The architecture of Health.

Design of places, products, and systems, make visible the invisibility of contagions, and of relationships, that affect our, individual, community, and planetary health. Good architecture practice must/need to activate the change necessary for architecture and design processes to extend beyond aesthetics and include consideration of the invisible; values, philosophies, histories, politics, labor, legislation, energy, desire, and agency, to respond to climate change and other structures of injustice.

Architecture and Health are inseparable, from the direct design of hospitals and places for healing to the strategic design of infrastructures and city planning, architecture affects the physical and mental health of individuals and communities [2]. There is a disconnection from expectation to delivery because the design of healthy environments is often obstructed by deep-rooted bias and structural problems embedded in the practices and methods of architecture that continue to be propagated in the architectural curriculum.

How can architecture practice support the rethinking of the conditioning of health in design?
What is the role of architectural research and education in challenging how society and practice understand the environment, planetary ecology, community, and individual health?


Christian Benimana joined MASS Design Group as a Global Health Corps Design Fellow in 2010. Today, Christian works as one of the firm's Senior Principals and Managing Directors and is Director of the African Design Centre, a field-based apprenticeship that is set to empower leaders who will design a more equitable, just, and sustainable world. At MASS, he serves as an operational and administrative leader, while also spearheading design/build projects, large and small, and development initiatives. Christian’s significant portfolio includes the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture, the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, and African Leadership University in Rwanda as well as the Regional Centre of Excellence in Biomedical Engineering and e-Health and Nyarugenge District Hospital.

He has extensive knowledge of the architectural industry in Rwanda, and East Africa at large and served as the Secretary-General of the East Africa Institute of Architects. Christian was recognized as one of the 2017 Quartz Africa Innovators and has been named among 10 architects and designers that are championing Afrofuturism. He has authored articles and book chapters including Re-Thinking the Future of African Cities in The African Perspective Magazine and Creating Design Leaders: The African Design Centre in Public Interest Design Education Guidebook. Before joining MASS, he worked with LongiLat Architecture and Research in Shanghai assisting with the Porsche Center in Shanghai and the Netherlands Pavilion at the 2010 International Expo. Christian holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the School of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP) of Tongji University in Shanghai, China, and his goal is to develop the next generation of African designers with socially-focused design principles.

The Charles Correa International Lecture Fund was established in 2016 in honor and memory of renowned Indian architect and activist Charles Correa (B.Arch.’53). The fund endows an annual lecture at Taubman College by an international practitioner engaged with global architecture to promote the expansion of cultural understanding through design.

This lecture will be presented in person at the Art & Architecture Building and on Zoom. Webinar registration required at: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_slANdM0AQF6jL0c56oTk5g