Health indicators are pointing in the wrong direction. Healthcare costs are rising to unprecedented levels. To address these challenges, it’s become imperative that our municipal policies and initiatives be reconsidered. How can design help? As I see it, design provides a key preventative strategy. Designers can improve public health outcomes and enhance our everyday environments. The lens of design can help us focus and re-conceptualize the public health impacts of our cities and buildings. Healthy communities will help stem our raging epidemic of obesity and the chronic diseases that result from our sedentary lifestyles and bad diets.

But when you think of health, you may be thinking of the medical industry and the illnesses it treats. It’s time to turn this idea on its head. Let’s start focusing, instead, on preventative strategies that reduce the incidence of sickness in the first place.

A key policy, health by design, can be integrated directly into our cities, and architects can play a central role in designing healthier buildings and communities. Many of the problems we face today can be solved by simply looking at the amenities people already want from their cities: developments close to transit, shopping, restaurants, social services, and community services. These are essential parts of a comprehensive, systems-level solution. Active lifestyles rely, in large part, on expanding the options for when, where, and how people can live, work, and play.

Cities and towns looking to help their people stay healthy, now have access to a helpful document, produced by the American Institute of Architects. Local Leaders: Healthier Communities Through Design is a roadmap to design techniques that encourage residents to increase their physical activity. I see this new publication as a key resource for government officials, design professionals, and other stakeholders collaborating to address America’s public health challenges.

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Last week the American Institute of Architects gave SOM’s “Great Lakes Century – a 100-year Vision” its 2013 Institute Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design. Coincidentally, we named the project and the brilliant team behind it, lead by Phil Enquist, one of six Metropolis 2013 Game Changers, now in our January issue.

I first heard of the Enquist team’s ambitious plan in 2008, just as our world was receding into the financial turmoil that decimated the architecture profession and extinguished many a dream. Yet here was a small group of architects daring to dream, and enthusiastically telling me about their massive undertaking, as we gathered in the firm’s Chicago office, high in the city’s historic Santa Fe Building. Designed in 1904 by the legendary Daniel Burnham, whose spirit is palpable in the office’s sunlit atrium, but more importantly, it infuses the Great Lakes project. His words propelled the SOM team forward: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work.”

20 percent of the world’s fresh water is found in the Great Lakes, Courtesy of Earthsat/ESRI

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This fall, the American Institute of Architects announced a 10 year commitment to develop design and technology solutions for cities addressing public health, sustainability, and resiliency challenges. It’s the kind of commitment that many AIA members have long sought: putting human and environmental health and wellness at the center of the architecture mission. That the announcement was made at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York, gave it cache; more than 1,000 global leaders gathered to address the theme of “Designing for Impact.”

AIA is seeking to demonstrate the link between building design and the health of people who live or work there, and, says AIA CEO Robert Ivy, “bring the force of design to bear in the public health arena and debate.” The effort, called “Decade of Design” will involve funding and in-kind contributions from the AIA, Ivy says, through three initiatives: university research; community planning collaborations; and something called “Show Us Your APPtitude Hackathon,” designed to promote creative apps and technologies as springboards.

The first three recipients of research grants were announced. Texas A&M University’s project, Evaluating Health Benefits of Liveable Communities is a toolkit for measuring health impacts, which will include an empirical study of a LEED for Neighborhood Development project in Austin. The University of Arkansas’s Fayetteville 2030: Creating Food City Scenario Plan will study pathways to creating a local food infrastructure amid rapid growth. The University of New Mexico has a pilot program, Establishing Interdisciplinary Health-Architecture Curriculum.

For those who have long made the case that attending to issues of sustainability are the over-arching umbrella of any design or planning pursuit, finding ways to strengthen and illuminate these connections seems almost painfully obvious. But anyone familiar with architecture education and practice—where barriers to interdisciplinary collaboration are stiff—the links are too often ignored, overlooked, or poorly quantified. I asked Robert Ivy to talk about the impetus for this program.

Kira Gould: Why do you and the AIA see a need for funding the health/design connection at this time?

Robert Ivy: While many of us believe that the connections between health and design are there, what we need is proof. We want to help build up the data that will help us quantify and demonstrate, with rigorous case studies, the value of design in the context of these issues and the inherent relationship between architecture and public health. I’m inspired by the notion that we can participate in this.

I think it’s true—if not proven—that architecture can affect a community’s health, particularly in the area of ailments such as diabetes and heart disease. Basic design principles already encourage architects to consider health every day: we take into consideration how buildings have access to sunlight, fresh air, clean water. Ultimately, we want to be able to show and prove that buildings are making an impact. This requires evidence. We know, anecdotally, that certain types of places make people more productive. Quantifying this is the aim of this initiative.

