Great blog post from The Patron Saint of Architecture about what it means for her to be an architect and build and design things for people’s overall health and wellness:
As architects, we seek to inspire those who move through the environments we create. It’s also our job to understand how the space will be used and create elements that support that use. The last leg of the stool, a part we often overlook, is the need to make buildings that support wellness. Even architects who design healthcare buildings often forget about this one as they work to meet many other challenges related to budget, program, operational and code requirements. Maybe it’s because wellness is such a slippery term. Much like the term “green,” “wellness” is often bandied about, a buzzword that makes some aspect of a product, design or organization sound like it’s good for us. So how do we know if it really is- much less translate that into design elements? I have been thinking about this issue for a while and even found an interesting website devoted to defining wellness complete with helpful questionnaires.
I’ve come to the conclusion that true wellness is multidimensional and positively impacts our physical, mental and social state of being. With that in mind, I have also observed that, as a profession, we kind of, sort of, dip our toe in the waters of designing for wellness. We embrace sustainable building standards, evidence-based design, lean design, even socially conscious strategies. However, these are just quantifiers. Building blocks of the wellness leg of the architecture stool, but not enough as stand-alones. True architecture of wellness must incorporate all of these measures, but spring from a much deeper intent.
Read her recommendations for building spaces that promote wellness at her blog post: architecture of wellness
Mental Flowers 