Health and design

Today, humans spend the majority of their lives indoors, and this has been shown to cause ill health effects in many, due to the poor design of our residential and business structures. By incorporating natural and healthy products and design ideas into our buildings we can begin to preserve and improve the health of the occupants, as well as the environment. My health care background, coupled with my lifelong interest and love for building and design, will hopefully ad a unique perspective to a growing interest and importance of the need to consider health in the design of our structures. In this study, Gulf Dunes is a proposed luxury residential community designed for the active adult. The development includes ten homes with common areas including a community clubhouse, fitness center and pool area. A research survey was conducted to determine which amenities would be most desirable to include in the development, which also helped to influence the design. The development is situated on the Gulf of Mexico south of Port Aransas, Texas, just across the bay from Corpus Christi. The beautiful North Padre Island location allows easy access to an abundant of year round activities in a natural environment (Figure 1 ).