Architects as Healers: Buildings as Medicine

BY ANGELA MAZZI AND MEGAN MAZZOCCO

As future-proofing cities becomes critical to securing quality of life amid density, grassroots groups and policymakers have the potential to bring vitality, health, and resilience to communities in urban areas.

There are personal and external factors that can be detrimental to health. Studies show that when the personal impacts (such as social connection, safety, education, financial stability, diet, housing stability, and transportation) are combined with external impacts (such as the effects of light and noise pollution, traffic, air and water quality, and the amount of green space), the body produces very real biological responses that impact everything from how we age, epigenetics, inflammation, metabolics, gut microbiome, and gene expression. These factors are precursors to many health problems and diseases.

To understand why that impact occurs, think of a video game like Super Mario Bros. You navigate the world with a “resource bank.” If you have a lot of resources and you encounter a threat, it doesn’t really impact you. On the other hand, if you don’t have resources (back to those social factors), you will be severely impacted. This is why one person can be more resilient than another in the same situation. The good news is that we can leverage the built environment to embed those resources, building resiliency for the people that live in your cities.

Blue Urbanism

Why do we want to resource our citizens for resilience? We want to create quality of life and longevity, which together equal a healthspan. Rather than lifespan, a healthspan is living a long, independent, high-quality life. This is happening around the world in places called Blue Zones. What if we could reimagine and create a Blue Zone in your city?

According to the WHO, air and noise pollution are the number one and two causes of death worldwide. Noise pollution impacts sleep habits, which is problematic because sleep is the top predictor of physical and mental health. Light pollution is also a nuisance to sleep, and several studies have shown that continued exposure to artificial light increases the risk for prostate and breast cancers. Flicker is also a health disruptor to highly sensitive people and can trigger those with seizure disorders.

The design of the built environment can exacerbate these kinds of public health epidemics, but it can also work to resolve them. For example, smart footprints like green walls can mitigate air and noise pollution simultaneously. Other strategies involve softening semipermeable boundaries around buildings with greenery, benches, and walking paths, making for a more desirable and pleasant pedestrian experience.

Active Design

A lot of the things we talk about in our club are ways we can activate health by creating pedestrian-friendly spaces that encourage people to socialize in a way that’s normal and natural, thus expanding a person’s support network for more of a safety net.

We can see the difference between big-box shopping centers and a more pedestrianactive streetscape. A shopping center is destination-based and encourages car culture, which is sedentary, polluting the air,

Active Design

On Rue Montorgueil in Paris, we see an example of a thriving pedestrian-active streetscape.

Blue Urbanism

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has recognized Milan’s Bosco Verticale for its balconies that extend beyond the envelope and have planters with full-size trees up each facade, creating a veritable vertical forest in the middle of the city. The greenery purifies the air, improving the air quality, and the foliage acts as an acoustic buffer in absorbing excess noise and vibration.

© BOERI STUDIO/DIMITAR HARIZANOV

not providing a meaningful place for social interaction, and creating a heat island through the asphalt. And yet, this is how people have become accustomed to consuming space. On the other hand, giving people opportunities where it is fun and meaningful to be on the street, where you can encounter interesting things and it is easy to get exercise and cultural stimulation without having to go through great effort helps us have healthier spaces.

When we live in a freeway world, we lose the scale of humanity. When we can change that scale and get people biking or walking, they can experience the environment at a more granular scale where they can start to recognize faces, patronize certain shops, and encourage local businesses to want to be in their neighborhoods.

Urban Acupunctures

Architecture professor Diana Agrest talked about “ urban acupunctures,” where you take a needle-sized intervention into a city that has a huge effect on the energy and the vibrancy of the pedestrian experience.

Some urban acupunctures are parklets, streeteries, or even activating alleyways by stringing lights overhead. Another example is creating a term I call “dynamic midscapes,” which was discussed by Erik Olsen in his articles for Fast Company. He called it the “mid-doors,” spaces that join several buildings under a semipermeable glass roof, providing natural ventilation, daylight, and gardens at a pedestrian scale, which adds visual interest and opportunities for a vibrant civic life.

One of our guests on “Architects as Healers: Building as Medicine” was Laura Guido-Clark, who has an organization called Color Corps, which revitalizes underserved buildings to create more vibrant and energetic spaces. Another company, Studio Gang, designed a series of sports courts in Chicago called Polis Station, which provides the opportunity not only for physical fitness and safety in the community but also has the residual effect of mentorship between the police and the younger people in the neighborhood.

In Europe, they have a program to introduce community gardens, which brings people together intergenerationally. It’s also a sleep tool because people who garden are shown to have better-quality sleep. This one urban acupuncture improves air quality, acts as a noise buffer, and provides an activity that also promotes healthy sleep hygiene.

The Center for Conscious Design, a decentralized global grassroots think tank, is a fantastic resource of people, including behavioral economists, theoretical economists, neuroscientists, architects, designers, and planners. Reach out to your local chapter or create one yourself and generate more ideas and resources for urban acupunctures and dynamic midscapes so that you can create your city as a Blue Zone.

Join the Conversation

Angela and Megan host the Clubhouse room “Architects as Healers: Buildings as Medicine” every Monday at 9 a.m. EST where they discuss issues around the culture of design, therapeutic landscapes, social justice, and more.

Angela Mazzi

Principal, GBBN

Cincinnati, Ohio

As an architect, devoted yogi, and practitioner of ancient Chinese art of feng shui, Angela Mazzi’s work incorporates “salutogenesis” (health-generating design) to target architectural strategies that impact well-being. Being part of “the profession that eats its own” has been a source of inspiration and frustration throughout Mazzi’s career, prompting her to found The Patron Saint of Architecture in 2010.

Megan Mazzocco is an architecture and design journalist fascinated by the power of the built environment as a conduit to positive health outcomes. She began teaching in a corporate setting in 2018, and when she observed her positive impact, she started yogaXdesign to guide architects and designers to a path of ease through yoga. Her “A+D Toolkit for Daily Creative Renewal” offers a restorative experience for design professionals.

Megan Mazzocco

Sustainability and Wellness Director, Spring Architecture + Design

Chicago, Illinois