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For the past ten years, evidence has been collecting in publications and exhibits that a new field of practice is emerging. It uses design as a tool to serve the public, including those who cannot afford design services. And it’s becoming clear that we now have a movement, not just a collection of well-documented projects and well-meaning people.  This is a new field of practice. The name that best describes it as a profession is public interest design. While many other catchy and descriptive names have been used such as community design, social impact, humanitarian, and pro bono, only public interest design bears the systemic permanence of a profession.

As this term enters the public discourse, will it be used by anybody to mean anything? Or, are there professional standards that need to be defined and understood – especially by the public – if this quickly emerging field is to make the valuable contribution that it can?

We don’t have to look very far into the past to see why clarity and definition are essential. Just ten years ago, “green design” could be falsely applied to anything; therefore it became almost meaningless. The term only acquired meaning when professional performance standards were defined.

Here it’s useful to look at other emerging professions and the steps necessary when these professions passed through similar moments of creation.

Doctor injecting a patient with placebo as part of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, photo via wikipedia originally sourced from the US National Archives.

Take public interest health, for example. In 1932 the U.S. Public Health Service started a study of rural low-income men in Tuskegee, Alabama, who had syphilis. The 600 men involved thought they were receiving free health care, but in reality they were just being monitored like lab rats. When penicillin was discovered as a cure in 1947, the study continued for another 25 years without ever treating the men as patients, allowing many to die awful deaths and infect family members. Those conducting the study considered it to be in the public’s interest; and the last director went to his grave never acknowledging that ethical mistakes were made.

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Exterior of Brightcove’s new Global Headquarters in Boston’s Innovation District,
Photo courtesy of CBT Architects; © Mark Flannery

Cities everywhere are entering a new era of unprecedented collaboration as well as competition. If they are to thrive, they need to be great places. Knowing this, local governments are working with architects, urban thinkers, technology mavens, and other key players in the private sector to design and construct sustainable buildings and districts as platforms for the future. A synergistic symphony of urban design and development is commencing, harnessing creativity, lowering economic barriers, and generating productive energy with healthy, inspiring environments. Cities, much like states in the past, are now becoming the laboratory for innovation and change.

A new initiative, Cities as a Lab, is under development by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), with a full rollout planned for 2013. The project grew from the realization that policy experimentation and implementation has migrated downward from states to regions and municipalities that have become the powerhouses of democracy and experimentation. Our cities project aims to demonstrate through research findings, case studies, partnerships, and potential demonstration projects the power and importance of urban areas in a fully functioning polity. The melding of innovative design with the increasing power of technological solutions will be a key feature of this program.

The WarRoom inside Brightcove’s office in Boston.
Photo courtesy of Elkus Manfredi Architects; © Jasper Sanidad

For this program to work, we must tap into the talents of technology startups and innovation companies that have become the new post-industrial districts of the knowledge economy. At the forefront of this change is Boston’s new Innovation District boasting some 100 firms and 3,000 new jobs. The district hosts the largest start-up accelerator and competition in the world; its Innovation Center offers a supportive environment for entrepreneurs. The city’s once stagnating waterfront is rapidly becoming an economic powerhouse, a place to be, with livable mixed-use infrastructure, micro housing, restaurants, and cultural venues to attract a high-energy workforce.

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This fall season’s shows and programs promise to bring important educational opportunities for anyone interested in the built environment. The most intense learning opportunities in New York City are coming to the Center for Architecture, home to the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIANYC). Among the upcoming programs is the exhibition Beyond Zuccotti Park, September 10–22, looks at public space as a follow-up to the Occupy Wall Street protests which put New York City in the national headlines.

I have been involved with the Center’s programs (as a member of the Exhibitions Committee and program moderator) since it opened in 2003. On each visit to the building on LaGuardia Place, I discover a hive of activities on street level, in the basement, and sub-basement alike. As I watched the number of scaffoldings multiply this summer on New York City streets, I wondered how and to what extent the local architecture community is involved in this seemingly positive happening , and as I began to anticipate the fall’s activities, I approached Rick Bell, the Center’s executive director, to discuss what an active group of architects can do for themselves, their profession, their city, and the world.

Susan S. Szenasy: In this summer of powerful downpours, I have often been saved from getting drenched by the many scaffolds that line New York City sidewalks these days. Hundreds of buildings are getting fixed up. Are architects involved in these projects? If they are, how? If not, why not?

Rick Bell: The scaffoldings that cover our sidewalks usually indicate that building façade repair work is going on above. The 6,000 “sidewalk sheds” in New York City stretch over a million linear feet, more than the distance from Brooklyn to Baltimore. They protect pedestrians from the risk of falling debris caused by masonry re-pointing and other building maintenance.

Periodic inspections of street-facing walls have been obligatory since a Barnard student, Grace Gold, was killed in 1979 by falling masonry on Broadway and 115th Street. Local Law 11 of 1998 toughened the regulations, and since 2008 some 12,500 buildings are required to have timely repair. Many architects conduct the inspections, as well as specify the remedial work necessary to assure public safety and allow for the removal of the protective scaffolding.

