Four Insights on Brain Healthy Design from the Vital Cities Summit
At the recent Vital Cities Summit in Houston, representatives of nearly 100 organizations gathered to discuss designing spaces that promote brain health, heart health and planetary health. Their goal was to help develop a new “brain economy” for Houston and a model for cities in which knowledge, creativity and innovation are key drivers of growth and success.
The Vital Cities Summit, hosted by the Building Brains Coalition through CADRE and the Center for Houston’s Future, was inspired by the Global Brain Economy Initiative. The summit focused on prioritizing physical health, cognitive performance, social equity and environmental responsibility in urban environments. The day-long meeting underscored that cities aren’t neutral backdrops to civic life; rather, they actively influence intellectual capacity, emotional well-being, productivity and community resilience.
HKS co-sponsored the event, with several of the firm’s designers participating as attendees or speakers. Here are four major insights they gained from the experience about designing places to create a better world:
1. Brain healthy design unites experts across disciplines
The summit brought together a wide array of participants, offering “so many different, diverse perspectives, people who were not remotely connected to architecture and design,” said Brad Robichaux, HKS Global Practice Director, Education Interiors. “There are so many people out in the world who are thinking about brain health.”
“Maybe a third of the people at the summit were directly engaged with the built environment, but for everyone else that wasn’t necessarily their day job,” added Jason Fleming, HKS Office Design Leader, Houston.
Fleming said he was inspired by seeing representatives from leading Houston health care organizations such as Harris Health, Houston Methodist Hospital, Memorial Hermann Health System and MD Anderson Cancer Center share ideas about actions they can take to advance health, cognition, equity and environmental well-being.
“Events and coalitions like this present an opportunity to build energy and excitement,” he said. “People get talking, they get interested, they realize they have allies in the community.”
During the summit, Sheba Ross, HKS Global Practice Director, Cities and Communities, led an exercise that used puzzle pieces to illustrate how different aspects of the built environment, such as housing, health care, public parks or land ownership, can address brain health, heart health and planetary health.
“In the end, it demonstrated that we all have our sphere of influence, but where we can really move the needle is if we interlock and connect,” she said. “Change cannot only come through buildings. It needs partnerships: politicians in conversation with economic development leaders, nonprofit organizations, health care leaders, downtown leaders, sports and cultural platforms – all of us pulling in the same direction.”
2. Designing for brain health ensures a human-centered approach
“I loved that the conversations were so accessible,” said Ross. “Everything that people were talking about was based on what fundamentally makes us human.” (Even the brain scientists at the meeting were talking about things that are “not brain surgery,” she remarked.)
“It all came down to basic human needs,” Ross said. “We want to be seen, and sometimes we want to be by ourselves. We want to breathe fresh air and keep our bodies healthy. It was reaffirming, in a beautiful way, that design can be simple and still be impactful.”
According to Robichaux, applying this approach to the design of a learning environment can mean “looking at a school as a human ecosystem, rather than just a place where curriculum is delivered.”
He said that “designing with intention is not always about the furniture, but more about the experience.” Rather than concentrating solely on a design’s intended function and asking, “Does it work?” designers should prioritize the human experience by asking, “How does it feel?”
Designers should prioritize the human experience by asking, “How does it feel?”
3. Shifting focus to new performance metrics is essential
“We are so invested in things that we can measure, particularly in the health care space,” said Fleming. “We can measure someone’s heartbeat, we can measure their blood pressure, but it’s much harder to directly measure someone’s emotional state or spiritual state or the state of their brain health.”
Fleming noted that improved brain health can lead to better patient outcomes, better staff retention and job satisfaction, which in turn leads to happier patients. He said, “If we can all understand and appreciate this value – in a figurative sense and a literal, monetary sense – it will help us make better decisions.”
Ross said a design project’s return on investment is typically measured in dollars, but the Vital Cities Summit has her thinking about different metrics for ROI. “If heart rate and body temperature tells you something about a person’s health, what are the vital signs of a city?” she asked. “What’s its temperature, its microclimate? Does it have space to breathe through nature? How quickly can it respond to stress, a pandemic or another shock that strains infrastructure?”
Learning a new vocabulary for quantifying value can encourage people to perceive design as more than just visual, but as something that profoundly influences human thriving.
4. There are vast opportunities and freedom to explore ahead
Jennifer Preston, HKS Sr. Regenerative Designer, expressed excitement about the possibilities that lie ahead for design solutions that support resilient, adaptive and life-enhancing environments. Based on concepts discussed at the summit, “It sounds like we can be really brave, and we can be really creative,” Preston said.
“So much opportunity is at our feet to expand the exploration phases of design and bring joy to the process,” she said. “I see such abundant freedom coming at us. We’re going to watch this profession dramatically shift towards people coming to the office with awe and inspiration, really wanting to be here and loving their work.”
Working with community partners to design holistic, healthy environments is inspiring, according to Ross. “Sometimes our audience is only the developer community or the public sector community,” she said, “but this summit expanded the room.” It allowed her to hear, for example, how health systems are beginning to see hospitals as more than places for treatment, but as environments that support wellness and preventative care.
“People are asking questions you don’t usually see in a design brief,” Ross said. “If someone is coming for care, what if we also offer vocational training? What if we broaden how they understand health and wellness? How do we accommodate multiple generations? What if nurturing the soul and nourishing the body are simultaneously accessible?” And, she added, “when health care leaders feel empowered to think that holistically, it allows us as designers to infuse those opportunities into the design. We are the shapers of the built environment. We can actually build the future.”
