The Entopia Building: Creating a healthy workplace

7 December 2021 – Wendy Bishop, Architype’s associate and lead architect for Entopia has been working on architectural and Passivhaus designs and ways to reduce embodied carbon on the project since it began. 

The Entopia Building, the re-invented new headquarters for Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership will do more than just demonstrate how to cut operational and embodied carbon in the built environment. 

Central to the project’s aspirational goals is a major focus on health and wellbeing for building users, including up to 230 staff, accelerator spaces for entrepreneurs, and visitors. Creating open plan and contemporary spaces that allow academics, fellows and businesses to socialise and spark new ideas, Entopia will physically demonstrate sustainability leadership in how to transform existing building stock sustainably and cost-effectively. 

Based on 10 principles for wellness, from air quality to thermal comfort to acoustics, the updated WELL v2 standard contains very detailed criteria that looks in forensic detail at what it takes to create a healthy workplace. Importantly, the standard, like the EnerPHit Passivhaus standard the building is also aiming for, is based on performance in use, rather than checklist based systems which rely on design intent.