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Sun Valley

Sun Valley. Image: Denver Housing Authority

Sun Valley is a neighbourhood being redeveloped by the Denver Housing Authority to ‘create a new model of community transformation with equity, environmental justice, and public health as its driving forces.’(1) The redevelopment aims to add 960 mixed income housing units (there were 333 existing public housing units on site); create 30,000 square feet of multi-use office space; redevelop 3.2 acres of industrial use buildings into a mixed-use area; and establish a new light rail station. The Sun Valley Eco-District was established to ensure that this DHA project built successfully on the strong credentials of the Mariposa redevelopment.

Considering health, equity and other social factors has been essential in project planning as the population living in Sun Valley face multiple barriers to healthy living. Over 80% of residents live below the poverty line, a quarter identify as first-generation immigrants, a fifth are refugees, and 94% live in subsidised housing.(1) Although the neighbourhood is centrally located, it is low density and primarily industrial. Denver’s Comprehensive Plan (2014) promotes the development of an equitable, safe, economically vibrant and healthy neighbourhood.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies.

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Ebbsfleet Garden City

Ebbsfleet Garden City. Image: Ebbsfleet Development Corporation.

Ebbsfleet is a government-sponsored new ‘Garden city’, the first in the UK for over 100 years, located in the South East of England on primarily brownfield land. The Ebbsfleet Garden City was also selected as one of ten National Health Service (NHS) England Healthy New Towns demonstration sites, leading to the adoption of a ‘Garden Grid’ design strategy that aims to transform the previously industrial landscape into a healthy environment. The Ebbsfleet Development Corporation (EDC) was established in 2015 by UK Central Government to lead delivery, receiving £200 million for infrastructure funding.(1)

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies.

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Connswater Community Greenway

New Connswater Greenway path, Belfast (October 2016) cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Albert Bridge - geograph.org.uk/p/5167207

Connswater Community Greenway (CCG) is an urban greenspace regeneration project in east Belfast transforming a blighted public space into a community asset. It consists of improvement works to a 9 km linear park connecting open spaces along the Connswater, Knock and Loop rivers. Alongside the recovery of neglected ecosystems, supporting residents’ health and wellbeing was a core objective of the regeneration project from the outset. The Greenway passes through 29 electoral wards, seven of which are within the top 25% most deprived wards in Northern Ireland. Community events and activities were organised throughout the project to create a sense of community and foster ownership of the greenspace, such as community clean-ups, volunteer gardening and walking groups.

The Greenway regeneration was a complex project with multiple partners and funding sources. The project was initiated from a 2005 Needs Analysis carried out by the East Belfast Partnership, and was later expanded to include significant flood alleviation measures after serious floods in 2007 and 2008.(1) The broad social purpose of the CCG is ambitious, as explained by a project evaluation:

‘In short, the Greenway exists to bring about dramatic and positive change to the physical environment and to people’s opportunities, health and lifestyles. People and communities which, for generations, have turned away from the dirty and neglected Connswater River system now have the opportunity to return and make the most of what has become a living landmark and a valuable, life-enhancing asset’ (2).

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies.

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Bullitt Center

Bullitt Center. Image: Helen Pineo, 2019

The Bullitt Center office building in Seattle, USA pioneered deep green design methods that pushed the boundaries of sustainable architecture. Owned and operated by the Bullitt Foundation, the building is described by Robert Peña and colleagues as catalysing ‘a shift in outlook from the notion of buildings as machines for living to that of buildings as living systems’ (1). Collaborating with the city and a local university, the Bullitt Center project led to a new Living Building Pilot Programme in Seattle and detailed post-occupancy evaluation data to continually improve the functioning of the building for people and the planet.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case is adapted from the full version in Healthy Urbanism.(2)

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Barton Park

Pond and new housing at Barton Park. Image: Helen Pineo 2021.

