Spotlight on Health Wellbeing and Sustainable Buildings MSc graduate Toar Sadia

Toar is an experienced architect in the US, having worked in a consulting architecture and engineering firm in New York City. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from The City College of New York. Toar was the recipient of the IEDE Professor Llewelyn-Davies MSc Scholarship.

Since completing the Health Wellbeing and Sustainable Buildings MSc Toar has gained a WELL Accredited Professional credential and has been working on publishing her dissertation whilst collaborating with one of the HWSB MSc senior lecturers, Jean Hewitt, on a chapter in an upcoming publication of the British Standards Institution (BSI). Toar is continuing to work for a design firm in New York City and has started doing freelance work as an Inclusive Design Consultant with Motionspot in London.

When we asked how she came to study the programme she said:  

“Throughout my academic and professional experience in architecture I became aware of the multiplicity of values which drive design and how they materialize in the built environment. As an architect, I see it as my duty to use design to advance healthy sustainable living in the personal, communal, and environmental realms, and I wanted to gain the latest scientific knowledge and expertise in this field."

We also asked how has this MSc helped with her career:

“

The MSc Health, Wellbeing and Sustainable Buildings has exposed me to the various factors that influence sustainable design for health and wellbeing as well as their interplay at numerous scales. The programme also helped me learn how to conduct proper academic research which I believe will provide me with a greater understanding on how to bridge the research and applied design worlds in order to see meaningful changes in the design of our built environment.

 

Toar went on to talk about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people and industries and how both are realising the immense impact that the design of the built environment has on the quality of our lives, and our health and wellbeing. Although this is an emerging field of expertise, the need for its application is pressing more than ever. Toar highlighted that, in her opinion, the HWSB MSc provides students with a competitive edge in the job market. 

A short summary of Toar’s MSc dissertation research is available here.