Breakout Session | Wellness by Design: Transforming Health Outcomes Through Architecture and Urban Planning

How can latent conditions in the built environment passively improve health outcomes? 

This session explores research linking design with physical, psychological, and social well-being.  While Churchill once observed, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us,” there is now a clear correlation between our surroundings and their profound influence on our health.  We will look at how these ideas are rooted in historical efforts to address public health through architecture and planning and then examine how they continue to shape outcomes today.

Session led by J. Timothy McCarthy

J. Timothy McCarthy, RIBA, AIA, is Partner and Managing Principal at Hart Howerton, an interdisciplinary design firm based in New York and San Francisco. A member of INTBAU’s College of Traditional Practitioners, he champions health- and wellness-based design in the built environment. Tim serves on the Advisory Board of Cornell University’s Institute for Healthy Futures and leads research with the University of Virginia’s Center for Design & Health. He is also a past Chair of ULI’s Global Exchange Council.