Providing 885 new homes and community services, the Barton Park development is an extension to Barton, a neighbourhood of around 1,500 homes three miles from Oxford city centre. An important goal for Barton Park, one of the NHS Healthy New Towns demonstrator sites, was to integrate the new and existing communities through the provision of shared social infrastructure and amenities. The population of the Barton and nearby Sandhills wards faces significant health inequalities resulting from high deprivation. The project aims to provide equal opportunities to all Barton residents to achieve good physical and mental health outcomes.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case is adapted from the full version in Healthy Urbanism.(1)

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Vila Viva

After intervention. Image: URBEL

Vila Viva is a large-scale urban renewal programme across 12 informal settlements in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Using participatory governance models, the city has delivered vast urban renewal initiatives, land regularisation and community development activities that have benefitted residents’ health in numerous ways. Evaluations of the programme demonstrate success through multiple indicators, including reduced homicides and improved connectivity to infrastructure and community services.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case is adapted from the full version in Healthy Urbanism.(1)

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Park 20|20

Park 20|20. Image: Delta Development 4

Park 20|20 is the first Cradle-to-Cradle ® (C2C) urban development project in the Netherlands, trailblazing design approaches that minimise resource consumption and support human health. The C2C approach is manifest in Park 20|20 through circular design, material health, and design for disassembly. The site includes an office tower, high density offices, hotel tower, athletic facilities, childcare facilities, greenhouses, and 9 hectares of public open space. The design is intended to create a closed-loop system where waste, energy and water are modelled after natural ecosystems.

As the first full-service C2C office park in the world, the development has pioneered business and legal models to support the transition from linear to circular economies. Known as a circular economy business model (CEBM), this approach seeks to ‘reduce resource use and waste within production, but also to extend product life cycles and employ strategies that allow the consumer to do more than buy, use and dispose.’(1) The project has also demonstrated the financial value of sustainable and healthy building design.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case study was written by Elizabeth Cooper and Helen Pineo.

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Grow Community

Shared spaces encourage social interaction at Grow Community. Image: Helen Pineo, 2019.

Grow Community is a planned residential community of 142 homes on an 8-acre site on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, USA. The investors pushed for high sustainability credentials and a range of affordable property types. This push, alongside early engagement with local residents, led the project team to design the development using the One Planet Living Framework, a guide to reduce the community’s ecological footprint and facilitate health and happiness. The masterplan outlined a compact community with shared gardens and greenspaces, energy efficient buildings, and reduced water use. In addition to housing, the development includes a community centre, early childhood centre, and approximately 2 acres of open space and community gardens.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case study was written by Elizabeth Cooper and Helen Pineo.

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Nightingale Housing

Nightingale Anstey. Image: Kate Longley, Nightingale Housing

Nightingale 1 is a ‘social experiment’. The apartment building in an inner-city suburb of Melbourne is the first completed example of the replicable, triple bottom line housing typology of Nightingale Housing. The building proved the concept for the Nightingale model, which aims to develop housing projects that are financially, socially and environmentally sustainable, disrupting the status quo of Australian residential development.(1)

The core mission of Nightingale Housing social enterprise is to create a housing system that supports human wellbeing, as well as economic, social and ecological sustainability. These aspirations are materialised in the housing typology and development model exemplified in the Nightingale 1 building, now being replicated on other projects in Melbourne and elsewhere in Australia. This case study describes details about Nightingale 1 and the wider model that is being used on other Nightingale Housing projects.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case is adapted from the full version in Healthy Urbanism.(2)

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Stone34

Outdoor eating at Brooks Sports Headquarters Building (Stone34). Image credit: LMN Architects

Stone34 is a five-storey, mixed-use commercial building in Seattle, USA on Stone Way between 34th and 35th streets in the Fremont neighbourhood. The building was designed according to the City of Seattle’s Deep Green Program (now Living Building Pilot Program) which is aligned with the International Living Future Institute (ILFI). Stone34 is certified LEED Platinum. The building uses around 75 percent less energy and water than similar projects. It was envisaged to act as an urban “trailhead” to Seattle’s popular Burke-Gilman, a 43 km cycling and walking trail. The project’s goals to support both physical activity and sustainability across the building and site were further strengthened when the main tenant, Brooks Sports, a company that makes running shoes and attire, was secured.

This project is featured as one of our healthy urban development case studies and this case study was written by Elizabeth Cooper.

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