Traditional Buildings are Healthier

Part 3 in the series, Can Beauty Kill Germs? Can town and country design and architectural style have an impact on public health?

(a)   Sleeping Porch in Eleanor Roosevelt’s
stone cottage at Val-Kill, Hyde Park, New York

Perhaps the greatest requirement in the Covid-19 epidemic re buildings is the need for fresh air and convenient quarantining within homes and families. The need to quarantine people who shelter at home may call for dedicated “quarantine rooms” with operable windows, and an outdoor terrace adjacent in both houses and apartments. On the good side, the ubiquitous—and often unused—balconies of Modernist high-rise residences may get a new lease on life. But when it comes to design and layout, having in residential units a “natural room” with an adjacent accessible outdoor space is more reminiscent of pre-airconditioning sleeping porches as in Washington DC, or the screened “Florida Rooms” of the 1960s.

Indoor and outdoor rooms for health come with design authenticity that is high on the biophilic index
(b)   Florida Room, Governor’s Mansion, Tallahassee, FL

Indeed, one of the wonderful discoveries during this epidemic are the joys of clean air, reminding us that buildings consume 30% of world energy. 10% of world energy goes towards air-conditioning, and 20% (!) to lighting. In contrast, traditional well-building calls for day-lighting buildings, naturally ventilating rooms, and installing operable windows in them. The elephant in the architecture room is the ludicrous “green” belief in sealing a building or house against air penetration and then mechanically “conditioning” that air. The H1N1v virus, Coronaviruses, and even Legionnaires disease are often spread by inhaling contaminated aerosolized droplets, be they directly from people or indirectly through AC systems. [1]

As Nikos Salingaros points out in his paper on the Biophilic Index, Modernist environments are anti-biophilic, and they reduce the human body's resistance to infections. In fact, the indoor environments of Modernist buildings have been identified as unique ecological niches with their own biochemical milieu, fauna, and flora. The sophisticated construction methods and the “innovative” materials and machinery required to condition the spaces produce a large number of chemical by-products, permitting the growth of a host of microorganisms.

Although sealed buildings and HVAC systems have been known to cause sick building syndrome, data has yet to be collected on their inhabitant viruses. But the variety of humidity- and temperature-regulated ducted air in sealed Modernist buildings is ideal for supporting a broad range of microorganisms. The indoor environments of such “sick” buildings may be de-facto “petri dishes.” Scientists have described in them spectrums of potential pathogens, causes of occupant illnesses, and multiple sources of toxic substances.

(c)   Chatsworth

In contrast, traditional design is natively biophilic—the classical method is perhaps “100% biophilic”—and uniquely “healthy.” Enhanced by the balance of horizontal and vertical elements, the organized complexity of traditional forms and details playing in sunlight, and the wash of daylight in their interiors, are pure magic. Inside, color emanates from both the hue of transmitted light and that reflected off the surfaces of the ordered textures of the natural materials, which make up the interior architecture.

(d)   Shalimar Garden, Srinagar, Kashmir

The multiple proportions of traditional compositions, endow our moods positively, with a domino effect that leads to health and wellness synergies. The positive sensation is further enriched with the assortment of moldings and curves that make up much of the columns, vaults, arches, and domes where they appear.

As discussed in The Art of Classic Planning, traditional design feeds the human eye with what it was designed for: to look for and interpret details that are essential for our survival. We respond to the architectural details and the patterns in natural materials such as wood, travertine, limestone, and marble. Even the presence of water is implied, literally in fountains and pools, but as much indirectly through elements such as roofs, eaves, gutters, downspouts, water tables and, perhaps most important—the weathering that water “paints” on the exterior walls. In short, the classical method and traditional architecture are biophilic and healthful.

[1] The term “well-building” is a technical, Vitruvian classical design term that bears no relation to any for-profit or non-profit organizations, or certifications issued by them, that use that term or others similar to it.


Contributed by © Nir Buras, 200423 v.20