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micro-environments

 

"dB" by Mattieu Lehanneur is a mirco-environment
which emits white noise to counteract noise pollution

Failure to recognize noise pollution as a key contributor to hearing loss, heart disease, academic performance  and stress  shows a distinct lack of corporate responsibility regarding human and environmental needs (e.g. anti-smoking bans took decades to implement despite mounting evidence). And it’s not just at the top end of the acoustic spectrum. Even low-level “everyday traffic noise can cause stress in children and raise blood pressure, heart rates and levels of stress hormones. Science Daily

Light Pollution

Light Pollution by cestomano

Research into the effects of artificial lighting on human circadian rhythms has shown increasing incidents of fatigue, depression and lowered immunity. Clearly humans are not well adapted to the new pressures of the 24-hour workplace. Disruptions in lighting also cause problems with Growth Hormone (GH) and melatonin levels which seriously affect how our bodies age and fight cancers. But perhaps more dramatically, any disturbance of cortisol can cause stress, high blood pressure and obesity, indicating that “light pollution"  has completely altered our experience of the environment on both aesthetic (e.g. luminous fog)  and biological levels:

"Light intrusion, even if dim, is likely to have measurable effects on sleep disruption and melatonin suppression. Even if these effects are relatively small from night to night, continuous chronic circadian, sleep and hormonal disruption may have longer-term health risks"

In a statement from the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), the use of bluish-white outdoor lighting increasingly threatens human and animal life. While Philips Dynamic Lighting is an attempt to counteract the effects of static lighting scenarios, responsibility for population health must surely reside with city planning departments and ultimately Government.

Lockley, S., “Blinded by the Light?” (CfDS handbook, 2009)

dynamic lighting

The Dynamic Lighting concept by Philips is an advanced lighting system that brings the dynamics of daylight into the working environment. Mirroring the diurnal rhythms found in nature, Dynamic Lighting recreates a stimulating ambience customizable to the individuals own preferences.

salutogenic design

Rikshospitalet University Hospital by Arvid Ottar (2004)
Much research has confirmed how hospitals with impractical layouts can stress patients and yet many new hospital designs still integrate unecessarily complex traffic patterns. Bad signage, blind staircases and dark corridors are just some of the recurring themes. The Rikshospitalet University Hospital however facilitates refreshingly good access and orientation. Inspired by the theme of a village, the hospital is laid out along an internal mainstreet punctuated by fountains, lampposts and sculptures. These devices not only visually stimulate patients but also act as reference points. At the end of the street is a vibrantly colouredstained glass, and a skylight spans the length of the main street, allowing soft light to bathe the corridors.

C02 Heatlh Centre by Ishii Kazuhiro (2000)
The concept of "Design Therapeutics", a confluence of Architecture and Neuroscience, i.e. Buildings Designed for Health, is becoming increasingly relevant in healthcare design. Traditionally however, heatlhcare architects use nature to provide stand-alone biophilic content, thus the buildings themselves are rarely therapeutic. This norm is challenged in projects like Kazuhiro's Co2 health centre, where real trees become integral to the buildings structure, erupting into the internal space itself to anchor a tensile fabric roof system.

Pioneer Health Centre by S. Williamson & I. Pearse (1935)
One of the most refreshing takes on design therapeutics materialised at the Pioneer Heatlh Centre, London. Although now converted into loft apartments, the prime motication for Williamson & Pearse wasconduct an experiment into the effect of environment on health. The Pioneer Health Centre (or Peckham Health Centre) was a bold departure in the medical field concentrating on a preventative (salutogenic), rather than a curative (pathogenic) approach to health. A giant swimming pool, covered by a glazed roof, was at the heart of the Centre. This, combined with long stretches of almost uninterrupted windows allowed light in.

Finsbury Health Centre by Berthold Lubetkin (1938)
Similar to Berthold Lubetkin's Finsbury Health Centre three years later, light was considered key to a healthier life. The windows could slide back to maximise the members' exposure to light and fresh air. Floors were covered in cork so that children could wander around barefoot, and other surfaces were left exposed and unadorned.

Change of Heart

Change of Heart by Marina Nicollier (2008)

From the project description:
The human body responds to its spatial and environmental surroundings in very subtle ways. Our most basic reactions to our environment can be read, essentially, in our vital signs; yet as many of these phenomena are subtle enough to be easily overlooked without some sort of monitoring device, they have been too often dismissed as fleeting emotional and sensorial effects that have little impact on our physiological system as a whole.

These qualities can do much more. They can act as an architectural base for a very important body of research, expanding beyond the limited range of possibilities imposed on them by existing models of medical environments.
To perform a test-run for these propositions, Nicollier has designed a "cardiology research facility adjacent to two major medical institutions in Mexico City."
You would wander through the building, hooked up to electrocardiographs, every flutter of heart valve and sweat gland monitored by doctors from afar.

Westside, Bern

Westside Shopping and Leisure Center is a multi-use facility that combines a shopping center with 60 shops, a food court, restaurants, a multiplex cinema, a hotel, wellness center, center and senior residence. Designed to replicate a medieval city, Westside adopts all the functions of a 21st century public space by incorporating multi-level rooms, alleys and plazas, which are accentuated by the changing daylight that reaches all of the unique spaces through skylights and clearstories. “Westside is an exciting 21st century community that dramatically reinvents the concept of shopping, entertainment, wellness and living,” said architect Daniel Libeskind. 

Philips Simplicity

Ambient Experience by Philips focuses on the values and needs of both patients and medical staff, addressing the total experience flow. They integrate architecture and technology (e.g. lighting, sound, vision, RFID) to create spaces that the patient can personalize, wrapping the patient in a relaxing ambience. This puts patients at ease and so it helps speed up procedures.

Richard Neutra

Singleton House Richard Neutra, 1959
Form Follows Libido is a facinating book by architectural theorist Sylvia Lavin which documents how some architects directed the abstraction of high modernism away from a neutral formalism toward the production of more erotic, affective environments. Focusing on California-based Richard Neutra (1892-1970) she explores the genesis of these new mood-inducing environments set against a background of fetishized domestic architecture and popularist therapeutic culture of 50's America.

Kaufmann House, Richard Neutra, 1946
She reveals how Neutra's redirection of modernism constituted not a lyrical regression to sentimentality but a deliberate advance of architectural theory and technique to engage the unconscious mind, fueled by the ideas of psychoanalysis that were disseminated at the time.

"Eight million Americans a year cool their heels in psychiatric waiting rooms. Design can help lower this nervous overhead." Richard Neutra, 1954

Narrative Based Medicine

H.story is a project by Density Design promoting the diffusion of Narrative Based Medicine in Italian hospitals so patients can express themselves, and ultimately engage in a selfhealing process. The goal is to produce and provide informative material on the Narrative Medicine, to awaken patients and people outside the hospital through events and informative campaigns. Narratives have the potential to offer methods for addressing existential qualities such as inner hurt, despair, hope, grief, and moral pain which frequently accompany, and may even constitute, people's illnesses.

Vidar Clinic

The Vidar Clinic (1984) by Erik Asmussen
For the design of the Vidar Clinic Asmussen developed the architectural ideas of Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), the Austrian-born scholar and artist, who founded anthroposophy, a body of spiritually based knowledge. In his lifetime Asmussen sought to create spiritually restorative and healing environments in over 100 buildings whose forms, colors, materials and spaces would help bring into balance their users’ faculties of thinking, feeling and willing.