The Boiled Frog Syndrome: Your Health and the Built Environment

Citation

Inalhan, G. (2003), "The Boiled Frog Syndrome: Your Health and the Built Environment", Facilities, Vol. 21 No. 1/2. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.2003.06921aae.001

The Boiled Frog Syndrome: Your Health and the Built Environment

Thomas SaundersJohn Wiley & Sons2003261 pages (paperback)ISBN 0 470 84553 8

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity (The World Health Organization).

The average Western person spends up to 85 percent of their lives either inside a building or inside a vehicle conveying them from one building to another. The prevailing site conditions and the actual sitting, design, construction and maintenance of a building can have a profound effect on the health of the occupants.

The Boiled Frog Syndrome argues that, like the frog which continues to adjust to the increasing water temperature until it gets boiled alive, we are continually adjusting our lives in such a way that we are becoming complicit to irreversible change and damage.

The book is organized into two parts. In the first part the author introduces us to a range of natural and artificial phenomena, and the effect that each has on humanity. In the second part he proposes an important set of ideas which relate to design rooted in history.

The author emphasises that the challenge for the twenty-first century is to synthesise and bring together the wonders of modern technology with the integrity of ancient spiritual wisdom and the understanding of the eternal laws of nature and the universe.

The book is significant for facilities managers and other professionals who have to address organizational health and the need to create healthy and harmonious environments.

The overall message of the book is very simple – do not be a boiled frog!