We should think smarter about how cities and urban areas can contribute to promote health and social sustainability. To achieve this, we need to acquire new knowledge about what can provide health-promoting effects when cities, towns, and neighborhoods are developed and utilized, and how various health-promoting measures actually become health-promoting in practice. At the same time, we must develop work processes within property development that include health as a new dimension and ensure health-promoting solutions as a goal. To succeed in developing places that are health-promoting in practice, we must work interdisciplinary and across sectors. This requires new models for collaboration between private and public actors that are economically sustainable for both parts. Through synergy and a more holistic approach to the development of buildings, neighborhoods, and services, we can better facilitate movement, social participation, and cohesion in everyday life, and prevent the need for health and care services. This is the basis for the research and innovation project BUILDING HEALTH – health-promoting place development, which is a collaboration between Linstow and SINTEF.
The authorities point to health-promoting places as central to sustainable societal development and as an important element in meeting future demographic challenges. In property development, applying knowledge about how the development of health-promoting places can work in practice is new. Linstow and SINTEF want to address this.
BUILDING HEALTH develops new innovative concepts and work processes within health-promoting place development. Through BUILDING HEALTH, Linstow is the first to realize knowledge-based solutions for health in property and place development in Norway. Through the project, we have conducted a literature review and research that has laid the foundation for the development of research-based insights into health-promoting place development (key insights for health-promoting place development). These form the basis for developing concepts and work processes that allow Linstow to include health as a natural part of planning and development of buildings, residential areas, and neighborhoods. Three of Linstow’s ongoing property development projects are part of the project’s ‘living lab’, where key insights and new work processes are applied and further developed. In one of the projects (Romerike Helsebygg), we are particularly focused on health-promoting development of the building, which aims to help reduce the need for health and care services for an aging population.
In the long term, the results from BUILDING HEALTH can contribute to increased sustainability, quality of life, and public health by enabling Linstow to develop neighborhoods enriched with factors that facilitate and create motivation for movement, social participation, and cohesion in everyday life, and prevent or reduce the need for health and care services. The project will thus contribute to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals 3, 11, and 17.
BUILDING HEALTH – Helsefremmende stedsutvikling utvikler kunnskap, arbeidsprosesser og teknologi som setter Linstow i stand til å realisere helsefremmende steder gjennom nye kunnskapsbaserte løsninger for eiendoms- og stedsutvikling. Gjennom den fire år lange prosjektperioden skal Linstow og Sintef sammen utvikle helsefremmende fysiske og sosiale løsninger, som gjennom nye arbeidsprosesser støttet av teknologi, skal integreres i fremtidige eiendoms- og stedsutviklingsprosjekter. Innovasjonsprosjektet vil utvikle 1) Løsninger som materialiserer helsefremmende tiltak i fysiske miljøer både innendørs og utendørs; 2) Løsninger og metoder som eiendomsutvikler kan implementere for å engasjere beboere i sosial kontakt og deltagelse som en del av hverdagslivet i nærmiljøet; 3) Løsninger og metoder som eiendomsutvikler kan bruke for å engasjere bedrifter i helsefremmende nærmiljøarbeid; 4) Løsninger som med både fysiske og sosiale virkemidler skaper mestring og bidrar til selvhjulpenhet i nærmiljøet for sårbare grupper; 5) Metoder for å konfigurere løsningene slik at de blir opplevd som attraktive, relevante og nyttige for innbyggere og kommuner. Forskning om helsefremmende sted er et umodent felt og det finnes per i dag lite dokumentert kunnskap om hvordan et sted blir helsefremmende i praksis. Sted er komplekse sosiomaterielle systemer, oppbygd av mikrosystemer bestående av forskjellige typer bygg og utearealer, sosiale praksiser og menneskelig meningsskaping. Det betyr at helsefremmende tilrettelegging og intervensjoner ofte fungerer på andre måter, og blir brukt på andre måter, enn hva som var tenkt i planleggingen. BUILDING HEALTH vil etablere kunnskap om hvordan realiseringen av nye helsefremmende steder kan operasjonaliseres i eiendomsutviklers verdikjede.
