Buildings Shape Health. NUEN® Helps You Shape Better Buildings.
NUEN® was created to transform how we understand and improve the spaces we live and work in.
We spend nearly 90% of our lives indoors. Yet too many buildings are still designed to meet minimum regulations rather than to optimise human health, productivity and long-term environmental performance. Formal certification systems such as WELL, Fitwel, BREEAM and LEED have helped raise awareness — but healthy building design should not depend solely on certification.
NUEN® exists to make health-led architectural thinking accessible, actionable and scalable — for organisations and individuals alike.
Whether you are:
A business seeking to improve employee wellbeing, retention and performance
A developer aiming to increase asset value and ESG credibility
A local authority investing in community health
An investor evaluating long-term building performance
Or a homeowner renovating a single room
NUEN® provides structured, evidence-based guidance to help you make better decisions.
For some projects, NUEN® can complement and strengthen formal certification strategies. For others, it provides an affordable, independent pathway to healthier buildings without the cost and complexity of accreditation.
Our mission is simple but ambitious:
To democratise healthy building expertise and embed it into everyday decision-making — not as a luxury add-on, but as a strategic foundation.
Through digital tools, applied AI, architectural research and significant real-world project experience in the UK, NUEN® — web platform and human team — bridge the gap between environmental health science, best-practice architectural design and practical action.
Because healthier environments are not just about compliance.
They are about people, performance and long-term value.
Why NUEN® Exists
The built environment has a measurable impact on human health, productivity and wellbeing.
Yet much of the knowledge around healthy buildings remains locked inside long reports, technical frameworks and compliance documents.
NUEN® translates science into structured, practical insight.
It combines architectural expertise with AI-assisted analysis to create a new delivery model for health-focused design.
Healthy building expertise exists.
But it tends to be fragmented, expensive and too often reactive rather than preventative.
NUEN® exists to close that gap.
Buildings designed to optimise human and planetary health are often treated as a luxury offer.
NUEN® proposes a different model:
Architectural design meets automation
Public health meets digital accessibility
Environmental health research meets personalised guidance
NUEN® does not replace building industry human professionals. Instead, it enables users to undertake their own early-stage feasibility thinking, identify risks and opportunities, and to meet with their project advisors better informed.
NUEN® seeks to make healthy building science, best-practice architectural innovation and building design expertise more accessible, democratised and personalised.
➤ Not by replacing architects.
➤ Not by simplifying science into soundbites.
➤ But by structuring knowledge into a form that empowers action.
NUEN® exists because the places we inhabit shape who we become.
NUEN® was founded by Ulla Tervo, a RIBA Chartered and ARB-registered architect with over 20 years of professional experience across residential, healthcare, education and large-scale mixed-use projects in London and the South-East of England.
Ulla created NUEN® in 2024 from a deep conviction that healthy building design should not be a privilege, but a fundamental right. Having led projects in the UK ranging from £160,000 residential refurbishments to developments exceeding £100 million, she has experienced first-hand how profoundly the built environment shapes our health, productivity, recovery, happiness and long-term life outcomes. At the same time, she recognised a systemic problem: the most research-informed, health-optimised architectural thinking often remains financially inaccessible to those who might benefit from it most.
Her work bridges architecture, environmental health and urban design. Educated at the University of California, Berkeley; the Architectural Association; London Metropolitan University; and King’s College London, Ulla’s studies span architecture, city and regional planning, healthy buildings and philosophy. She is also a certified WELL Accredited Professional (WELL AP), trained in evidence-based approaches to human-centred building design.
Before founding her own practice, she worked at some of the UK’s leading architectural studios, including Allies and Morrison, McAslan + Partners, Caruso St John Architects, Hawkins\Brown, PDP London, David Kohn Architects and the Architecture Research Unit. She was awarded the prestigious RIBA Bronze Medal and has contributed to numerous award-winning projects throughout her career.
Ulla is passionate about combining creative design excellence with systems thinking. She believes that architecture must operate as part of the wider ecological, social and economic systems — shaping not only buildings, but behaviours, communities and planetary health.
Beyond practice, Ulla is passionate about coastal walks, cold-water swimming and nature-connected living — experiences that continue to inform her belief that human wellbeing is inseparable from our relationship with the natural world.
Ulla Tervo ARB RIBA WELL AP
Architect & Founder
Work with Us
Whether you are exploring healthy building principles for the first time or looking to strengthen an existing sustainability strategy, NUEN provides structured insight and next-step clarity.