Event: Active Design Planning Workshop: Design Professionals
Location: Center for Architecture, 07.08.10
Speakers: Ernest Hutton, Assoc. AIA, FAICP — Principal, Hutton Associates; Suzanne Nienaber — Training Coordinator, NYC Active Design Program; Karen K. Lee, MD, MHSc — Director, Built Environment Program, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; Reena Agarwal — Design Policy Analyst; Joseph Sopiak — Senior Design Liaison, NYC Department of Design and Construction; Charles McKinney, Assoc. AIA, ASLA — Principal Urban Designer, NYC Department of Parks; Donald Burns — President, APA New York Metro Chapter; Lauren Yarmuth, LEED AP — Principal, YRG / Urban Green; Tricia Martin — President, American Society of Landscape Architects, New York, & Principal, WE Design; Rick Bell, FAIA — Executive Director, AIANY
Organizers: AIANY; NYC Active Design Guidelines Team

Matthew Serban

Through the combined efforts of five city agencies, a group of academic advisors, AIANY, and a host of editors and consultants, the Active Design Guidelines: Promoting Physical Activity and Health in Design (ADG) was launched in January. This document combines research about the relation of the built environment to public health with practical recommendations for constructing urban spaces that respect the human body. The ADG team is now taking steps to make sure this volume moves off the shelves of architects, planners, and civic officials and into the public discourse.

The first in a series of outreach workshops — first addressing design professionals, with further meetings planned for educators and the real estate industry — gathered a small interdisciplinary group to brainstorm about ways to increase awareness of the ADG’s potential to reshape urban space. Karen Lee, MD, MHSc, reprised the case she has made at the Fit City panel series, describing the sea change from design strategies aimed at infectious disease to a new priority, the “diseases of energy,” a category of clinical conditions resulting from the societal-scale substitution of motorized movement for human activity.

If the designers of 21st-century public space can implement epidemiologic knowledge as effectively as their early-Modernist predecessors did, history offers reasons for encouragement. Thanks to aqueducts, sanitation, and construction standards that brought light and air into dank urban spaces, the city’s infectious-disease mortality statistics from 1880 to 1940 improved dramatically — predating the discovery of penicillin (1939) and the antibiotic era, one should note. America’s most significant health victories have more to do with spatial design and public health measures than with medical technologies, applied one patient at a time. For a comparable re-engineering of built space to encourage better use of human energy, the design professions have the tools at hand already: e.g., replacing mechanical transport with inviting, prominently-placed stair designs, augmented by skip-stop elevators where possible. (Where it isn’t, slowing the elevators down is an effective way to encourage people to take the stairs.)

Charles McKinney, Assoc. AIA, ASLA, observed that no one disagrees that the ADG’s measures are worthwhile. The challenge is one of rhetoric, memetics, and motivation, weaving the ADG principles into city policies and everyday practices. Discussion recurrently touched on the synergies between environmental and public-health progress: architect and sustainability consultant Lauren Yarmuth cited the experience of the U.S. Green Building Council in promulgating the LEED system, noting that these standards became far more effective once they were linked not just with honorable intentions, but with measurable incentives, such as the marketing advantage developers could claim once a building earned its precious-metal plaque.

Through a broad range of mechanisms, from social media to sponsored events to incorporation into RFPs, codes, and awards criteria, the ADG message will soon be spreading through the professional and local communities most directly affected by the bodily consequences of design.

Bill Millard is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in OCULUS, Icon, Content, The Architect’s Newspaper, and other publications.

