Health-Affirming Everyday Landscapes in Sustainable City. Theories and Tools

K e y w o r d s : Health-affirming landscapes; Therapeutic landscape; Sustainable city; Health and well-being; Tools. 3/2018 A R C H I T E C T U R E C I V I L E N G I N E E R I N G E N V I R O N M E N T 41 A R C H I T E C T U R E C I V I L E N G I N E E R I N G E N V I R O N M E N T The Si les ian Univers i ty of Technology No. 3/2018 d o i : 1 0 . 2 1 3 0 7 / A C E E 2 0 1 8 0 3 7 M . T r o j a n o w s k a , A . S a s B o j a r s k a All those arguments lead to a research questions – how to design an ordinary urban space to promote health and well-being of inhabitants and how the designing of urban health-affirming places can enhance the idea of sustainable city. We define Urban health-affirming landscapes as everyday places which unite the qualities of therapeutic landscapes to influence people physical, mental and spiritual healing. The scope of this paper is dedicated to urban planning and design. 1.1. Sustainable city Modern city planning is a profession, which emerged in the late 19th century to improve health of urban residents, but somehow lost its focus in the 20th century [11]. Nowadays, with sustainable approach the planning community is trying to return to its roots. According to Richard Register, one of the pioneers of eco-cities, this new approach is based on solid principles from history and honest assessment of troubled future [12]. For the last thirty years the idea of sustainable city has been widely discussed in professional literature and various documents concerning planning and policymaking. The provided recommendations consider various aspects and activities. They relate to different levels of planning, designing and management of city structures at various scales – from apartments, house and neighborhoods, to entire cities, agglomerations and countries, but not forgetting about the individual human being, regardless of where she or he lives [13]. Generally, they include every globally discussed dimension of sustainable development: economic prosperity, social balance, environmental protection, cultural and health aspects (Leipzig Charter, 2007) [14], as well as coherence across city boundaries: time dimension, social, economic, environmental and spatial development (New Charter of Athens, 2003) [15]. According to King Ross [16], the sustainable city should be defined at the three levels: ecological sustainability, economic sustainability and cultural sustainability. Douglass Farr [17] describes several indicators of sustainable city design: adequate building density, integration of transport systems with land use, preservation of ecological corridors, sustainable walkable neighborhoods which facilitate access to workplaces, bond with nature (e.g. walkable distance to greenspace, local use of rain water, waste recycling and food production); energy efficient buildings and infrastructure. The definition of a sustainable city provided in the New Charter of Athens (2003) describes a city which encompasses social, economic, environmental and spatial coherence [15]. At the same time Chinese scholars consider eco-city as “stable, harmonious, and sustainable complex ecosystem that makes possible “all-win” development among social, economic, and environmental factors” [18]. Therefore the question, what is the correlation between the idea of sustainable city and health-affirming landscapes, needs to be answered. 1.2. Sustainable city design and health-affirming landscapes – obvious correlation? Albert Levy [19] describes the three revolutions in medical sciences, which had direct impact on urban planning: Pasteur (1885), Freud (1900) and environmental revolution (1987). The most recent environmental revolution has led to the described above sustainable urban planning. The sustainable eco-city design concept is based on the Aalborg Charter (1994, renewed in 2004) and Agenda 21 [20, 21]. It can be described as a continuous strive towards improvement of life quality of inhabitants. One of the recommendations of Aalborg Charter, signed by over 700 cities from Europe, is Local action for health. The basic principles of eco-city planning were generalized by four aspects: “Health (...) to provide enough ecosystem services to ensure human health and promote human development, Security, Vigor and Sustainability” [22]. Human health and healthy ecosystem are closely interconnected. Corburn [9] explains that social determinants of health are shaped by local decisions and institutions. The nearest, everyday health-affirming urban environment is crucial to people well-being. Therefore, we may state that the human health is the subject, which bridges medical sciences and urban planning. These factors led indirectly to growth in popularity of eco-neighborhoods. Health is one of basic postulates in the paradigm of sustainable development (Principle I of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development) [18]. However, that concept is more oriented towards the general and physical dimensions like air quality, water quality, toxic contamination, microclimate (which are necessary, but not sufficient circumstances) than creating local urban landscapes favorab to human beings. A new shift is needed, because the operationalization of theory of sustainable development requires creation of therapeutic landscapes and health-affirming everyday landscapes. The key question appears – which qualities of city space need to be applied to make a health-affirming places and therapeutic landscapes? 