In an effort to revitalize Syracuse’s Near Westside neighborhood Syracuse University sponsored the “Movement on Main: Designing the Healthy Main Street” competition. The initiative plans to redesign the area around Wyoming Street to once again make it an important agent of the community’s social and recreational life.

HealthxDesign was invited by Marpillero Pollack Architects, as one of two preselected design teams, to develop an outcomes based design framework that articulates how the street redesign proposed by the design team can influence community health needs, while emphasizing social and recreational life at the neighborhood level.

KEY QUESTIONS

How does the proposed design increase physical activity?

How can the design also strengthen other, related health disparity and inequity at the community-level?

How does the design address the ecological model—to promote individual-level healthy behavior through transforming the physical and social environment that, in turn, influences individual behavior?

BUILT ENVIRONMENT/Urban Design Entry Points Street Redesign, Urban Agriculture, Land Use/Planning

TARGET FACTORS Physical Activity, Social Capital, Environmental Stewardship, Access to/Equity in Services, Pedestrian Safety

TOOLS Community Health Profile & Outcomes Based Framework

PARTNERS Marpillero Pollack Architects, Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, Arup, Consulting Engineers, and HealthxDesign

Scale Street and Neighborhood

Location Syracuse, New York

Stage Competition entry submitted

As a project Fellow for the The Design Trust for Public Space, Rupal is working to strengthen the growing urban agriculture movement in through a practice-based metrics framework that can inform policy-making in NYC.

KEY QUESTIONS

What are the known health, social, economic, and ecological benefits of urban agriculture?

How can key stakeholders begin to capture these benefits at various scales (garden/farm, neighborhood, and city) in order to support the growing community infrastructure represented by urban agriculture?

BUILT ENVIRONMENT/Urban Design Entry Point Urban Agriculture

TARGET FACTORS Food Environment, Food Access and Equity, Land Use, Job Skills, Youth Engagement, Citizen Participation [Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices]

TOOLS Metrics and Evaluation Framework +  Indicator Guide

PARTNER Design Trust for Public Space

ADDITIONAL INFO Five Borough Farm

RELATED PUBLICATIONS
On Growing Public Health: Urban Farming + Public Health,  Urban Farms (Abrams Press, 2012)

Location NYC – citywide

Stage Phase I: 2009-July 31, 2012; Phase II: begins August 1, 2012

According to a recent Institute of Medicine report, societal perceptions and norms about food consumption heavily influence individual behaviors, therefore only a nationwide prevention strategy will be able to modulate behavior towards health-positive outcomes.

The Tactical Toolkit for Linking Health and Design in Neighborhood Food Retail is the first part in a multi-phase project that aims to strengthen healthy communities by addressing the real barriers to accessing and consuming healthy foods through supermarket access in low-income urban areas. It leverages the opportunity and mandate to improve access to healthy food through the supermarket as “intervention.”

KEY QUESTIONS

What are the types of outcomes that Verde can influence through its built environment, including green infrastructure strategies?

How can Verde establish a set of design guidelines, grounded in best practice and evidence-based approaches, for all future development projects with an eye toward the optimal impact on the health of its  tenants, program participants, and the community at large?

BUILT ENVIRONMENT/Urban Design Entry Points Urban Agriculture, Green Building/Housing Retrofit, Land Use/Planning, Rezoning

KEY QUESTION

What are the types of health and social outcomes that the city-wide school gardens initiative can influence through its programs?

BUILT ENVIRONMENT/School Design Entry Point School Gardens

TARGET FACTORS Food Environment, including Teacher/Principal Capacity for Incorporating Gardens into Learning Environment; Parent Awareness; Student Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior

TOOLS Metrics/Evaluation Framework and Evidence-Based Theory of Change

PARTNERS GrowNYC - Citywide School Gardens Initiative

Scale School and Neighborhood

Location NYC – City Wide

Stage Ongoing, to be completed in March 2013

BUILT ENVIRONMENT/Building and Experience Design Entry Points
Public Health Clinics

TARGET FACTORS Building Performance, Siting, Thermal Comfort, Patient Experience, Clinic Staff Experience/Stressors, Clinic Flow

TOOLS Quality of Care-Based Design Guidelines for International Health Organizations that Aim to Strengthen Access and Patient Centered Health Care Services

PARTNERS  International Planned Parenthood Federation-Central Office, Public Architecture

Scale World Wide/International Setting

Stage Planning

KEY QUESTIONS

What are design opportunities for strengthening the environmental sustainability of clinic infrastructure?

How can organizational performance, including access to care, be strengthened through assessing opportunities of the built environment?

BUILT ENVIRONMENT/Building Design and Experience Design Entry Point
Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Care Clinic Infrastructure

TARGET FACTORS Building Performance/Energy Use and Costs, Local Sourcing,  User Experience (Thermal Comfort, Clinic Staff Stressors, Clinic Flow), Quality of Care (Infection Prevention, Patient Satisfaction), Access to Care for Rural Populations.

TOOLS Needs Assessment/Recommendations report

PARTNERS  International Planned Parenthood/Boliva (CIES), Public Architecture & Pro-Bono team of relevant architects and designers

Location La Paz, Bolivia

Stage Completed. Phase II is being developed.

KEY QUESTIONS

What are design opportunities for strengthening clinic-based youth-friendly services?

BUILT ENVIRONMENT/Experience Design Entry Point Youth Clinic

TARGET FACTORS Perceptions of Safety; Attitudes Related to Disclosure of Medical History;  Barriers for Adolescent Access to Primary Health Care and Access to Information; User-Interface

TOOLS Needs Assessment and Case Study

PARTNERS Mt. Sinai Adolescent Health Center & Smart Design

Location East Harlem, Manhattan

Stage Completed October 2010

KEY QUESTIONS

How does IRC’s GBV Emergency Response resource package improve knowledge, confidence, skills, among trained responders from three main sectors (GBV, health, child protection)?

How do trained responders change their behavior over time to apply new skills as they are deployed in emergency situations?

How does the improved capacity of trained responders leads to more targeted and effective planning, program design, advocacy and delivery of core services?

TARGET FACTORS Emergency Worker Knowledge, Confidence and Action in Conflict and Disaster Settings

TOOLS Metrics/Evaluation Framework; Evidence-based Theory of Change;  Formative Evaluation Design (including Quantitative and Qualitative Methods).

PARTNER International Rescue Committee

Scale Global- Africa focussed

Stage In process (3 years to be completed May 2013)

Rupal Sanghvi and HealthxDesign were featured in an article written by Sarah Rich in The Atlantic Quarterly.

Check out the full article here