From my perspective of working in the intersection of two very different professions, medicine and design of the built environment, I’m frequently surprised by the resistance of each group to embrace concepts from the “other side.
Once upon a time, humans lived outdoors in harmony with vast and diverse populations of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, largely unaware of the presence of these microbes.
One big difference between building systems and the human body is the immediacy of an “alarm” when something goes wrong. If we lose a mitten while skiing, we know immediately that there has been a breach in our insulation.
Most of us have experienced one of our best solutions backfiring and unintentionally creating a bigger problem in the future. One historical example of an unintended consequence occurred in the early 1900s in Hanoi, Vietnam. Under French Colonial rule, the city was proud of the sanitation benefits of its indoor toilets supported by a vast sewer system.