. Clearly in a commercial office environment, something like what you would, you know, it's a big project, so you've got lots to play with there. But then when you're focusing more on something, say like a single family home, clearly there are more restrictions there. How have you
00:19:07
Speaker
I know you do both the commercial and the residential side so if you when you're applying the well philosophy or well design concepts to a residential project that's maybe just made for a family such as the one you did at the PGA Catalunya Resort, how does that
00:19:26
Speaker
What is that process of transferring that same piece of knowledge to a completely different context where it's really more about one family living together rather than lots of co-workers spending eight hours in an office each day, but this is actually someone where people live? How do you have to adapt your approach?
00:19:49
Speaker
Right.
Adapting WELL Standards to Single-Family Homes
00:19:51
Speaker
I mean, the principles are the same. We need to take care of the place for the work. And that makes us more productive. And that's great for our company. And that's pretty much the main reason companies are really integrating well into their daily lives, because they know it's profitable. But when it comes to us, to making decisions on where we decide to live,
00:20:18
Speaker
Don't we want the same thing for ourselves, for our own sanity, and not what we want for our workers? I think the answer is yes.
00:20:30
Speaker
We want our family to live in a place that cannot really compromise their health. And so the same principles are being implemented in projects like the one you said. And that's a very interesting project because that was the first time you talked about the WellAvila in the PGA Catalonia was heard.
00:20:56
Speaker
And that was the first time that the world standard was applied to a single family home. And so we had to sort of translate, as you said, those principles into a single family home. The principles are the same. We need to make sure that the air quality is optimal and for that we are installing air sensors.
00:21:17
Speaker
we are making sure that the ventilation system is optimal and that we install high quality or high performance filters when we have to, or even air purifiers integrated in the HPAC system.
00:21:35
Speaker
And then we need to make sure that the quality of the water for consumption is also optimal, especially that building was built in an area where in the past there were certain problems with the water that was available to the tap. And so that was also a really important strategy for the project.
00:21:55
Speaker
We also looked at all the materials being used in the project, and we were very careful choosing materials that didn't have any ingredients that could be in any way not good for the human health. And people listening to us might be surprised, like, oh, are there products that are allowed
00:22:20
Speaker
in our homes or in our interiors that are not good for our health and I think the answer is yes.
00:22:29
Speaker
So all those were strategies that we implemented in this project. I could talk for hours about that because I don't remember the exact number, but there were over 30 or 40 strategies that we implemented in that project. And clearly so that one of them is always one of the key components of that is always the air quality. I thought one of the really interesting things about what you're doing is
00:22:53
Speaker
is not just providing consultancy services as architects and as experts in lead and well, but you seem to be taking quite an entrepreneurial approach to this whole scene.
Air First: Local Air Quality Certification
00:23:08
Speaker
And in a way, I think, genuinely making your own contribution to that, I was really interested to read about
00:23:14
Speaker
your air first air purification certification, which seems to be obviously inspired by the bigger players in the market, but perhaps adapting it for Spanish or local requirements. So how have you, where did you come up with that initial idea and what was the objective in presumably not just creating something to compete with existing
00:23:42
Speaker
certification systems, but perhaps something that's better adapted to the local market, would that be fair?
00:23:51
Speaker
Yes, when it came to Air First, we actually realized that there was a hidden demand that was not being satisfied. We know that there is a big demand for big health and wellness projects in Spain or in Europe in general, especially in the office sector, in the office building sector.
00:24:18
Speaker
But how about those smaller projects that cannot really implement those messages because simply didn't have the budget, or the means to do so.
00:24:31
Speaker
We thought about, okay, how can we make it available? How can we make it more simple for those more projects? If those strategies that have been proven to work for any kind of project
00:24:48
Speaker
cannot be all implemented at once in the project. Why can't we choose those strategies that make a difference and that can be implemented and then help our clients to communicate that they are making an effort. Maybe they are not implementing all the strategies at once, but they are implementing those that really make a difference in the project.
00:25:18
Speaker
And that's how their first game is a certification that
00:25:25
Speaker
looks at one of the things that nowadays is probably the most important, which is the air quality. We're just looking at air quality. So it is based on well, but basically because well is an open standard that says these are having proven to work. So let's make sure that
00:25:49
Speaker
Those strategies are available to everyone, right? So in a way, I like to use that word I use it in Spanish all the time, which is...
00:26:00
Speaker
democratize, I think it would be in English, right? Those standards for everyone, that's what effort is about. And so that would then be a separate piece of intellectual property compared to what you describe as your ever-law method, which is really just, is that as much as anything your process, or is that your particular way of addressing the projects, or is there more to it? Is that you adding something to
00:26:29
Speaker
to the healthy building movement in that sense, or is it just a way of working? It is both. In a way, it is a way of working. We have set a very clear way of first communicating with the client, making sure or understanding what they need.
00:26:49
Speaker
and what are the needs and the goals of the project and then working together through the process to make sure they reach those goals through the strategies that we propose and then helping them communicate those strategies that they have implemented at the end of the project. That's the EBLR method.
00:27:11
Speaker
Her first would sort of be one of the forms that the Eberora method can take. The Eberora method appeared in a similar way to what I described earlier with her first. It is a way to implement those
00:27:31
Speaker
energy efficiency and sustainability measures and also those health and wellness measures that come and are probably all the main international standards available for the building industry to implement those
00:27:47
Speaker
or at least those that have the most sense in that particular project because are going to make a difference and are feasible from both the economical and also the means, the logistics standpoint, and implement those in the project. And then help, of course, at the end, help the client communicate that.
