Health, and the information around it, is messy. As are our bodies and the systems intended to help sustain them. No anatomical chart, in its immaculate precision, can articulate the ooze of our fluids and secretions, or our sensations of pain and fear; or the strain of accumulating medical bills; or the clash between the cult of wellness and rampant addiction; or the inequality of access to basic hygiene, nutrition, and medical care. Like health itself, our power—as individuals, citizens, and designers—to heal or to harm ourselves and the spaces in which we dwell is full of contradictions.

These contradictions are what generated this issue of Harvard Design Magazine. “Well, Well, Well” explores some of the tensions and transformations of the landscape of health and illness. As both designers and inhabitants, we create this landscape, and in turn, must navigate our own well-being within it. And as the rules of wellness continue to change—along with political events, science and technology, and nature itself—design and planning must adapt and respond accordingly. Architecture’s panaceas are not without expiration dates, and might even turn out to do more harm than good—but ultimately design has the power to promote and support health and healing in preemptive and progressive ways.

Table of Contents Editor’s Note

Checkup Jennifer Sigler Artifacts

Sculpo, Ergo Sum Jörg Scheller

Seeing the Forest for the Trees Julia Kane Africa, Yuko Tsunetsugu, Hui Wang

A Hygiene Hypothesis Hilary Sample

Delivering Scent, Designing Memory David Edwards

Everyone Needs Everything Nicholas Fox Weber

Flying Buttresses Matthew Allen

Healing the Machine Jeanne Gang

Holistic Planning Ann Forsyth

How Not to Die Jenna Sutela

In Your Backyard Jose Ahedo

Off-the-Grid Treatment Peter Rose

Reading Hollywood in the Smog David Gissen

Reanimator Susan Merriam

The End of Sitting RAAAF

Valerio’s Ark Peter Sealy

Youthfulness without Youth Deane Simpson Columns

Neuromancer Sport Claire L. Evans

White Coat Nancy Etcoff

Designing for Dignity Ai-Jen Poo

Healing Cuban-American Relations María Magdalena Campos-Pons

Out-of-Body Experiences: The Polis in Sickness and in Health Brooke Holmes

What Is Medicine? And Where? Charles E. Rosenberg Essays

Iatrogenic Architecture: Unreliable Narratives of Sustainability Kiel Moe

In Search of the Water Pump: Architecture and Cholera Michael Murphy

Messages from Material Reality Salmaan Craig

The Missing Link: Architecture and Waste Management Andreas Georgoulias, Hanif Kara, Leire Asensio Villoria

The Non-Spaces of Medical Tourism I. Glenn Cohen

A Medical-History Tour of Pretoria Sean O'Toole

Architecture that Breathes Annmarie Adams

Concrete Therapy: Paul Rudolph’s Architecture of Mental Health Mark Pasnik

Freedom by Design: The Paradoxes of Psychiatric Architecture Leslie Topp

Piss and the City Thomas A. P. Van Leeuwen

The Forgotten Birth of Parametric Design David Theodore

X-Ray Architecture: The Tuberculosis Effect Beatriz Colomina Interviews

Artificial Natures Matthew Allen, George Church

No More Shadows Barrett Brown-Fried, Aaron Betsky

On Atmosphere and Landscape Silvia Benedito, Germán del Sol

Urban Age Interboro Partners, Linda Fried Photo Essay

Silver Lining: The NORCs of New York Interboro Partners, Tim Davis Plus

Afflicted Form: A History of the Hospital MASS Design Group