Designing for Health: Investigating Strategies to Create Healthy People, Landscapes and Ecosystems

Abstract

This thesis explores the relationship between health and the built environment and the capacity and challenges faced by the designer to positively affect this relationship. Health is viewed in a holistic sense, understanding that economic structures, social fabrics, ecological systems and general well-being are directly linked with physical and mental health. The hope is that an increased understanding of health consequences within the design process will achieve more comprehensive and salubrious results. This research thesis gives a background of the relationship between health and design, identifies the potential need for a third party mediator, creates an evidence based design framework for designers to better understand the health implications of their design actions, and tests the framework on a group of landscape architecture graduate students doing their capstone project on a Superfund site outside of Portland Oregon.