Standard-issue sidewalk sheds have long been criticized as unsightly. In fact, AIA New York partnered with the NYC Department of Buildings on the urbanSHED International Design Competition, launched in August 2009, to come up with a better and more environmentally appropriate 21st century version. Think of the scaffolding as a kind of umbrella – needed at some times, but put away when the rain stops. The winning scheme of the competition, in fact, was called Urban Umbrella (PDF) and architect Andrés Cortés, AIA is working to see his design realized citywide.

It is also worth noting that sidewalk sheds surround not only the locations where older buildings are being restored or repaired. Many new buildings continue to be erected in all five boroughs and architects in New York City are guardedly optimistic that an improving economy translates into more design opportunities and construction starts.

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Steven Holl, photograph courtesy of Mark Heithoff

This year, the American Institute of Architects conferred its highest honor – the AIA Gold Medal – upon Steven Holl. I had the opportunity to talk with Steven about his sources of inspiration, a mid-career enlightenment, and his recent recognition as one of the most celebrated “American” architects.

Andrew Caruso: Balancing your practice with teaching and art is clearly a part of the designer we know you to be. How do these explorations shape your design point of view?

Steven Holl: Every project is unique: a site and a circumstance, a culture, a climate, a program. All of these forces are unique and you need a concept to hold the manifold pieces together, an idea that makes the project significant in its place and for its purpose. That is always the way I begin projects.

Inside St. Ignatius chapel, photo by Paul Warchol

The chapel of St. Ignatius, for example, was built around the idea of seven bottles of light in a stone box, an idea very particular to their program. The idea that architecture can have a “religiosity”, that it can inspire a kind of reflection about the mystery of existence, is an important ingredient for a chapel.

St. Ignatius chapel, photo by Paul Warchol

With all projects, I explore deeply to find an original idea that can drive a design, an idea that can make the building mean more than it would if I was making a kind of style that I move from one site to the next. I’m not a signature architect because I don’t have a signature. Each project is unique. Each project has a relationship to the site, to the climate and to other forces.

Cité de l’Océan et du Surf, Place de l’Ocean, public plaza with restaurant, Biarritz, France, photo by Iwan Baan

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Do government incentives work? And which types of incentives work best? We at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) wanted to know the answers, so we partnered with the National Association of Counties to find out. We have known, anecdotally, for at least ten years, that the use of green building incentives have accelerated, mostly in jurisdictions that show a genuine and continued interest in making their environment more sustainable.

The Local Leaders in Sustainability research project, begun in 2007, seeks to examine green building practices in such communities. Their latest report, Green Building Incentive Trends: Strengthening Communities, Building Green Economies, is a tool for local governments looking to incentivize green design and construction in their communities. It focuses on five key areas: financial costs, oversight structure, local political and cultural environment, limits to power, and industry engagement.

We looked at cities and counties across the country to identify what works best and found some common threads of success. Communities that select incentives sensitive to the local government’s financial situation and communicate their environmental needs, clearly and simply, are more likely to see their plans implemented, than those who disregard these factors.

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Brownfield Site, photo from wikipedia

With the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spending $69.3 million to remedy brownfields across the United States, I was curious to find out how the American Institute of Architects (AIA) is involved with this important program. I emailed my questions to national AIA headquarters in Washington, D.C. Almost overnight the following responses arrived:

Susan S. Szenasy: The EPA recently announced an award of $200,000 to clean up a toxic, abandoned tribal administration building for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Tribe in Belcourt, North Dakota. In fact, there are now 245 EPA grantees, getting a total of $69.3 million EPA Brownfield grants. Are you aware of these programs and, if yes, how is the AIA involved in the restoration renovation projects?

Andrew Goldberg and Joel Mills: The AIA has long supported EPA brownfield programs, advocating to Congress for additional funding and for legislation to expand tax incentives for cleanup and redevelopment on brownfield sites.  Although the AIA does not directly get involved in specific EPA grantee projects as an organization, AIA members are frequently involved in working with communities that receive grants.

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Last week I received a press release from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) headlined, “Architects Oppose Effort to Repeal Energy Reduction Law for Federal Buildings.” This was in response to an action last week by the House Appropriations Committee, which approved the 2013 Energy and Water appropriations bill that included an amendment (sponsored by Congressman Rodney Alexander, a Republican from Louisiana) prohibiting the use of appropriated funds to implement Section 433 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

What is Section 433 and why should architects care? The provision is in many ways—all of them good, in my view—a radical one. It mandates a fossil fuel-free future for federal buildings. According to the law, all new federal buildings and older buildings undergoing renovations of more than $2.5 million are required to substantially cut their use of fossil fuels. The provision sets rigorous, targeted goals that culminate in a 100% reduction by 2030. For all practical purposes, this represents nothing less than the federal adoption of Edward Mazria’s 2030 Challenge.

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