by Shane Henson — October 11, 2013—For facilities managers who would like insight into possible upcoming design changes in the buildings that they manage, a new video created by the American Institute of Architects highlights emerging trends and the important role architects and building design can play in helping to make America’s cities healthier as well as more sustainable and more resilient places to live and work.
“Design as Long-Term, Preventative Medicine” is the theme behind the video, Decade of Design: The AIA Global Urban Solutions Challenge, which underscores the importance of the “Decade of Design” Commitment to Action the AIA made at last year’s Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting to develop design and technology solutions for cities that address challenges faced on public health, sustainability, and resiliency to natural disasters. The research is the basis of a report that the video describes on the ongoing research collaboration between the AIA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU).
“When it comes to the design and form of cities, there are no silver bullets or universal templates to urban health problems: each city has unique formal characteristics and fabrics that affect its urban health,” said AIA Chief Executive Officer Robert Ivy. “This research allows us to draw fundamental design solutions from a rich inventory of planning approaches in several American cities.”
Early intervention by the design community, the video argues, is crucial whenever a major effort at urban renaissance is being planned or undertaken. It is the architect’s expertise in solving land use dilemmas, forging public consensus, and predicting the impact of various planning approaches that will help determine whether urban America can truly offer healthy, livable environments once again.
The report covers research that so far has been conducted in eight American cities: Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston and New York. Teams of researchers have fanned out in each city to gather data about each city’s major design projects. The next step is to determine which city will serve as the ultimate laboratory for design solutions that can have a major impact on public health, says the AIA.
