AIALA VIRTUAL: Healthy Building Design

As part of our bi-weekly design review sessions with the LACP Urban Design Studio, architects and designers are invited to join this virtual roundtable to share your ideas on healthy building design.

Our neighborhoods and physical environments are a social determinant of health and have far-reaching influence on life expectancy, physical and mental well-being. This pandemic has highlighted how vulnerable low-income communities and communities of color in Los Angeles have suffered disproportionately – lacking adequate schools, parks, and community centers, and often living in overcrowded conditions.

In Los Angeles, we have a responsibility to pay greater attention to the details of design that matter and affect the way people live. The overlapping crises of systemic racism, environmental injustice, a global pandemic, and climate change demonstrate that steps must be taken to create healthy communities at all levels of City Planning, from the General Plan to Community Plans, to the Zoning Code, and at the granular level of project review with the thoughtful design of places for living.

LA City Planning staff would like to hear from design practitioners on ideas and best practices for incorporating climate-adapted, and healthy building design into new projects. What are the greatest challenges and opportunities to create safer, healthier, and more resilient places to live and work in the future?