Measuring the Impact of the Built Environment on Health, Wellbeing, and Performance


Book Description

This book reveals how subjective and objective data gathered by innovative methods of measurement give us the ability to quantify stress, health, performance, and wellbeing outcomes in different built environments. Design interventions informed by these measures, along with innovative integrated building materials, can shape the character of built environments for better health, productivity, and performance. These measures can help employers and managers calculate the return on investment (ROI) of various design interventions. Areas of inquiry in health and the built environment are discussed in three parts: Part 1 – Fundamentals: Human, Environment, and Material Measures for Health and Wellbeing; Part 2 – Methods: Measurement Techniques, Tools, and Methods for Health and Wellbeing; and Part 3 – Applications: Case Studies and Future Directions. The rapid pace of technical innovation and entrepreneurship by interdisciplinary research teams in health and the built environment has created a need for more publications such as this book, which discuss latest tools and methods of measuring the effects of the built environment on human physiology and psychology. Emerging tools and techniques are introduced for this field of built environment design, including virtual reality immersive environments and fisheye lens photograph simulations for human wellbeing impact measures integral to the design process. The potentials and limitations of bio‐responsive material systems and integrated sensing devices with wearable technologies linked to the Internet of Things are discussed in relation to human wellbeing performance improvements. The book provides both the foundational knowledge and fundamentals for characterizing human health and wellbeing in the built environment as well as emerging trends and design research methods for innovations in this field. It will be of interest to researchers, educators, and students of architecture, interior design, and integrative medicine, as well as professionals working in health and the built environment.




Urban Smellscapes


Book Description

We see the city, we hear the city, but above all: we smell the city. Scent has unique qualities: ubiquity, persistence, and an unparalleled connection to memory, yet it has gone overlooked in discussions of sensory design. What scents shape the city? How does scent contribute to placemaking? How do we design smell environments in the city? Urban Smellscapes makes a notable contribution towards the growing body of literature on the senses and design by providing some answers to these questions and contributing towards the wider research agenda regarding how people sensually experience urban environments. It is the first of its kind in examining the role of smell specifically in contemporary experiences and perceptions of English towns and cities, highlighting the perception of urban smellscapes as inter-related with place perception, and describing odour’s contribution towards overall sense of place. With case studies from factories, breweries, urban parks, and experimental smell environments in Manchester and Grasse, Urban Smellscapes identifies processes by which urban smell environments are managed and controlled, and gives designers and city managers tools to actively use smell in their work.




Phygital Intelligence


Book Description

This open access book is a compilation of selected papers from 2023 DigitalFUTURES — The 5nd International Conference on Computational Design and Robotic Fabrication (CDRF 2023). The work focuses on novel techniques for computational design and robotic fabrication. The contents make valuable contributions to academic researchers, designers, and engineers in the industry. As well, readers will encounter new ideas about understanding intelligence in architecture.




Welcome to Your World


Book Description

One of the nation’s chief architecture critics reveals how the environments we build profoundly shape our feelings, memories, and well-being, and argues that we must harness this knowledge to construct a world better suited to human experience Taking us on a fascinating journey through some of the world’s best and worst landscapes, buildings, and cityscapes, Sarah Williams Goldhagen draws from recent research in cognitive neuroscience and psychology to demonstrate how people’s experiences of the places they build are central to their well-being, their physical health, their communal and social lives, and even their very sense of themselves. From this foundation, Goldhagen presents a powerful case that societies must use this knowledge to rethink what and how they build: the world needs better-designed, healthier environments that address the complex range of human individual and social needs. By 2050 America’s population is projected to increase by nearly seventy million people. This will necessitate a vast amount of new construction—almost all in urban areas—that will dramatically transform our existing landscapes, infrastructure, and urban areas. Going forward, we must do everything we can to prevent the construction of exhausting, overstimulating environments and enervating, understimulating ones. Buildings, landscapes, and cities must both contain and spark associations of natural light, greenery, and other ways of being in landscapes that humans have evolved to need and expect. Fancy exteriors and dramatic forms are never enough, and may not even be necessary; authentic textures and surfaces, and careful, well-executed construction details are just as important. Erudite, wise, lucidly written, and beautifully illustrated with more than one hundred color photographs, Welcome to Your World is a vital, eye-opening guide to the spaces we inhabit, physically and mentally, and a clarion call to design for human experience.




Placemaking Fundamentals for the Built Environment


Book Description

This book is for all those actively working in the built environment. It presents the latest theory and practice of engaging with stakeholders to co-design, develop and manage thriving places. It starts from the importance of integrating design of nature into practice built on a foundation of First Nations understanding of place. The art of engagement of community, government and the development industry is discussed with reference to case studies and best practice techniques. The book then focuses on the critical role placemaking has in supporting resilience and adaptability of communities and looks at issues of leadership and governance. Building on these steps for placemaking, the last parts of the book address economics, evaluation, digital and art based tools and approaches to support projects that aim to create an engaged, contributive, collaborative and active citizen.




