Physical Health and Architecture: Architecture as a Catalyst for Sustained Health

Obesity has quickly become the largest contributor to health issues in America. The issue facing society is not only how to combat and address the concerns of preventable chronic disease, but to also find ways to improve health for the individual and the collective. Through architecture, this thesis is intended to design a community health and physical wellness center that has a focus on sustaining improved health. By evaluating the spaces for physiological needs of eating and exercising along with education, this facility is intended to serve as a catalyst for fostering a system of evaluation to reflect an entire lifestyle condition and improve an understanding of health and wellness issues within the community. The program elements of eating, exercising and educating create the spaces that frame the program and the spaces between these functions are where the inadvertent experience with health and wellness takes place. Ultimately, this is a space of recovery and learning; recovering a healthy self-image and physical being through learning ways to sustain and maintain a healthy lifestyle and how to ultimately motivate people into engaging with the facility, whether actively or passively