Body, Mind, & Built Environment

Catalog description

In the course ARCH 754 students engage in explorations of the built environment, the health ecosystem and both its linked stakeholders, the processes and relationships which are undertaken as a transdisciplinary, silo-leaping inquiry into the origins, emergence and differences in health. While new science aligns health states a result of the longitudinal impact of the environment and lifestyle of individuals, correlations between design and disease are investigated by mapping user experiences and affective capacities, thereby evaluating all the good or bad encounters and flows that enhance and diminish health and wellbeing over the life course. The class learns and explores emerging methods in order to identify how urban, architecture or health system affectors translate into design practices for the built environment that induce health disparities and general negative health impacts among individuals. Besides qualitative data and inquiries into human experiences, also quantitative and population data via federal and open access databases or imaging data will be integrated with data visualization to facilitate change effective strategies and communications.