Design Impacts Health & Well-Being

Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post recently covered a number of design projects that aim to respond to our increasingly sedentary lifestyle and keep us active. From a design competition in Washington D.C. to revitalize old bridge piers spanning the Anacostia River to the new Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, how people engage with the designed space is crucial.

Kennicott’s article explores how our habits have changed over time, like living car-centric lifestyles in the suburbs, and how urban and building design can infuse daily life with activity. As an example, Kennicott highlighted the open atrium at the Milken Institute SPH, which features crisscrossed staircases and tucks the elevators behind an opaque partition to further encourage use of the stairs.

Furthermore, our design team lowered the floor-to-floor height from the standard 14’ or 15’ to 12’, which allowed us to add an additional floor. The stairs are designed without landings and feature lower rising treads.

The atrium integrates the administrative and teaching halves of the building. This enables office workspaces that are deep within the building’s core to receive natural daylight, which falls from a skylight opening in the penthouse level to the basement floor eight stories below. The extensive use of glass walls and open galleries around the atrium openings affords an array of views across, down and up through the different floor levels, which are connected by an open stairway that zigzags its way through the building.

City planners are increasingly aware of health benefits of clean, living landscapes

Photography by Robert Benson Photography