Greening the Built Environment by Maf Smith & John Whitelegg & Nick J. Williams

Author:Maf Smith & John Whitelegg & Nick J. Williams [Smith, Maf & Whitelegg, John & Williams, Nick J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regional Planning, Public Policy, Political Science
ISBN: 9781134177264
Google: jXb7AQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 20842009
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1998-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

CONTEMPORARY URBAN HEALTH – BUILDINGS

The previous section examined health in contemporary cities viewed as whole systems. This section examines the major physical components of our cities’ buildings, and their effect on the health of those who live and work in them. Most people spend at least 80 per cent of their lives indoors, predominantly in the home; the minority who are employed also spend a significant proportion of their lives in their workplace. It is therefore important that the home and the workplace in particular should provide healthy environments. Schools, hospitals and other public buildings should also be designed and built to create a health-inducing environment. The thrust of our argument is the same as that for cities: buildings which are designed and built to be environmentally benign will be healthier for those who use them than contemporary buildings, many of which are both environmentally damaging and unhealthy for their users. Day (op cit) in describing modern buildings writes:

‘Many of these buildings that form our world, however, do not even rise above their allegiances to dead material – ease of industrial manufacture, material durability or monetary savings at the expense of life-supporting construction and design. Their qualitative characteristics are life-suppressing and their physical, biological and spiritual effect on places and people damaging’

p 185

Buildings that are constructed to be in harmony with the environment will provide healthier surroundings for their users, both physical and mental, as well as being aesthetically more pleasing than those built without consideration for, and in some cases in defiance of, the wider environment. This is the basis of the baubiologie concept in architecture which treats buildings as biological extensions of the people who use them. The building is considered to be a third skin, in addition to human skin and clothes, which has the same functions of protection, insulation, breathing, regulation and communication. Just as health depends upon a healthy ‘first skin’, so does it depend upon a healthy home.

The role that improved housing, together with sanitation, played in reducing mortality and morbidity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has already been referred to. Less overcrowding, improved heating and reductions in dampness all played an important part in reducing the incidence and virulence of infectious and respiratory illness. These housing improvements applied particularly to the poorer households who had most to gain. On the negative side, provision of housing for the poor in the last 50 years with the basic amenities of running water and sanitation has often been done on a mass scale to save money, with consequent bad effects for the residential areas built. Many people have been taken out of physical slums to anonymous and soulless estates, replacing community with a bathroom and exclusive use of a lavatory. Physical health may have benefited at the expense of mental health. A clean, brutal environment is not necessarily an improvement on a dirty, friendly one. The community spirit in the former slums provided an Important support network that helped people tackle adverse conditions. Strong communities are useful in restricting crime and vandalism and enhancing security.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.