Building Design: Material Selection for Healthier Communities

Explore the design principles for choosing healthier materials

In building design, there is no perfect product – so how do designers make the best choice for healthier materials? On this three-week course, you’ll address this dilemma and gain an understanding of how designers identify and evaluate healthier materials.

You’ll take a deep dive into the strategies and guiding principles for designers and what healthier materials design looks like.

Within this, you’ll explore the current challenges and opportunities in the design, architecture, and construction industries.

Learn the process behind building healthier communities

As you approach healthier materials design, you’ll look at the fundamental goals and principles of the material health process.

Exploring material properties, design qualities, and operational considerations, you’ll understand how a designer comes to choose healthier materials. Within this, you’ll discover how designers can be participants and advocates for social justice.

Explore healthier built environments

On the final week of the course, you’ll explore the process of finding and evaluating healthier products for the built environment.

Within this, you’ll unpack the role of the retailer and how retailers can contribute to transforming the market for healthier materials.

Guided by the experts at Parsons School of Design’s Healthy Materials Lab, you’ll finish the course with the knowledge of how designers make informed decisions to create healthier built environments.

This course is designed for anyone interested in how health and sustainability are interconnected with the built environment.

It will be particularly useful for those working, or planning to one day work in, in design, or passionate about materials design processes.

• Strategies and Guiding Principles for Designers
• Course and Week Introduction
• What Does Healthier Materials Design Look Like?
• Current Challenges and Opportunities in Architecture, Design, and Construction Industries
• Designer's Dilemma: No Perfect Products
• Week 1 Wrap-Up
• Approaching Healthier Materials Design Within a Community Context
• Welcome to Week 2
• Fundamental Goals and Principles of the Material Health Process
• Designers as Collaborators and Participants in Social Justice
• The Role of Occupants
• Week 2 Wrap-Up
• Implementing our Vision of a Healthier Built Environment
• Welcome to Week 3
• The Role of Retailers
• Common Building Product Challenges
• Overcoming Obstacles
• Envisioning Healthier Built Environments
• Week 3 Wrap-Up