ARC3600H F
Instructor: Stephen Verderber
Meeting Section: L0101
Wednesday, 7:00PM - 10:00PM

This seminar explores the timeless relationship between the built environment, public health, and human and ecological well-being. Landmark events in history, theories, and care settings from antiquity to the present, and prognostications for 2050 are explored. Healthcare delivery systems are examined, transcending static disciplinary barriers. The fundamental goal is to foster a transactional understanding and appreciation of key responsibilities, concerns, and priorities in the planning and design of the built environment in both the civic and private realm in relation to individuals’ and organizations charged with the stewardship of human health in the built environment (architects, landscape architects, industrial designers, direct care providers, and public policy makers). Case studies are drawn from diverse global cultural contexts vis-à-vis a space-timeline chronology, as this provides a basis for examining patterns of adaptation and the diagnosis of dysfunctional, counter-therapeutic, or otherwise maladaptive care settings both in the institutional milieu and in everyday built environments. Topics discussed include architectural typologies for health, affordance theory, biophilia, salutogenic care settings, health promotion and community wellness, societal aging, environmental perception and cognition, and sustainable planning and design. Readings, class discussions, and an independent term project are supplemented with architectural, landscape, and community-based precedents (it is the only course of its kind anywhere)