42 A R C H I T E C T U R E C I V I L E N G I N E E R I N G E N V I R O N M E N T 3/2018 H E A L T H A F F I R M I N G E V E R Y D A Y L A N D S C A P E S I N S U S T A I N A B L E C I T Y . T H E O R I E S A N D T O O L S 1.3. Therapeutic landscapes – general or individual attitude? Many researchers from various fields, e.g. environmental psychology, medicine, sociology, architecture and urban planning, have tried to describe the unique qualities of therapeutic landscapes. Many of research findings describe qualities related to the presence of nature and urban composition. However, this evidence requires a precaution. Corburn [11] explains that “A weakness of variable-centered studies of place and health is that a positive finding may lead to overly physically deterministic conclusions...” and he insists that the holistic approach requires “emphasizing the mutually reinforcing relationships between places, people and meaning-making, on the one hand, and the political institutions and processes that shape these relationships, on the other”. Researchers bring our attention to the fact that a therapeutic experience of a given place varies upon user’s individual perception and attitude [2, 7, 23]. Settings are not therapeutic by their inherent nature; but are experienced as such in very different ways by different people [2, 7]. That perception is associated with a given social and geographical situation [4, 24]. Corburn [11] warns that the idea that rational physical and urban design can change social conditions, particularly for the poor, is false. “Research into the relationships between the build environment and health has tended to avoid or overlook the interactions and relations among the physical, social, political, economic, and meaning-making that combine to make a space in the universe a place” [11]. It means that health-affirming landscapes are always related to local conditions, needs and possibilities. 2. QUALITIES OF HEALTH-AFFIRMING LANDSCAPES IN SUSTAINABLE CITIES Investigations described above prove that there is no universal recipe to create health-affirming landscapes. Each case is different because they depend on local conditions: physical, social, political and economic. However, several general ideas for cities or neighborhoods fulfilling the conditions necessary to create health-affirming landscapes will be described below. 2.1. Presence of nature There is an important body of evidence stemming from research about health-promoting effects of contacts with nature [23, 25–32]. The Biophila hypothesis, developed by Edward O. Wilson, emphasizes the inner bond people feel with nature [33]. According to Public Health England [34] “Access to good quality green space is associated with positive health outcomes, including: improvements in mental health and wellbeing, such as depression, stress, dementia, increased longevity of older people, lower body mass index (BMI) scores, overweight and obesity levels and higher levels of physical activity and better selfrated health”. All that research suggests to bring nature to people and people to nature [35]. Michel Bonetti [36] draws our attention to the fact that the majority of urban projects do not take into consideration the potential of their environment. They are limiting themselves to the boundaries of their sites. He counsels to take the fullest advantage of possibilities a given site is offering. At the same time, the ecodevelopment should bring improvements also to its surroundings [36]. Place for nature in the city The concept of an eco-city seems to include a place for nature due to a more ecological approach to the preservation of eco-systems and biodiversity (Nagoya Protocol) [37]. The additional issues are potentially contradictory needs: to construct means of access, pedestrian and cyclist paths, as well as to preserve the nature in natural state. Some areas need to be excluded from human access in order to prevent them from destruction and preserve biodiversity. However, the research evidence demonstrated that even viewing nature has a beneficial effect on our health [31, 38]. Foo Ah Fong [39] mentioned the traditional Japanese landscape strategy to enhance garden scenery by incorporating the surrounding landscape. For centuries this rule has been used in the Japanese Garden Art to design private gardens, public gardens and shrines. Agata Zachariasz [40] describes the phenomenon of shakkei (borrowed scenery), as a very important element of Japanese and Chinese gard