Volume 1 - UPC

transforms the architectural practice from that of the provision of services to a learning organiza-
tion. It is the tool that prepares us to address issues of great relevancy with effective and proven
strategies.
What are the most pressing issues of our time? We certainly can cite sustainability, Diversity and
integrated project delivery as among the most important issues facing our profession today.
These are in fact the three most significant initiatives of the American Institute of Architects today.
However, challenge of relevancy must be considered in the larger terms of which each of these
are a subset. They are public health implied by environmental well-being, by the preparation of
individuals who are ready to address the need for new knowledge and by the ever-refining
technologies available to us
The Public Health Imperative
As architects and builders we are confronted by an environmental challenge that is only super-
ficially an energy efficiency question. It is a public health and welfare issue. We are being held to
higher standards of service. Public covenants will demand of us a greater level of accountability
and our clients will expect more rigorous performance outcomes. Little of this case is being made
by members of our own profession, on the other hand, others have. The Centers for Disease
Control in Atlanta and the World Health Organization have openly declared that the built environ-
ment has much to do with human health. And the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services in a report titled Healthy People 2010 asserts that the built environment has a significant
role to play in the attainment of people’s health and happiness. The Joint Center for Political and
Economic Studies Health Policy Institute has followed these statements with demonstrable re-
search linking the health of minority populations with their physical environment. Where have we
been?
Environmental Well-Being
The urgency to understand that we must address the public health imperative only further reminds
us that we are past the time of easy environmental compromises. We have pushed the incred-
ibly resilient environmental systems of our planet to a place where it has begun the process of
rejecting the harmful element, us. Our best dreams and fairy tales evolved in a verdant landscape
by individuals who lived in close harmony with the land. It was a time when individuals knew
firsthand the toil connected to food choices and building construction. It was a time when more
land was just across the horizon. Now, these models, no matter how romantic, must be recon-
sidered. There are just too many of us to spread across the land as we have. We are paving over
watershed and aquifer recharge areas. We are developing prime farmland without regard for
food and water needs. It is time for new ways and means or they will be forced upon us.
What are the specific lessons for us in these studies? What resources can we draw upon? What
specific research can we cite to enable our work and give our decisions credibility? Who will step
forward to provide such resources? One thought is very clear. We cannot allow others to build
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Malecha