Event: Fit City 5: Promoting Physical Activity through Design
Location: Center for Architecture, 05.18.10
Keynote Speaker: William Bird, MBE — Natural England (UK)
Speakers: Thomas Farley, MD, MPH — Commissioner, NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene; David Burney, FAIA — Commissioner, NYC Dept. of Design + Construction; Janette Sadik-Khan — Commissioner, NYC Dept. of Transportation; Amanda Burden, FAICP, Hon. AIANY — Chair NYC Dept. of City Planning; Adrian Benepe — Commissioner, NYC Dept. of Parks & Recreation; Fatma Amer, PE — Deputy Commissioner, NYC Dept. of Buildings; Matthew Sapolin — Commissioner, Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities; Thomas Balsley, Hon. AIA, FASLA — Principal, Thomas Balsley Associates; Rick Bell, FAIA — Executive Director, AIANY; Les Bluestone — Blue Sea Development; Vincent Chang, AIA — Principal, Grimshaw Architects; Craig Dykers, AIA — Co-Founder, Snøhetta; Robin Guenther, FAIA — Principal, Perkins + Will; Ernie Hutton, FAICP, Assoc. AIA — President, Hutton Associates; Robyne Kassen, Assoc. AIA — Owner, Urban Movement Design; Karen Lee, MD, MHSc — Director, Built Environment, NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene; Thom Mayne, FAIA — Principal, Morphosis; George Miller, FAIA — 2010 President, AIA; Jonathan Rose — President, Rose Companies; Anthony Schirripa, FAIA, IIDA — 2010 President, AIANY; Lynn Silver, MD, MPH, FAAP — NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene; Susan Szenasy — Editor-in-Chief, Metropolis Magazine; Katie Winter — Principal, Katie Winter Architecture
Organizers: AIA New York Chapter; NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Courtesy of AIANY

We think of New York as being a fast-paced, walking city. Yet obesity, and with it type 2 diabetes, has reached epidemic levels in NYC. Whereas infectious diseases were once the greatest risk, the largest killers of our time are chronic diseases, including heart disease, stroke, cancers, and diabetes. At “Fit City 5,” panelists considered the many possibilities detailed in the new Active Design Guidelines — Promoting Physical Activity and Health in Design (ADG), released January 2010. It presents strategies for designing neighborhoods, streets, buildings, and outdoor spaces that encourage activity, and provides us with a plan to turn New York from a “fat city” into a “fit city.”

By appearing together on one panel at the Fit City 5 conference, nine representatives from varying city agencies demonstrated their solidarity in a mission to create whole, healthy, safe neighborhoods throughout the city. Ideally, neighborhoods should be pedestrian friendly — with amenities close to home so people can walk or bike to mass transit, work, parks, and waterfronts. It’s one of the reasons the city has built miles of new dedicated bike paths and lanes; turned school playgrounds into parks during off hours; designed parks to engage the public, including those with physical or mental disabilities; and encouraged exercise with park furniture that can be used as both exercise equipment and for relaxing.

Buildings themselves provide an opportunity to promote physical activity. Want to reduce your carbon footprint? Take the stairs instead of the elevator — a practice that has been encouraged for years at the Center for Architecture. Many new buildings, including 41 Cooper Square by Morphosis and Gruzen Samton, have installed skip-stop elevators and designed stairways people want to use. Other approaches include locating building entrances and attractive gathering places to encourage walking; encouraging biking with secure bike storage; and designing building exteriors and massing that make walking a pleasure for passersby.

Craig Dykers, AIA, of Snøhetta, who used to live in Norway, walks to work, owns two bikes, and yet he has gained weight since living in NYC. He reasoned that he hasn’t found a single restaurant in Manhattan that doesn’t use preprocessed food. To remedy the situation, both Snøhetta offices have a kitchen, and the Norwegians even have a chef preparing wholesome meals.

Brian Tolman, AIA, LEED AP, managing principal of STUDIOS Architecture, said his clients are requesting designs that actively engage employees. His proposed ingredients are: communication, sustainability, and activity. One example is the firm’s Dow Jones Offices (recipient of a 2010 AIANY Merit Award in Interiors), where the newsroom acts as a hub to the offices and employees interact as they traverse the interior stairs.

Environmental design strategies (daylight, fresh air, sanitation) were used in the 19th century to fight infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera, and yellow fever, NYC agencies are combining forces to combat obesity in the 21st-century. The NYC Departments of Health and Mental Hygiene, Design + Construction (DDC), Transportation (DOT), and City Planning have partnered with the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget and the AIA New York Chapter, as well as members of the academic and design communities, to publish the ADG. The Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability; the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities; the School Construction Authority; the Departments of Parks & Recreation, Housing Preservation and Development, and Aging also contributed to the ADG.

“My theme this year is Architect as Leader,” said 2010 AIANY President Tony Schirripa, FAIA, IIDA, “and what better way to exemplify that principle than to facilitate this discussion. Architects can lead the way by designing buildings that are not just sustainable but can also help maintain good health by design.”

