ABSTRACT
There is an urgent and ever-growing awareness worldwide of the need to invest in healthy and sustainable infrastructure. By applying salutogenic design principles that seek to promote greater health, this landmark shift can begin to occur. The resulting and striking healthful outcomes of such existing structures bring these concepts to the forefront of global building opportunities. This approach now comprises the leading edge of change in our society. By embracing these precepts to shape our built environments and infrastructure, we engage in shifting the quality of such environments. Salutogenic architecture is taking its rightful place in the vanguard of preventative care strategies that have the potential to change our lifestyle for the better.
Health has become a commodity that is not equally distributed within society. Certain groups of individuals are more successful than others in having access to proper health-related knowledge and information. This data gathering is very often supported by a healthier lifestyle, in combination with lower exposure to risk factors within the built environment.
The author discusses the principles and ideas for a salutogenic design approach in planning future built environments with one simple goal: to create a healthier society. For design professionals (architects, planners, designers, etc.), the focus on and concern for designing a sustainable healthy future society is the most compelling task to be addressed and implemented in all societal sectors where human beings live, work and play.
