The single bedrooms at Al Salam Hospital are a great example where ample space and privacy is given to encourage family and friends to visit, reducing patient stress and speed up recovery.

Is it possible for workers to leave their offices each day healthier than when they arrived; for people to improve their health while at home; or patients to recover faster during hospitalization? As the world becomes increasingly urbanized, the built environment, in terms of what is built, where it is built and how it is built, is having a critical impact on the physical and emotional well being of residents, patients and employees alike.

With a serious raise of human health concerns, built environments are in dire need to be designed and constructed to go beyond the reduction of negative impact on health and improve wellness and health as a whole. When designed with human health and wellness in mind, built environments become healthier environments and could significantly reduce the frequency of cardiovascular diseases, asthma, lower respiratory infections, musculoskeletal diseases and stress, to name a few.

Take the work setting. In order to optimize an employee’s productivity, the role health and wellness plays in the work setting are most likely never discussed. More often than not, workspaces are noisy, lack privacy, have no access to natural window views, don’t encourage activity and have poor lighting, temperature and ventilation control. All of these are key factors that trigger illness from work-related stress. Even if employees don’t suffer stress related illness from their work place, it can leave them feeling fatigued and run-down, or anxiety-ridden.

Recently, evidence showed that prolonged sitting, such as working at a desk, is independently associated with negative health outcomes such as mortality, obesity and more. And with more than 1.9 billion adults worldwide considered overweight – with over 600 million of them obese (According to the World Health Organization, in 2014), this alarming number emphasizes the urgency to make health a critical component of planning for office environments and turning healthcare environments into healing environments.

The design principles found in a typical healthcare environment inadvertently make patients and staff more stressed. From low ceilings to harsh, glaring lights, and hard surfaces that amplify noise, to a lack of privacy, it all accumulates to sensory overload for doctors, nurses, patients and their guest.

Inspiring Use. Improving well being.

So, how can we create built environments that enforce health and wellness? There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration, of course, and many of them are based on months of careful planning, research, addressing hundreds of major and miniscule design decisions, evidence based design and months of testing.

In medical environments, for example, research shows that patient rooms with access to natural light and a view of the outdoors have been regarded as morale boosters. And since the presence of family and friends has shown to hasten recovery ample space is given to visitors, think single-patient rooms. To provide patients with greater ease-of-mind and reduce their anxiety, sinks are placed in plain sight, so nurses and doctors will be sure to wash their hands and patients can watch them do so.

In today’s medical environment, consumers have come to expect the full human experience. And with hospitality-influenced design making its way into medical environments, these solutions that promote well being are not limited to patient rooms only. The creation of social spaces with comfortable, movable furniture, for example, urges people to connect with other patients. Or the use of colors, textures, technology and art are all used to engage patients and their guest—to transport them, delight and amuse them, calm and reassure them. The value of art, for example, is a positive contributor to employee, patient and guest satisfaction, way finding, and, most importantly, health outcomes. And while dismissed by some as “decoration”, decades of research in Europe and the United States concludes otherwise.

Besides the obvious health benefits that come from physical activity, the importance of encouraging exercise and physical activity as a routine part of people’s lives is found to be of grave importance and is therefore taking on a more crucial role in the greater health and wellness discussion.

According to Dr. Nancy Wells, an environmental psychologist in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University, “Having natural areas nearby promotes well-being. Access to or views of the natural environment improve cognitive functioning and improve recovery from surgery and illness. People who live near parks and open space are more physically active. In fact, older, urban residents who have places to walk and access to parks and tree-lined streets live longer.”

As we will continue to see health and wellness starting to take lead in the built environment design discussion, we believe that Richard Jackson, professor and chair of environment health sciences at the University of California at Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health said it best “Unless we build places that entice people to be active, they won’t be.”