In May, AAO memeber AIANY/Center for Architecture hosted the fifth annual Fit City conference, which brought together city agencies and designers to discuss how architecture and urban planning can encourage healthier lifestyles. As a result of these discussions, the City of New York published the Active Design Guidelines, which offer concrete strategies for designing in a way that promotes activity.
AAO asked the Center for Architecture to provide us all with a brief wrap-up (appears below).
Making a Fitter City
By Emily Nemens
Communications Director, AIANY/Center for Architecture
New Yorkers have a reputation for being svelte, but we’re facing the same health issues as the rest of our expanding country: how do we prevent chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, some cancers and asthma? If today’s emphasis on cars, computers, and fast food is pulling us one unhealthy way, what can we do to steer ourselves back onto a healthier course? In New York, the architecture and health communities have paired up to create a solution: the Fit City.
Fit City began in 2006, as a conference organized with New York’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter. It was held at the Center for Architecture, AIANY’s Greenwich Village home. That conference, in addition to bringing together public and private constituents for productive conversation on improving the built environment, generated twelve policy recommendations. These were published in a Fit City Report. We’ve since produced four more conferences and three more reports (a report for Fit City 5 is in the works).
It’s been a wonderful experience for the Center to convene health policy experts, urban planners, academics, developers, and of course, architects, to swap ideas about what was working and why this issue is important. That chronic disease is on the rise at such an alarming rate points to environmental factors—and built environments are what we, as architects, do. Discussing strategies to change this equation, to bring active living into everyday life through design, has been at the heart of Fit City—and more recently, created the impetus for the Active Design Guidelines.
Earlier this year, New York City published the "Active Design Guidelines." Working from the macro—city planning strategies—on down to details such as stair placement in office buildings, the Guidelines map out how to build more active spaces in New York. As it was a collaboration between NYC Departments of Health, Design and Construction (DDC), Transportation, City Planning and the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget, with input from other city agencies and AIANY, city buy-in took hold from step one. The launch for the ADG was, fittingly, at the Center for Architecture. Through the span of these programs, it has also been important to bring these leaders into our Center for Architecture, demonstrating that design matters to many professions, and can be a driving force in improving the city.
Five years – and conferences—later, we’re still going strong. Over 250 people attended May’s Fit City 5; we filled every seat in the house. Seven city commissioners spoke about how they were implementing the Active Design Guidelines, before handing the stage to practitioners, developers, and academics. We’ve just renewed our contract with the Health Department for another five years, and the collaboration is exploring opportunities to take Fit City to other cities around the country, maybe even to a “Fit Nation” level. Further, it’s exciting to see the ideas discussed gaining traction: Metropolis editor-in-chief Susan Szenasy made New York’s efforts the subject of her July Editor’s Letter. As we learn more about bringing healthy living into the architectural realm, the Center for Architecture looks forward to sharing news, experiences, and lessons learned with AAO.
For questions or for more information, contact Emily: enemens@aiany.org.