GAZETTE: What can the field of architecture do better or take into consideration about how it impacts people’s bodies and, therefore, health?
FRIEDRICH: It seems right now architecture that changes the way people move or interact with the built environment is considered radical, or so out of the ordinary. I am hoping in the future this isn’t the case. Architects like Claude Parent, Shusaku Arakawa, and Madeline Gins were innovating new ways to think about design, and while their designs may have looked very different, they were playful and exploratory and they engaged the body. When you tie design with the body, people tend to think the solution is product-based ergonomics, but Sou Fujimoto’s “Primitive Future” used the body as a basis for the architecture. The solution can happen at a larger scale; it doesn’t need to rely on furniture and objects.
There will always be skeptics. How do you prove the design will improve health? How do you keep people from repeating patterns in a variable environment? How is it safe? How is it practical? Architecture can’t solve everything, but it can be conscious of the body and the way the body needs to move. My thesis got people thinking about their own movement behaviors, it raised awareness of a widespread problem, and it challenged the way we move currently. It’s only a start to the conversation.
Great Interview on designing for movement.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/08/design-for-movement/
http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/2016/08/lauren-friedrich-march-16-on-connections-between-architecture-physical-movement-and-health/