Design as Preventative Medicine: Leveraging the Built Environment to Care for Health

The global rise in chronic disease, driven by physical inactivity and sedentarism, represents a profound evolutionary mismatch between the human genome and modern environments. Reversing this trend requires urgently translating public health research into actionable architectural strategies. While modifying individual behavior is notoriously difficult due to highly variable individual factors, the built environment’s key role in habit formation offers a powerful avenue for population-level intervention. This thesis argues that spatial design must serve as preventative medicine, utilizing urban infrastructure to naturally facilitate daily movement as a core public health initiative. To overcome the established barrier between formal research and spatial application, this work operationalizes existing epidemiological and spatial data into practical analytical tools. By applying these tools to planning interventions in Ottawa, this research establishes an actionable, scalable model for embedding a continuous health and wellbeing lens into future urban developments, from initial design through to long-term monitoring.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Architecture (M.Arch.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Architecture

Grantor dc:publisher

Carleton University

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Hwang, Rayannah Jasmine

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright © 2026 the author(s). Theses may be used for non-commercial research, educational, or related academic purposes only. Such uses include personal study, distribution to students, research and scholarship. Theses may only be shared by linking to the Carleton University Institutional Repository and no part may be copied without proper attribution to the author; no part may be used for commercial purposes directly or indirectly via a for-profit platform; no adaptation or derivative works are permitted without consent from the copyright owner.

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

10.22215/etd/2026-17112

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:carleton.scholaris.ca:20.500.14718/45269