NLA Charrette: Focus on Health

Founder
MATTER . SPACE . SOUL

Natasha Reid, founder at MATTER SPACE SOUL, shares her reflections and analysis of insights gathered at this New London Agenda expert charette. She maps out pathways for a collectively creating a step-change towards healthy, human-centred places at scale, and the potential for a new urban paradigm.

“We must centre what we do around the experience of people and their needs, the imperative for our built environment to improve human health, and through this, our relationship with planetary health”

New London Agenda

A charette was held in May as part of a series of sessions bringing together experts from the NLA panels to collectively evolve the New London Agenda – the NLA’s framework for best practice in city-making. The sessions serve as incubators for ground-breaking ideas by fostering in-depth discussions.

The charette explored the pillar “Focus on Health” by unpacking barriers and solutions through the lens of 3 dimensions; cultural, policy and financial. The session also identified a series of best practice case studies to draw from.

Overview of insights

Cultural

Barriers included health inequalities, leadership cycles and the relationship of built environment professionals to communities. Solutions centred around meaningful community engagement, post-occupancy feedback, stewardship as well as interdisciplinary approaches and partnerships across built environment and health professionals.

Policy

Barriers included the planning gaps on health and lack of legal prioritisation; lack of specific metrics for human experience and health impacts; and siloed and disconnected funding or finance. Solutions highlighted the need for clear metrics to define and value human experience; integrating public health in masterplans and planning policy; and integrating funding across public health and climate change initiatives.

Financial

Barriers included the disconnect between financial outcomes and health benefits on-site; difficulty in accessing green finance as part of ESG initiatives; and different definitions of wellbeing based on social background. Solutions included aligning financial benefits with health outcomes through comprehensive data; cross-sector funding connecting public health and climate change efforts; and leveraging green finance and community trusts.

Analysis: Nature of change needed

Scale of intervention: The significant scale and breadth of action needed was clearly apparent, as the group set out extensive points of intervention and a diversity of solutions across a wide spectrum of sectors, mediums and scales of action.
Depth of change: The discussions pointed towards a need for structural and systemic change, such as changing mental models of what the built environment can do for people; how power is distributed more equitably between built environment actors and communities; how financial models can be aligned with outcomes for people; and strengthening the links between human and ecological wellbeing.
Type of approaches: A recurrent theme across the insights was the need to root action deeply in place and the specificity of different people’s needs. The session did not seek to draw consensus around ways forwards, however integrative thinking methods can be used to frame opportunities and map out new collective pathways.

Synthesis: Potential pathways

1. Coherence and Consensus: Formalising a new field

Defining new standards across the sector, such as developing clear metrics to define and value human experience whilst acknowledging the challenges of capturing what happiness and health means.
Convening to form a unified voice on the direction of travel and develop formalised approaches in line with RIBA stages or through planning levers.
Strengthening the field by raising awareness of best practice case studies and pockets of specialist practice that we can draw on and strengthen.

2. Interconnectedness: Joining the dots at scale

Aligning financial benefits with health outcomes through comprehensive data, and capturing downstream benefits to the NHS
Upskilling teams and supporting the development of new transdisciplinary professionals – who are we listening to? And who can bridge the gap between the different disciplines and areas of knowledge that need to be applied into built environment practices?
Convening different bodies associations, institutions, and different disciplines including public health.

3. Systemic change: Working at different levels

Defining a new set of shared goals and objectives, such as raising healthy life expectancy for all.
Acting cohesively across different scales; from micro (I.e. a small intervention in a specificplace), to macro (I.e. strategic planning)
Co-building new values; a set of principles that characterises the desired new urban model; and synthesises existing best practice and emerging innovative approaches for healthy, human-centred places.

Conclusion: Towards a new urban paradigm

Overall the session points towards the critical need to set out a shared vision and roadmap that can integrate a wide range of factors (sectors, people, modes of action, scales of action, ways of thinking) in a holistic way to make the changes urgently needed towards deeply healthy, human, connective, inclusive and equitable places.

By defining and formalising a new field, we can enable people’s health not only to be protected, but to actively maximise the opportunities for people to flourish and thrive whilst supporting growth for cities.

With human and ecological wellbeing as the north star, these complementary goals can be supported through all the New London Agenda pillars (Think beyond boundaries; work in partnership; leverage innovation; value diversity; place for future generations) to create a step-change towards a new urban paradigm which can act as an exemplar for cities internationally.

“No city can succeed without optimising its physical shape and built form to meet the needs of its people and the planet.”

New London Agenda

Natasha Reid

Founder
MATTER . SPACE . SOUL

NLA Charrette: Focus on Health

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