Better design is better for everyone
Better design is better for everyone
better design is better
for everyone
place
grounds
health
Most of us can describe how a place looks.
Far fewer can describe how it affects us.
Place Grounds Health brings together insights from design, neuroscience, and lived experience to explore how built surroundings affect our physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing.
Latest
INTERVIEW
Rethinking the
Architect
Filippo Lodi of UNS discusses the role of the architect and the multidisciplinary approaches to shaping how we live.
INTERVIEW
Designing for
Human Flourishing
Tye Farrow explores how architecture can actively enhance our health, dignity, and sense of possibility.
See More
Think of two spaces,
one positive
and one negative.
The difference isn’t accidental or personal preference. It is how our brain and body read and react to a space.
We do this because buildings and shared spaces are not a backdrop, and they are not neutral — they are a determinant of health, belonging, and social cohesion.
Credits: Anders Klapp/Imagebank.sweden.se
What we do
Place Grounds Health explores a fundamental question:
How do the spaces we create affect human health and wellbeing — and how can that understanding inform the way they are designed and experienced?
Convening conversations across disciplines
We bring together designers, policymakers, scientists, developers, and community voices to understand ways the built environment can better support individual and collective wellbeing.
Making hidden connections visible
We help make our often invisible reactions to the built environment visible by translating felt experience into shared language, observable patterns, and actionable insight.
Cultivating a learning community
We build an interdisciplinary network for shared learning and exchange, connecting knowledge across disciplines so ideas can be shared, tested, and developed in different contexts.
What that looks like:
A moderated conversation during the PGH Platform Gathering 2025 at Patterns of Meaning, Pittsburgh.