00:28:14
Speaker
and highlight the value of the work that the client has made. And we do that through an online platform in which we explain the measures that have been implemented in the project. And imagine that could be an office project, or it could be a building project for a residential project, or it could be a school. We've made the project for a school recently. Also, a co-working has been one of our projects.
00:28:44
Speaker
So explaining that and giving that option to our client to be able to communicate that through an online platform, maybe through chats and conferences, maybe a video promotion or video, we also create a seal that they can place at the entrance of the building. That's also part of the environment.
Trends and Risks in Wellness Architecture
00:29:06
Speaker
As you say, I think it is about democratizing that knowledge and the scientific
00:29:12
Speaker
backing behind this whole approach to creating healthy buildings. But in a sense, it's almost like the next generation coming through now where the parents of
00:29:23
Speaker
would be lead and well. And now there's the new generation taking that knowledge and moving it forward and adapting it to new markets and new demands.
Modular Homes and Cellular Concrete Innovations
00:29:33
Speaker
And I know you mentioned before we started talking today that you're also working on a modular homes project. Is that also a healthy home concept that you're developing?
00:29:45
Speaker
Yes, I'd like to say first that what you just said, it is very interesting what you said about the fathers being dead and well, but all those standards from what we've seen they're really at the avant-garde of this industry and what we've seen over the last few years
00:30:06
Speaker
is that codes created by the administration are little by little catching up and getting closer to standards. And the main purpose, in my opinion, or the main
00:30:21
Speaker
The main value of those standards is to set a very high standard for those goals to catch up to. And so this is very, very interesting to me. Those standards are not a goal in themselves. They are a tool to take buildings to the next level.
00:30:44
Speaker
And so that's the way we like to work. We don't make projects just to reach those standards. We make projects to reach certain levels of excellency. And to get that, we use those standards. There is a subtle difference there to us.
00:31:05
Speaker
And you were, can you repeat the last question? Just talking about the modular homes project that you mentioned. Yes, yes, we are, this is a very new project we're working on at the moment. We are working with a partner that creates modular homes project made out of cellular concrete, which is a very, very interesting product.
00:31:30
Speaker
because it has really high benefits. It is a high performance material because it can be used as a structural material but at the same time it has very high insulation benefits both on the acoustic side and also on the thermal side.
00:31:58
Speaker
And it allows us to work in a modular way. And so this is sort of like a surprise that we have started recently, but it is one of the new things that we have started to work on. And together with this company that usually builds concrete homes, we are integrating all those
00:32:21
Speaker
health and wellness and sustainability measures that we are having to integrate in other projects and that we have seen that has a big impact in the in the inhabitants of those of those homes and that don't have a huge impact in the pocket, in the money that that project would cost.
Future of Sustainable Health-Focused Projects
00:32:43
Speaker
And so we are very excited to see that capitalized
00:32:48
Speaker
It feels like there's just so many different small niche corners of the real estate market that have yet to be touched by this kind of sustainable and healthy building approach. There's just still so much to do.
00:33:03
Speaker
It sounds like you guys are really innovating and pushing the boundaries and hustling hard, which is great to see. If you look to the next 12 months, obviously it's been a tough year, but you mentioned that there has been an increase in interest in what you do, and I'm sure that that will only continue. If you were to look a year down the line into the future, what do you see as being the
00:33:27
Speaker
the key trends or the key changes that will happen over the next year or so in this industry of ours.
00:33:36
Speaker
Well, I think one of the main trends is that I definitely think that well and wellness in general are going to be much more integrated in projects all over the world. It has happened with sustainability and green building. And actually, there was this process in which everything was green. That was scary, right? It was this green washing area, which everyone and everything and every product
00:34:06
Speaker
was green and then that was that sort of when the standards took that also that the importance. I think a similar thing is going to happen with with one us and we need to be careful about it. I'm sure that everything is going to be healthy in the in the future. Every product is going to take care of your health and it's going to kill corona and all that. And we saw that in the summer
00:34:31
Speaker
There was some places that talked about a safe place and when you dig a little deeper into what they had done.
00:34:41
Speaker
it was maybe just an establishment like a bar or something that had just used a specific product to to clean the surfaces and but nothing really more than that and they were claiming to be a safe and corona free place. We need to be careful about that in general. I think health is going to be a trend but we need to be careful about the way we
00:35:08
Speaker
We face it and I think architecture offices are going to start offering those services and we are in a way giving our services.
Connecting with Everlaw and Conclusion
00:35:22
Speaker
We'll keep we'll continue giving our services of course to promoters and.
00:35:28
Speaker
And bigger companies that are building, but also we have focused, we are focusing on architecture firms that want to keep those services to the clients, but maybe they don't have the knowledge. We're trying to help architecture firms so that everyone can give that service.
00:35:48
Speaker
Amazing. Well, listen, best of luck with the next year. And I'm sure you have a very bright future with the business. Just to close then, where can people find you? Websites, social media, what's the best way to connect with you all?
00:36:01
Speaker
Well, they can find us in our website, which is Evarore, which is A-V-A-L-O-R-E dot S, and also on social media. We're on Twitter, Evarore Wow, and we're also on LinkedIn and any other site as well. So thank you very much for this time, Matt, and it's been a pleasure for me to be here with you.