ARCHITECTURE FOR HEALTH AND WELL-BEING - Yojana Dec 2022

Chapter 8: ARCHITECTURE FOR HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

INTRODUCTION

• Unlike to former times, people are now spending a lot of time indoors. Both our daily schedules and circadian rhythms were coordinated with the Sun's rise.
• We are becoming increasingly reliant on the facilities and utilities that fuel our daily lives in our existing way of life. This involves the use of artificial lighting and ventilation systems.
• The indoor lifestyle must unquestionably be improved for the sake of our health and wellbeing.
• "We shape our buildings, and then our buildings shape us," the saying goes. – Winston Churchill.
• We have begun to spend unusually much time indoors. We are becoming increasingly reliant on the facilities and utilities that fuel our daily lives in our existing way of life. This involves the use of artificial lighting and ventilation systems.
• If changing the indoor-based lifestyle is not possible, it should at least be optimised to protect our health and wellbeing.

Definition of Health

• The World Health Organization defines health as a condition of whole physical, mental, and social well-being and not just the absence of sickness and disability, which is a more holistic definition.
• Preventive, promotional, curative, rehabilitative, and palliative care are all included in the broad spectrum of health.
• The Ayushman Bharat programme, under which we are currently opening Health and Wellness Centers, has moved India in this direction.

Basis For The Present Construction And City Planning Paradigm

• By incorporating the ideas of health and well-being, the All Sanitary Conference, held in Lucknow in 1914, set the groundwork for the current paradigm of construction and city design.
• The idea of placing an adequate light in the middle of the street was suggested, and the adjacent streets' widths were adjusted to match the light.
• All later city plans and legislation in India are built on this foundation.

Architecture And Non-Communicable Disease Relationships

• If careful planning is done, architecture and urban design are directly related to a decrease in non-communicable diseases. The key to a healthy existence lies in the proximity of places for exercise and pleasure, such as parks, which are integrated with our urban character.
• The use of non-carcinogenic interior goods in buildings, such as paints, furniture finishes, and upholstery, is essential for preventing the build-up of volatile organic compounds, which have been shown to be cancer-causing after prolonged contact.
• The daily grind of office work can be countered by a well-designed structure, which also provides stress relief. A significant part of the indoor environmental quality and associated well-being in large community areas.
• We are now developing indoor air standards and useful procedures to make these interior spaces healthy and geared at indoor well-being from the perspective of occupational health and prevention of airborne virus spread.
Way forward
• Most importantly, we need to redouble our efforts to ensure that every structure in our city is constructed with people's health and wellbeing in mind.
• Using all of the cutting-edge building rules and standards that the Bureau of Indian Standards provides is one approach to do this. Together with other sub-codes like SP-41 and the Handbook of Functional Requirements of Buildings, this covers the National Building Code of 2016 and its related documents.
• We also developed the National Lighting Code, which addresses the often-overlooked issue of visual comfort in settings.