This Special Issue on Healing Spaces includes eight articles consisting of studies at the interface between design and health. The articles address some of the latest findings using state-of-the-art technologies, important outcomes for human health and wellbeing, and suggest exciting directions for the future of this research field.

This work explores responsive hydrophilic polymers for convergent functions of climate control with architectural material systems. In buildings, the transition across exterior and interior space occurs through the envelope, which is an enclosure system that mediates heat, light, air and moisture transfer functions. Conventional building envelopes are typically constructed to form a barrier that insulates and hermetically separates outdoor and indoor conditions. The dynamic environmental responses of superporous intelligent hydrogels are shown to be beneficial at the interior layer of a double-skin glazing system for building envelope applications. If the hydrogels are integral to the building envelope system, then various environmental functions (such as natural daylighting, heat transfer, airflow and moisture control) can be achieved through integrated actuators to result in improved building energy performance.The composite embodiments emulate bio-analytical functions when embedded microbore-tube water channels serve as actuators for swelling and deswelling kinetics respectively. Each prototype is conceived in response to hot-arid climate contexts. The prototype presented here is a lightweight ventilation cooling and daylighting system. Initial prototypes are inserted into an environmental test-bed that is consequently divided into two chambers to represent an outdoor and indoor condition. The input chamber includes controllable heat and light elements that affect the dynamics of the hydrogel system. The output chamber on the opposite side of the prototype division includes temperature, humidity and photo sensors that are connected to an Arduino board for data collection. Dependent upon the environmental conditions of chamber two, a control program actuates small hydro-pump to saturate the gels with water.The initial results provide correlations between mechanical (elasticity) and thermal (conductivity) properties. Current work in progress includes documentation of average rates for sorption-desorption kinetics and correlations between saturation loading and visible transmittance. The physical test data will also be integrated into building-scale energy performance simulations and hygrothermal transfer numerical analysis for building envelope compositions. The embedded material logic of the hydrogel is exploited in an architectural configuration for a convergence of prior building mechanical system and building envelope functions. The current work demonstrates a highly promising application of soft-skin membranes for much needed reductions in energy consumption within the building sector.

This paper addresses our current environmental and political climate directly, disseminating work from a research-based, upper-level architecture studio located at the border of Mexico and the United States. Dynamic digital tools and methods were developed to connect multiple scales of spatialized data. Additional field tools, including electromagnetic field (EMF) meters, environmental sensors, and micro-photography, enabled real-time dynamics to be combined with photogrammetry, satellite and GIS data. The selected outcomes utilize the methodological framework in different ways. Three presiding significant outcomes demonstrated from this work include: 1) micromacro scale inquiry through spatio-temporal data collection and fieldwork; 2) parametric digital tools for emergent design optimization linking natural and artificial systems; and 3) human-machine-nature interactions for cultural awareness, participation, and activism. Collectively, these three functions of the methodology shift practice towards an alter-disciplinary logic to enable adaptive design outcomes that are responsive to a range of issues presented through site-specific climate change dynamics.

One of the challenges that architects and designers are confronted with in contemporary contexts is the need to address an ethical responsibility towards the health of the environment through understanding the energetic processes embedded in materials and their compositions. A scientific explanation of material fundamentals, including chemistry, physical structure, and embodied energy, provides the greatest insight to material property performance values and relative environmental impacts. This information aids architects in making informed decisions about building materials in the design process. This chapter addresses the book topic of reusable and sustainable building materials through the position that all matter is a form of energy, just as living systems are the transmutation of matter and energy. The seven major material groups, which include natural materials, non-technical ceramics, technical ceramics, metals, polymers, foams and elastomers, and composites, are presented with examples and applications discussed.

No abstract