Healthy Habitats—Innovative Approaches to Creating Built Environments That Support Health and Wellbeing

Dear Colleagues,

The intersection of architecture and health is becoming increasingly important due to climate change, urbanisation, global health events, and busy lifestyles that intensify physical and mental pressures on building occupants. Accelerating severe weather events and changing local climates jeopardise the physical and mental health of occupants. As more people move to cities, perceptions of privacy and security change, adding to personal stress. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the significance of healthy, stress-free indoor environments. A prolonged global cost-of-living crisis forces young individuals to live with their parents longer, altering spatial practises at home. Evolving lifestyles, including new work–life balance models, shift the location and duration of the workday, while the ubiquitous use of digital devices impacts physical and mental health and overall wellbeing.

This Special Issue seeks contributions that address physical and mental health and wellbeing in the built environment. Increasing environmental and societal pressures urgently require a better understanding of how the built environment affects occupant health and wellbeing. New technologies, coupled with renewed interest in traditional building techniques and spatial practises, provide opportunities to develop innovative approaches to health and wellbeing-promoting architecture.

We encourage theoretical and empirical research, along with case studies from various disciplines, including architecture, urban planning, public health, human factors, psychology, and environmental science. By focusing on physical space, we aim to highlight research on active and passive, analogue and digital solutions to enhance health and wellbeing in both indoor and outdoor architectural spaces, addressing (but not limited to) the following key themes:

• Health and wellbeing;
• Neuro-aesthetic design;
• Salutogenic design;
• Biophilic design and natural materials;
• Human–building interaction;
• Smart homes and intelligent buildings;
• Rehabilitation;
• Prevention/prehabilitation;
• Ergonomics;
• Multi-generational living and co-housing;
• Ageing in place;
• Active living and active design;
• Inclusive/universal design;
• Stakeholder engagement;
• Responsible Research and Innovation;
• Building typology-specific solutions.

Papers selected for this Special Issue will undergo rigorous peer review to ensure the rapid and widespread dissemination of research results and applications.

Dr. Nils Jäger
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Architecture is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• health
• wellbeing
• architecture