Alan Dilani, “The Salutogenic Design Approach – The Search for a Healthy Society”

This is a special lecture in the course Creating Resilient Cities: Climate Adaptive and Anticipatory Practices.
While clinical practice focuses on treating illness, there’s also a body of research to suggest that the quality of the build environment has a highly important role in our health and well-being. The World Health Organization defines health as ”a state of complete physical, psychological and social well being, (Bio-Psycho-Social) and not only the absence of illness.” Health can be divided into two different perspectives: the biomedical and the holistic. From a biomedical viewpoint, health is considered to be a condition without diseases. In the western world, the biomedical perspective has been the leading perspective and has thereby made medical care into a business industry. The holistic viewpoint emphasizes multiple dimensions of health, including the physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual and social well-being by creating psychosocially supportive design.
We are living in a post-industrial age in the knowledge (Google) society and healthcare should focus on providing “wellness” as well as treating illness. Therefore, we require a new way to look at the role of build environment within the context of health and well-being, called a Salutogenic approach to design.
Research on Salutogenic direction highlights the impact of design factors that inspire the designer and planner toward healthy society to develop conditions that stimulate health and well-being and thereby the promotion of health and prevention of diseases in all levels of society. An increase in the consideration of Salutogenic design approach leads to social innovation and economical growths that requires interdisciplinary application of sciences such as architecture, medicine, public health, psychology, design, engineering, along with culture, art and music.
This presentation discusses the approach of such interpretations of Salutogenic Design to promoting health and well-being by creating build environments that focus on health promotion and thereby healthy societies.

Additional Speakers:

Alan Dilani, Founder and General Director of the International Academy for Design and Health (IADH) and Co-founder of the journal World Health Design

Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected].

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