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In a new paper published Thursday, a team of researchers present a compelling case for why urban neighborhoods filled with trees are better for your physical health.
[...] they found that “having 10 more trees in a city block, on average, improves health perception in ways comparable to an increase in annual personal income of $10,000 and moving to a neighborhood with $10,000 higher median income or being 7 years younger.”
— washingtonpost.com
"We focused on a large urban population center (Toronto, Canada) and related the two domains by combining high-resolution satellite imagery and individual tree data from Toronto with questionnaire-based self-reports of general health perception, cardio-metabolic conditions and mental illnesses... View full entry
I'd like to tell you a story about death and architecture...hospital architecture has earned its reputation...if we want better buildings for dying then we have to talk about it....where we die is a key part of how we die. — Alison Killing @ TED Talks
In this talk, architect Alison Killing looks at buildings where death and dying happen — cemeteries, hospitals, homes. The way we die is changing, and the way we build for dying ... well, maybe that should too.For those interested in more about the architecture of death, check out... View full entry
“Our work creates actionable strategies, integrating healthy building protocols, healthy products and green science with design research to directly impact the health of our building materials,” said Alison Mears, dean of the School of Design Strategies at Parsons and director of the [Healthy Materials Lab]. — The New School’s Parsons School of Design
Co-founded by The New School's Parsons School of Design, Healthy Building Network, Green Science Policy Institute and Health Product Declaration Collaborative, the Healthy Materials Lab (HML) is focused on reducing the amount of toxic substances found in building materials, while also encouraging... View full entry
An initiative from Architecture for Health in Vulnerable Environments (ARCHIVE) is working to decrease infectious disease rates in Bangladesh through a simple housing intervention: concrete floors. Homes with dirt or mud floors are prime gateways for gastrointestinal and parasitic pathogens, and... View full entry
Sprinkling city parks with recycled water may create a breeding ground for hard-to-treat microbes [...] Even after the recycled water is treated in a sewage plant, it may carry microbes, drug-resistance genes and antibiotics that had washed down the drain. Sprayed into the environment, that water can spread microbes that could cause difficult-to-treat infections, the researchers say. — Science News
You won’t find any stairwells tucked away into the dark corners of George Washington University’s newest academic building.
That’s because those stairs have literally taken center stage in the $75 million Milken Institute School of Public Health — designed by Boston-based Payette Architects and D.C.-based Ayers Saint Gross Architects [...] one of the first things visitors see upon entering the 115,000 square-foot building are the staircases winding every which way up a seven-story atrium.
— bizjournals.com
No matter what country you live in, everyone deserves access to safe and secure healthcare. Re-emphasizing this global issue is Building Trust International's Moved to Care competition, which sought feasible design solutions for a portable healthcare facility for high-demand regions in Southeast Asia. — bustler.net
Out of over 200 registered entrants, a U.S. multidisciplinary team consisting of Patrick Morgan, Jhanéa Williams, and Simon Morgan won the Professional category. The jury also selected nine honorable mentions from around the world.For the Student category, ‘REFLEX’ by Christopher Knitt... View full entry
Our cities are damaging our health – that's the conclusion of a new report by the Royal Institute of British Architects which looks at the impact of the built environment on obesity and life expectancy. It found that the urban conurbations with the healthiest populations [...] had half the density of housing and a fifth more green spaces than the places where people were the most unfit, such as Liverpool (the highest rate of diabetes) and Birmingham (the lowest proportion of active adults). — independent.co.uk
The winners were recently announced in the fourth annual SEED Awards for Excellence in Public Interest Design. The SEED Awards acknowledges design projects that highlight pressing social, environmental, and economic issues in the world.
Winning projects received a US$1,000 honorarium and an all-expenses-paid trip for one team representative to present at the Structures for Inclusion conference in New York City on March 22-23, 2014.
— bustler.net
The jury selected six winning projects:Pictured above: Towns Association for Environmental Quality Green Building Headquarters, Sakhnin, IsraelComunidad Ecologica Saludable, Puenta Piedra, Lima, PeruCan City, Sao Paulo, BrazilManica Football for Hope Centre, Bairro Vumba (Vumba neighborhood)... View full entry
As America's East Coast continues to recover from Hurricane Sandy, MODU's recently completed "Weather (Un)control" exhibition of the Marfa Dialogues/NY highlights an overlooked issue of the storm's aftermath that still remains: the invisible contaminants in indoor air. — bustler.net
The installation features drawings made from artificial dust and static electricity to address the current shortsighted methods for indoor air quality inspection and a "right" to better indoor air. Photos by Brett Beyer. More info at Bustler. View full entry
Seven projects have been shortlisted for the World Design Impact Prize 2013-2014. The nominated projects were unveiled during the 28th General Assembly of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) in Montreal, Canada from Nov. 18-19.
The World Design Impact Prize raises awareness to the value of industrial design to provide solutions that address challenging global issues and social well-being.
— bustler.net
The shortlisted projects are: ABC (A Behaviour Changing) Syringe BioLite HomeStove Family By Family Laddoo Project Leveraged Freedom Chair Potty Project Refugee Housing Unit View full entry
Contemporary architecture and urban planning seem to address uncritically the conditions and context in which this discourse on health is developing. In most cases, the design disciplines rely on an abstract, scientific notion of health, and very literally adopt concepts such as “population,” “community,” “citizen,” “nature,” “green,” “development,” “city” and “body” into a professionalized, disciplinary discourse that simply echoes the ambiguities characteristic of current debate. — Places Journal
In its latest exhibition and book, Imperfect Health, the Canadian Centre for Architecture critiques what curators Mirko Zardini and Giovanna Borasi call a “new moralistic philosophy: healthism.” Zardini and Borasi trace the long relationship of environmental design to shifting social... View full entry
