Designing Urban Green Blue Infrastructure for Mental Health and Elderly Wellbeing

Andreucci, Maria Beatrice, Russo, Alessio ORCID: 0000-0002-0073-7243 and Olszewska-Guizzo, Agnieszka (2019) Designing Urban Green Blue Infrastructure for Mental Health and Elderly Wellbeing. Sustainability, 11 (22). p. 6425. doi:10.3390/su11226425

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Abstract

The main objective of this essay is to illustrate the state-of-the-art on ‘mental health-sensitive’ open space design in the built environment. Urban Green Blue Infrastructure can contribute to urbanites’ mental health and wellbeing as well as healthy aging, while providing co-benefits balancing the negative impacts of climate change, through the provision of integrated ecosystem services. There are a number of ways that exposure to and affiliation with Nature have shown to support mental health, but we are still missing the necessary evidence of the actual benefits achieved, as well as the key performance indicators and metrics to monitor and adapt our open space to the growing urban challenges. After introducing the key concepts of degenerative mental disorders as they are growing in the urban environment, and the emerging green blue infrastructure design approach, the authors present international case studies describing how evidence-based design and Nature-based Solutions have been found to be beneficial, especially to those diagnosed with mental disorders. Subsequently, in a comparative critical analysis, the authors look closer at a number of design solutions capable, at different scales, to support healthy aging through exposure to, and affiliation with, biodiversity.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Healthy public space design; Healing gardens; Dementia-friendly cities; Alzheimer; Elderly people; Evidence-based design; Age-sensitive landscape design
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology S Agriculture > SB Plant culture > SB450.9 Gardens and gardening S Agriculture > SB Plant culture > SB469 Landscape gardening. Landscape architecture S Agriculture > SB Plant culture > SB481 Parks and public reservations
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Creative Arts
Research Priority Areas:	Creative Practice and Theory
Depositing User:	Alessio Russo
Date Deposited:	05 Dec 2019 13:29
Last Modified:	31 Aug 2023 09:22
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/7561

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