Back in the day, working out your body wasn’t an elective activity. There were no elevators or escalators, no cars with automatically lifting tailgates, no riding lawnmowers or robotic vacuums. Ours’ was a world of physical labor. Conveniences were few. And our bodies were strong. The fact is this modern world, brimming with convenience, is making us soft. Beyond fidgeting and treadmill desks, there’s a growing movement that is trying to counteract this corporeal lack of density by designing our environments to promote movement and fitness.
In 2008, the World Health Organization released a report called “A Healthy City is an Active City,” a detailed guide for promoting, implementing and measuring activity and health in one’s community. A couple years later, inspired by WHO’s initiative, NYC’s Bloomberg administration launched an initiative called “Active Design.” Along with sustainable and universal designs (designing for aging populations), active design is an integral part of PlaNYC, the city’s preparation for 2030. Between the three programs, the city is addressing environmental as well as voluntary and involuntary public health issues–all of which will be increasingly hard-to-ignore topics in the coming years.
The city drafted a document called “Active Design Guidelines,” which was collaboratively produced by a number of public and private agencies. Like WHO’s report, it proposes ways the city can design in more activity to combat obesity and other public health threats caused by sedentary living. On their website, the city’s Department of Design and Construction (DDC), one of the main parties responsible for the document, explains the mission of active design in historical terms:
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, architects and urban reformers helped to defeat infectious diseases like cholera and tuberculosis by designing better buildings, streets, neighborhoods, clean water systems, and parks. In the 21st century, designers can again play a crucial role in combating the most rapidly growing public health epidemics of our time: obesity and its impact on related chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers. Today, physical inactivity and unhealthy diet are second only to tobacco as the main causes of premature death in the United States. A growing body of research suggests that evidence-based architectural and urban design strategies can increase regular physical activity and healthy eating.
They go on to explain how architects and planners can combat these foes directly, helping design a world that encourages “walking, bicycling, and active transportation and recreation.” The city’s pedestrian plazas, the recent Citi Bike program as well as many other initiatives are examples of how active design is taking shape in NYC.
The movement–whether named Active Design or not–is spreading, a fact celebrated at the just-opened FitNation exhibition in NYC. The show, organized by the AIA New York Chapter in collaboration with the Center for Architecture Foundation, shows off a number of initiatives (some pictured above) from around the country that are actively putting activity into their community-members’ lives.
Other initiatives include the recent “Fit Cities-Fit World” Conference in London, showing off some of the global strides taken in active design.
While these governmental, architectural and urban planning initiatives are great, there is also a more grass roots approach to active design. With obesity levels at near-epidemic levels in the US and around the globe–a good deal of which is attributable to our increasingly sedentary lifestyles–it’s probably time to reevaluate our relationship with convenience. Do we drive when we could bike or walk somewhere? Do we take the elevator when our destination is less than three flights up? Do we use the rolly bag when a backpack would do? Practiced daily, these small inconveniences (which are easy to trick yourself into enjoying) might just prevent the major inconvenience of poor health.
images via Arch Daily