In his keynote, Dr. William Bird, MBE, a British medical doctor who has set up strategies to promote good health and encourage people in the UK to exercise. “Good design is about making people want to exercise,” he said. As the strategic health advisor for Natural England, he feels using the environment as a major health resource is a moral obligation. Every doctor at the conference, from Commissioner Thomas Farley, MD, MPH, to Built Environment Director Karen Lee, MD, MHSc, both of the NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene, stressed the urgency of the obesity epidemic.

There is definitely a synergy, as well as cost effectiveness, between active design and local, national, and international initiatives like LEED and PlaNYC. The tenets of the ADG, however, address the ways that architectural, landscape, and urban design can meet people’s varying needs. In a combined statement in the introduction to the ADG, AIANY Executive Director Rick Bell, FAIA, and 2009 AIANY President Sherida Paulsen, FAIA, wrote: “The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects is dedicated to design excellence, professional development, and public outreach. The City’s Active Design Guidelines combine these three goals in a well-written document that should be used by all architects, designers, and building owners as a reference and resource.”

Linda G. Miller is a NYC-based freelance writer and publicist, and a contributing editor to e-Oculus and OCULUS.

Event: Fit-City 4: Promoting Physical Activity through Design
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.08.09
Public Context of Active Design Guidelines: Thomas Farley, MD, MPH — Commissioner, NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (DOHMH); David J. Burney, FAIA — Commissioner, NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC); Janette Sadik-Khan — Commissioner, NYC Department of Transportation (DOT); Robert LiMandri — Commissioner, NYC Department of Buildings (DOB); Matthew Sapolin, Commissioner, Mayor’s Office of People with Disabilities
Opening Keynotes: Lynn Silver, MD, MPH — Asst. Comm. DOHMH (Introduction); Professor John Pucher — Rutgers University, Bicycling Policy; Dr. Gayle Nicoll — Chair, Department of Architecture, University of Texas at San Antonio
Panel 1: Presentation of Active Design Guidelines: Karen Lee, MD, MHSc, FR CPC — Deputy Director, DOHMH; Wendy Feuer — Assistant Commissioner, Urban Design & Art, DOT; Alexandros Washburn, AIA — Chief Urban Designer, NYC Department of City Planning; Victoria Milne — Director, Creative Services, DDC; Keith Wen — Acting Director, Code Dev. & Interpretation, DOB; Laurie Kerr — Senior Policy Advocate of Sustainability, Mayor’s Office
Panel 2: Responding to Active Design Guidelines: Linda Pollak, AIA — Partner, Marpillero Pollak Architects (Moderator); Nancy Biberman — President, Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDCo); Betty Chen, AIA — Vice President of Planning, Design & Preservation, Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC); Kirsten Sibilia, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP — Chief Marketing Officer, JCJ Architecture; Andrew Dent — Vice President of Materials Research, Material ConneXion
Active Design Case Studies: Jean Oei — Architectural Designer, Morphosis (New Academic Building for Cooper Union) & Charles McKinney, ASLA — Chief of Design, Capital Projects, NYC Parks & Recreation (High Line)
Organizer: AIANY; DOHMH

Courtesy AIANY

“We have engineered physical activity out of our lives,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the new Commissioner of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH); more than 75% of people don’t engage in exercise. While it was only his first day — actually his first hour — in his new position, he looked the part: “He has the lowest BMI of any commissioner,” commented David Burney, FAIA, Commissioner of NYC Department of Design and Construction. All joking aside, obesity, and the chronic diseases associated with it, is a serious problem in the U.S., and NYC is no exception. How can design — applied to infrastructure, urban planning, and buildings — alleviate this public health epidemic? Fit-City 4 sought to address this question by bringing together public officials, health professionals, architects, and designers to participate in a series of panel discussions at the Center for Architecture.

