Courtyard Housing for Health and Happiness

Architectural Multiculturalism in North America

Donia Zhang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317158790
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture Criticism

Health and happiness are fundamental to human quality of life. The United Nations World Happiness Report 2012 reflects a new worldwide call for governments to include happiness as a criterion to their policies. The Healthy Cities or Happy Cities movement has been endorsed by the WHO since 1986, and a Healthy House or Happy Home is a critical constituent of a healthy city or a happy city. Nevertheless, the concept has not been fully explored. Existing literature on the healthy house has often focused on the technical, economic, environmental, or biochemical aspects, while current scholarship on the happy home commonly centers on interior decoration. Few studies have addressed the importance of social and cultural factors that affect the health and happiness of the occupants. Identifying four key themes in Chinese philosophy to promote health and happiness at home, this book links architecture with Chinese philosophy, social sciences, and the humanities, and in doing so, argues that Architectural Multiculturalism is a vital ideology to guide housing design in North America. Using both qualitative and quantitative evidence gathered from ethnic Chinese and non-Chinese living in the USA and Canada, the study proposes that the Courtyard is a central component to promote social and cultural health and happiness of residents. It further details courtyard garden house design strategies that combine a sense of privacy with a feeling of community as represented in courtyard housing. The schemes may have universal implications.

1

Introduction: Health and Happiness in Housing

If you want to be happy for a year, plant a garden.

If you want to be happy for life, plant a tree.

English proverb

If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.

If you want happiness for a lifetime, help others.

Chinese proverb

THE PURSUIT OF HEALTH AND HAPPINESS

Health and happiness are fundamental to people’s livelihoods and the continuity of humankind; together they form one of humanity’s perpetual pursuits. The World Health Report, first published in 1995, is the leading publication of the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations’ World Happiness Report 2012 reflects a new worldwide call for more attention to happiness as a criterion for government policies.

Health is a holistic condition. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines health as “the state of being well in body or mind,” it describes “a person’s mental or physical condition” (1911/1995, p. 626). In 1946, the World Health Organization defined that “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (2006, p. 1). This definition, although controversial because of the use of the word “complete,” has remained the most enduring. WHO’s Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (1986) further declares that “Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities” (p. 1). Besides healthcare interventions, a number of other factors are known to influence the health status of individuals, including their environments, lifestyles, and socio-economic conditions.

Happiness as important to society is not new. To enlightenment thinkers, the fundamental driving force for humanity is the quest for happiness. Many biological, psychological, philosophical, and religious approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato (424–348 BCE) in Protagoras (1924) argued that happiness is the harmony of the soul, whereas Aristotle (384–322 BCE) in “Art” of Rhetoric (1926) and Nicomachean Ethics (1999) maintained that happiness consists of lifetime activity in the pursuit of highest virtue. Likewise, Roman philosopher Seneca (ca. 4 BCE –65 CE) in a dialogue On Happy Life (2012) advocated virtue against pleasure. A contemporary definition of happiness is the “subjective enjoyment of one’s life as-a-whole” (Veenhoven, 2011, p. 17).

In his Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) regarded “the pursuit of happiness” as important as life and liberty in the United States. Utilitarian thinkers, notably English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), demanded public policy to promote “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” (Bentham, 1789).

Since the twentieth century, various research groups have endeavored to apply scientific methods to discover what “happiness” is, and how people might attain it. In particular, happiness economics is a quantitative inquiry, typically combining with other fields such as psychology, sociology, or its related subjects, for instance, quality of life, life satisfaction, positive and negative effects, wellbeing, and so on, to study happiness.

Although most happiness economics research findings show that on average, wealthier countries are happier than poor ones, and that within countries wealthier people are happier than poor ones,¹ the studies conducted by Richard Easterlin in 1974 and Charles Kenny in 1999 indicate that once a certain standard of living is achieved, there is no clear link between increased wealth and happiness.² Yet even among the poorer countries, there is no obvious relationship between average income and happiness, suggesting many other factors, including cultural traits, is at work (Easterlin, 2003). This result indicates that constant craving for more economic gains at the expense of environmental poverty will not lead humanity to greater happiness.

Happiness is therefore a holistic state that needs to be assessed using more than economic measures. Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index established in 1972 is the first of its kind not relying on the Gross National Product (GNP) Index to evaluate happiness, and China’s Happiness Index enacted at the end of 2007 is part of its campaign to create a harmonious society.

