Submission Deadline: May 23, 2018
鈥淥f all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhumane.鈥
鈥 Martin Luther King
Introduction
The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (糖心vlog) is pleased to announce the Design & Health Student Competition for the 2017-2018 academic year. Administered by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (糖心vlog) and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) along with the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the program is intended to challenge students, working individually or in teams, to explore a variety of design issues related to healthy communities.
The Challenge
Landscapes of Risk and Protection
Public health has come to recognize place聽as an important determinant of health. While assessments of health have traditionally emphasized individual behavior and risk factors, we now understand that risks and protection are also socially determined. Risk is the 鈥減robability of damage or harm in a specified period鈥 and is elevated in places lacking protection or resilience (Fitzpatrick and LaGory). Risk and protection are functions of spatial structure, itself constrained by group status and income level, neighborhood conditions, and other social forces. Important forms of protection, like individual immunity and social organization, are compromised by chronic socio-environmental stressors common in high-risk neighborhoods. Stressors tend to intersect and cascade, including violence, childhood underdevelopment, food and housing insecurity, environmental toxins, and poor social affiliations. Richard Wilkinson鈥檚 work on the interrelationship between social structure and illness shows that wealthy countries with the largest income and equality gaps鈥攄espite the highest expenditures on medical care鈥攅xperience the poorest overall health outcomes. The paradox of material success is that it has decreased life span and wellness among disadvantaged populations. Yet, egalitarian societies, rich and poor alike, have not exhibited these differences in wellness. Context then is a more impactful shaper of health differences than individual behavioral differences related to drinking, smoking, and exercising, according to studies cited by Wilkerson in his聽The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier. Since health status is in large part predicted by one鈥檚 zip code, neighborhood design matters.
Conversely, populations of all income levels have experienced an epidemic of preventable 鈥渓ifestyle diseases鈥 (high blood pressure, cardiovascular illness, obesity, diabetes, etc.) due to abundances in food, automobiles, technology, and energy鈥攁 challenge of affluence. If human evolution and behavior were shaped by scarcity, then abundance poses new challenges to our consumer habits and general decision making (Offer). Affluence unchecked by decision making that values resilience generates fragility. Resiliency is the ability of systems and beings to recover from disruption or shock, while fragility represents a system鈥檚 diminution, even fatality, from disruption. Resilient systems are redundant, encompassing options and back-ups in functioning. Resilient systems honor local carrying capacities or limits. And resilient systems use feedback for self-correction (i.e., they are learning systems). Arguably, design should aim for聽antifragility聽since cities are a complex system that can gain from disorder (Taleb). The operating systems organizing our places are more determinative of our health than we had previously thought.
For instance, auto-dominant metropolitan fabrics do not readily accommodate walkability nor encourage physical activity as lifestyle options. Auto-dominant street networks create higher health risks, while Complete Streets policy that democratizes access for pedestrians and bicyclists offers significant protection. Meanwhile, the loss of place-based food systems to industrialized production has homogenized food products. Not only has industrialized agriculture led to declines in nutrition and food security, but also erosions in general health and culture. Local growing alternatives to industrial production offer important protections. On the matter of water and the city, urbanism tends to eliminate watershed functioning and the 17 life-affirming ecological services that all healthy ecosystems deliver, including flood and disease control (Costanza et al.). Repair of degraded urban streams can be a powerful force (protection) for reinventing physical environments and ecological performance in post-industrial cities. Consider that the greatest ongoing challenge to design and planning is design within human-dominated ecosystems. Future urbanism will be tasked with delivering ecological services in addition to conventional urban services related to transportation, land use development, commerce, and housing.
Beyond matters of physical health, the status of mental health is undervalued in the design of places. Former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, declared loneliness a serious health epidemic, a 鈥渕ore common pathology than heart disease or diabetes鈥 in his practice experience. Loneliness directly impacts mental and physical health, and is a gateway condition to deviant behavior. Here, housing is an important form of protection when designed for affordability and sociability. The U.S. will need more than 40 million housing units over the next 30 years, especially for aging populations. This presents opportunities to explore new modes of well-being and social connectivity through innovative residential formats that remake place, suburban and urban (Maak; and University of Arkansas Community Design Center a). The mediatization of social environments has eclipsed investment in physical public space, arguably the best predictor of community resilience. The public health community is telling us that solutions for today鈥檚 thorniest public health challenges are based in design thinking, rather than the medical model. Are architects and allied design professionals prepared to engage these challenges?
In-Text Citations:
- Fitzpatrick, Kevin and Mark LaGory. Unhealthy Cities: Poverty, Race, and Place in America,聽Routledge, 2010.
- Taleb, Nassim Nicholas.聽Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder,聽Random House, 2012.
- Costanza, Robert, Ralph D鈥橝rge, Rudolf De Groot, Stephen Farber, Monica Grasso, Bruce Hannon, Karin Limburg, Shadid Naeem, Robert O鈥橬eill, Jose Paruelo, Robert Gaskin, Paul Sutton, and Marjan Van Den Belt. 鈥淭he value of the world鈥檚 ecosystem services and natural capital鈥,聽狈补迟耻谤别,听387 (May 15, 1997).
- Maak, Niklas. Living Complex: From Zombie City to the New Communal,聽Hirmer, 2015.
Awards
First, second, and third prizes will be awarded, in addition to a selected number of honorable mentions, at the discretion of the jury. Winners and their faculty sponsors will be notified of the competition results directly. A list of winning projects will be posted on the 糖心vlog web site at www.acsa-arch.org. A total of $7,000 will be distributed in the following manner:
First Prize | Second Prize | Third Prize | |
Student | $2,500 | $1,500 | $750 |
Faculty Sponsor | $1,000 | $750 | $500 |
Jurors
Stephen D. Luoni
University of Arkansas
Justin Garrett Moore
Public Design Commission, NYC
Traci Rider
North Carolina State University
Eligibility
The Designing Healthy Places Competition is open to current students, from an 糖心vlog member school worldwide. Students need to be upper level (third year or above, including graduate students) and are required to work under the direction of a faculty sponsor. Entries will be accepted for individual as well as team solutions. Teams must be limited to a maximum of five students. Submissions should be principally the product of work in a design studio or related class.
Questions? Please Contact:
Eric Wayne Ellis
Director of Operations and Programs
eellis@acsa-arch.org
202.785.2324
Allison Smith
Programs Manager
asmith@acsa-arch.org
202.785.2324
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Founded in 1912 by 10 charter members, 糖心vlog is an international association of architecture schools preparing future architects, designers, and change agents. Our membership includes all of the accredited professional degree programs in the United States and Canada, as well as international schools and 2- and 4-year programs. Together 糖心vlog schools represent some 7,000 faculty educating more than 40,000 students.
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