The DOHMH with the Departments of Design and Construction, Transportation, and City Planning have developed New York City Active Design Guidelines. Available this fall, the document will present design strategies to support the integration of healthy behaviors into the daily lives of all NYC residents. As a dense urban environment, the city affords the options of biking and walking. “‘Pedestrian’ may mean boring elsewhere, but in NYC it means ‘fabulous’,” believes Alex Washburn, AIA, chief urban designer at the Department of City Planning. Biking, however, is much more popular in Europe, cited Rutgers Professor John Pucher, who has lived car-free in New Jersey for 37 years. He pointed out that fewer women and seniors ride bikes in the U.S., probably because of safety concerns.

Dept. of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn discussed initiatives to create a safer biking environment in the city, such as the newly segregated lanes on 9th Avenue. So far, she says, 200 miles of new lanes have been created as part of PlaNYC. Betty Chen, AIA, vice president for planning, design, and preservation for Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, added that Governors Island, where cars are prohibited, recently invited the public to participate in Free Bike Fridays.

Continues…

Event: Fit-City 2: Promoting Physical Activity Through Design
Location: Center for Architecture, 06.12.07
Keynote: Dr. Craig Zimring — environmental psychologist & professor of architecture and psychology, Georgia Tech
Speakers: Deputy Commissioner Mary Bassett, MD, MPH; Assistant Commissioner Lynn Silver, MD, MPH, FAAP; and Karen Lee, MD, MHSc — NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOH); David Burney, AIA — Commissioner, NYC Department of Design and Construction; Joan Blumenfeld, FAIA, IIDA, LEED AP — AIANY President; Laurie Kerr, RA — Office of the Mayor; Joyce Lee, AIA — NYC Office of Management and Budget; Ellen Martin, RA — 1100 Architect; William Stein, AIA — Dattner Architects; Russell Unger — U.S. Green Building Council; Dan Wood, AIA — WORK ac
Organizer: AIANY; NYC DOH
Sponsor: NYC DOH; Esque provided by IZZE Beverage Company

The Fit City 2 panel urges cities to encourage Active Mobility.

Kristen Richards

We have a global and personal “Energy Problem” in America, posits Laurie Kerr, RA, of the NYC Office of the Mayor and Karen Lee, MD, MHSc, of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. At a personal level, part of the problem is too much “unusable” energy in (zero-value food products or simple over-eating), and not enough energy out (exercise or even basic movement). As a result, there is an increase in national obesity, which is fast becoming a chronic disease epidemic in the U.S. Remote control air conditioning, automatic doors, and eight hours at the office sitting in front of a computer screen comprise a few examples of activities straining our energy resources while decreasing personal movement. This conference brought together architects, designers, and public health professionals to address how building design and policy decisions can increase physical activity to improve health and conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

One of the biggest culprits is television, which is threatening to replace the refrigerator as the number one energy consumer in American households. There are two ways to look at it: flat-screen TVs are using massive amounts of energy, or people are sitting inertly in front of TVs most hours of the day. Offices and homes present key opportunities for designing increased movement integrated into the daily habits of occupants. On average, Americans gain one pound per year in their overall weight. This could be eliminated if each person took 4 flights of stairs daily. However, walking is not an option for everyone, and opportunities for exercise exist for people in wheelchairs and the aging population.

A successful architectural example, given by AIANY Executive Director Rick Bell, FAIA, is Millennium Park in Chicago, masterplanned by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Ramping meanders through outdoor park space facilitating wheelchair and bicycle movement in the city. In review of Fit City 2 recommendations, Bell acknowledged that congestion pricing can reduce car use in the city, resulting in reduction of fossil fuel exhaust, healthier air quality, and an increase of available space to build safe bike paths.

Government entities have the power to encourage physical activity. Panelists believe LEED points should be offered for designing increased physical activity in building design. Russell Unger, of the U.S. Green Building Council, hinted that buildings could get innovation points for such design efforts. Further, the NYC Department of Design + Construction (DDC) Commissioner David Burney, AIA, shared the pioneering history of the DDC as setting NYC guidelines for Sustainable Design, Universal Design, and Design Consultants. He suggested DDC would be ready to launch a new guideline for Active Living Design beginning with the information provided at all Fit City conferences.

Following the conference, the breakout session included the panelists and public in a focused discussion on Active Mobility. Hopefully, through task force groups, some of the ideas and suggestions will be incorporated into the Mayor’s PlaNYC.

Robyne Kassen is designing for increased mobility as the principal of NYC-based Pedestrian Studio.