Studies have shown that sunny weather makes people happier than gloomy days,³ so do genes and personality.⁴ There is a variation of happiness: having a sense of goal or purpose in life (in Greek terms, “eudaimonia” or “eudaimonism”⁵), enjoying short-term pleasure (in Greek words, “hedonia” or “hedonism”⁶), having a religion or spirituality, gaining wisdom, or having companions.⁷

Health and happiness are reciprocal; health affects happiness and happiness impacts on health.⁸ There also found a strong correlation between education, health, and happiness. Individuals with higher levels of educational attainment tend to be healthier and happier than those with lower ones.⁹ Nevertheless, Michalos (2007) argued that the complexity in the definition of “education” (formal, non-formal, and informal) have both direct and indirect effects on the scenario.

Thus, happiness is due to a combination of internal factors such as personality, health, and education, and external factors such as economics and the environments.

HEALTHY CITIES AND HAPPY CITIES

The environments (natural, built, and social) are often cited as an important factor influencing the health status of individuals. Thus the term “healthy” is also widely applied in the context of non-living organisms such as healthy cities, healthy communities, or healthy environments.

Contemporary public health concern can be traced back to Edwin Chadwick, secretary to the Health in Towns Commission in the UK, who, in 1843, reported about workers’ poor living conditions in British cities and towns in the early nineteenth century. Subsequently, the British government established the Health of Towns Association to address public health issues.¹⁰

The revival of public interest in environmental health can be attributed to the Healthy Toronto 2000 Convention in 1984. Thereafter, WHO (1994, 2003) endorsed the “Healthy Cities,” and later “Healthy Communities” movement, whose principles are set in the Ottawa Charter in 1986 to promote a holistic approach to Health For All, using its broad definition to include the social and environmental determinants of health, and the interrelationship of health with issues such as housing, education, peace, equity, social justice, stable ecosystem, and sustainable resources.¹¹

The Healthy Cities and Healthy Communities is a global movement aimed at solving a number of critical urban health issues, such as toxic environments, poor housing, lack of public transportation, violence, crime, substance abuse, shortage of childcare, and racial discrimination as young people in contemporary cities are increasingly experiencing unhealthy conditions.¹²

The Toronto Healthy City Office (1991) stated that a healthy city should provide, among other things, “a clean, safe physical environment of high quality (including housing quality) … the encouragement of connectedness with the past, with the cultural and biological heritage of city dwellers and with other groups and individuals … a form that is compatible with and enhances the preceding characteristics” (p. 20). WHO (1998) likewise defined a healthy city as one that is “continually creating and improving those physical and social environments and expanding those community resources which enable people to mutually support each other in performing all the functions of life and in developing to their maximum potential” (p. 13). In the above definitions, the healthy development of social and cultural environments is considered as important as that of the natural and built environments.

The second General Healthy Cities Alliance Assembly and Conference was held in Suzhou (China) in 2006, with the theme of “Healthy Cities in the Globalizing World.” Moreover, the principle of the Phase Five (2009–2013) of the Health Cities project is “health and health equity in all local policies,” covering three core areas: caring and supporting environments, healthy living, and healthy urban environments and design.¹³

A healthy community is a critical part of a healthy city, and it has various definitions each applicable to its locality. The University of British Columbia defined a healthy community as a “community in which all organizations—from informal groups to governments—are working effectively together to improve the quality of all people’s lives” (Boothroyd and Eberle, 1990, p. 7). However, there remain no universal indicators of measuring the effectiveness of Healthy Cities or Healthy Communities projects, not only because the results can only be observable locally,¹⁴ but also because, to some extent, it varies by culture and level of technology.

The Happy City movement that is changing the structure and soul of cities around the world is documented by Charles Montgomery in his book Happy City (2013), where he states that “The City Has Always Been a Happiness Project” since ancient Greek and Roman times. Drawn from the insights of philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and happiness economists, Montgomery summarizes a set of happy city principles as follows:

1. The city should strive to maximize joy and minimize hardship.

2. The city should lead people towards health rather than sickness.

3. The city should offer people real freedom to live, move, and build our lives as we wish.

4. The city should build resilience against economic and environmental shocks.

5. The city should be fair in the way it allocates space, services, mobility, joys, hardships, and costs.

6. The city should, most of all, enable people to build and strengthen the b...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction: Health and Happiness in Housing
• 2 Four Key Themes in Chinese Philosophy to Promote Health and Happiness at Home
• 3 Health as Balancing Yin Yang: Form and Environmental Quality of the Housing
• 4 Health as Gathering Qi: Space and Construction Quality of the Housing
• 5 Happiness as Attaining Oneness: Matters of Social Cohesion in the Homes
• 6 Happiness as Knowing the Dao: Time and Cultural Activities in the Homes
• 7 Four Keystones of Courtyard Housing Design
• 8 Conclusion: Courtyard Housing for Health and Happiness
• Appendix: Survey Questionnaire
• Bibliography
• Index