Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

In the contemporary moment, the idea of community health is experiencing expanding definitions. As social challenges increase in both complexity and constituency, a parallel expansion is necessitated in potential design responses. Like many vulnerable coastal communities, the city of Houston in the USA is facing a multitude of challenges to its well-being including environmental, social, and other significant issues. How can a broader definition of “community health” enable innovative design approaches that address these increasingly multifaceted obstacles to well-being? This discussion proposes that by implementing a broad definition of community health in design considerations, a more holistic and successful engagement of social well-being can be established. Based upon this premise, and pursued in collaboration with local non-profit partners Houston Habitat for Humanity and Legacy Community Health, the initiative explores innovative healthcare solutions via the design of a new clinic facility for the neighborhood of East Houston. Collaboratively determined community needs were identified, with an emphasis on the unique local conditions of the neighborhood, an especially vulnerable and previously disenfranchised community in Houston’s context. This paper offers supportive discourse deploying this broad-based methodology, summarizing diverse design results addressing community health and well-being. Design solutions were generated in a collaborative, transdisciplinary framework that harnessed participatory community design, co-disciplinary teams comprised of participants from Interior Architecture and Industrial Design, and community partnership with health-oriented non-profit organizations. The outcomes intend to demonstrate that despite increasingly complicated challenges to community well-being, a broader definition of health enables new abilities for design to successfully respond.