Presenting Stantec Design Quarterly 08: Wellness & active lifestyles

Wellness is all around us today. What we once may have considered a niche comprised of yoga classes, healthy nutrition, and fitness wear is now a booming industry valued at $4.2 trillion globally by the Global Wellness Institute. It’s growing rapidly every year, too, spinning off new trends like wellness tourism, for instance.

Sometimes lost or secondary in the mainstream wellness and active lifestyle conversation is the built environment. It’s time that changed. We must consider the built environment itself as an essential element in promoting wellness and active lifestyles. Not only because we spend more time inside than ever but because as designers we’re sensitive to how light, air, views, space, lighting, and even color can affect well-being. We have the opportunity to design features and details within the built environment to seamlessly promote activity in our users’ daily routines.

In this issue of the Design Quarterly, we look at human-centered design and how this new awareness and demand for wellness is influencing our design for workplace, mixed-use, and residential projects. And how we’re employing innovation to address the health of user groups and set the stage for healing and recovery in mental health. I think you’ll agree that the wellness and active lifestyle conversation needs to be front and center in design today.

Download and read Design Quarterly 08 | Wellness & active lifestyles