Occupant-Centric Simulation-Aided Building Design


Book Description

Occupant-Centric Simulation-Aided Building Design promotes occupants as a focal point for the design process. This resource for established and emerging building designers and researchers provides theoretical and practical means to restore occupants and their needs to the heart of the design process. Helmed by leaders of the International Energy Agency Annex 79, this edited volume features contributions from a multi-disciplinary, globally recognized team of scholars and practitioners. Chapters on the indoor environment and human factors introduce the principles of occupant-centric design while chapters on selecting and applying models provide a thorough grounding in simulation-aided building design practice. A final chapter assembling detailed case studies puts the lessons of the preceding chapters into real-world context. In fulfillment of the International Energy Agency’s mission of disseminating research on secure and sustainable energy to all, Occupant-Centric Simulation-Aided Building Design is available as an Open Access Gold title. With a balance of fundamentals and design process guidelines, Occupant-Centric Simulation-Aided Building Design reorients the building design community toward buildings that recognize and serve diverse occupant needs, while aiming for superior environmental performance, based on the latest science and methods.




Aesthetics, Well-being and Health


Book Description

In everyday life, most people do not reflect seriously on the impacts of architecture and environmental aesthetics on their well-being and health. Originally published in 2001 as part of the Ethnoscapes: Current Challenges in the Environmental Social Sciences series, reissued now with a new series introduction, Aesthetics, Well-being and Health: Essays within Architecture and Environmental Aesthetics, is an intriguing volume bringing together professionals working in architecture, planning, urban design and social policy with academics from both humanities and social sciences to provide a broad-based and insightful discussion on how aesthetics affect us emotionally and physically. The essays help us understand our cultural and individual preferences related to the quality of the environment and challenge the common belief that environmental beauty is a matter of personal taste. A wide range of concepts are discussed such as place identity, multi-sensuous and emotional processes, geometrical order and controlled space, architectural plasticity, aesthetically real and virtual values, participative design processes, ethics in architecture, and beauty and happiness. The book highlights the importance for today's society to engage more in aesthetic ethics and to understand the significance of creating aesthetically pleasing environments.




RIBA Climate Guide


Book Description

Climate change is a threat to humankind, which requires immediate action. The built environment has a vital role to play in responding to the climate emergency. There is a pressing need for architects to acquire the requisite skills and knowledge to design buildings that deliver sustainable outcomes, meeting the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge and mandatory competence in climate literacy. Equipping you with the key information that built environment professionals require to halt climate change and mitigate its impacts in your day-to-day work, this book is organised around six overarching topics: 1. Human Factors 2.Circular Economy 3.Energy and Carbon 4.Water 5.Ecology and Biodiversity 6.Connectivity and Transport Featuring images and original illustrations, each themed section will guide you through fundamental elements and competencies for creating a sustainable design and delivery framework that can be implemented by you in your practice. Contextualising the climate emergency within the built environment landscape, the guide maps out the essential background knowledge around climate science, international agreements, legislations, commitments and roadmaps. A collection of short, building- and urban-scale case studies present key takeaways, illustrating real-life applications of design strategies and industry-wide tools, as well as standards that are deployed in climate-conscious built environments all around the world.




Architecture for Health and Well-Being


Book Description

This book explores the importance of architecture designed for the well-being of users. The creation of healthy architecture involves aspects of design, materials, environmental parameters, and intended use of both outdoor and indoor spaces to facilitate a healthy environment. The book provides a unique perspective on architecture that promotes the welfare and security of those using the space, which has proved especially important during the recent COVID-19 pandemic wherein many people were confined indoors. Each chapter in the volume explains from a different angle a topic that takes into consideration how to provide benefit to human beings to achieve a better quality of life within constructions. The first part of the volume provides an overview of the role of architecture to achieve well-being. The book goes on to discuss how to adapt spaces to address urban thermal environments. The book also looks at the use of alternative materials with disinfectant characteristics, which is an important consideration during pandemics and for general health every day. The issue of affordable housing with resilient designs is also addressed as are how the use of good logistics produces healthy spaces. Key features: Describes design conditions that enhance quality of life Considers architectural design for maximizing comfort conditions in different types of climate Reviews the characteristics of materials that contribute to healthy construction Provides attractive ideas on how to create spaces in an organic way Architecture for Health and Well-Being: A Sustainable Approach helps to provide answers to the question of how can we design, plan, and sustain built environments that will foster health and healing. It provides basic information with the aim to generate change in attitudes in those who architectural designers, architectural researchers, city planners, and others.