Wellness Through Design: A framework for wellness-focussed architecture within the context of the tertiary education environment

Over the course of their lifetime, nearly half of all New Zealanders will experience a mental illness, many of which will present before the age of 25 (Jenkin et al., 2021; Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction, 2018). The ongoing Coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated these issues, but it has also illuminated the need for preventative action, particularly within the tertiary education sector (Lister, n.d.).

While many current solutions involve treatments directed at minimising post-diagnosis harm, architectural interventions could provide a means of counteracting negative environmental factors which contribute to the decline in mental wellbeing, thereby reducing the amount of harm caused. Studies have uncovered a significant link between the built environment and the wellbeing of occupants, but this knowledge has yet to be actioned on a nation-wide scale (Atkinson, 2013; Lister, n.d.). An immediate shift in design focus is required to redirect architectural goals to not only include but incorporate strategies to combat the negative impacts associated with the intense personal stressors that tertiary students experience.

Despite growing awareness of the link between wellbeing and environments, there is still much to discover about how this can be utilised. Greater emphasis on holistic design and how to meet the needs of students are necessary to develop a multi-dimensional understanding of wellbeing that is applicable to the wider tertiary education sector. Through this exploration, interpretive research and iterative design methods were used to identify ways of physically altering university spaces to improve the overall mental health of students. These were then developed into architectural strategies that can be employed in tertiary education facilities across Aotearoa. From this, a new design framework was created that prioritises the mental wellbeing of New Zealand’s youth and facilitates the shift towards healthier architecture for the future of Aotearoa.