School Design Studio

Obesity and the Design of the School Environment

"Spatial features of obesogenic environments studied on a broad, community level have been associated with childhood overweight and obesity, but little research has focused on the effects of the design of micro spaces such as schools on individual health behaviors.  This presentation aims to generate thinking and research on the link between school space and architecture and obesity prevention by reviewing and synthesizing available literature in architecture, environmental psychology, and obesity research, in an effort to propose promising ideas for school space design and redesign..."

This was the beginning of my abstract to a conference panel I was invited to put on by the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development entitled "Obesity and the Design of Microenvironment: Beyond Individual Behavior: Multidimensional Research in Obesity Linking Biology to Society in Pentagon City, Arlington, VA on October 10 - 12, 2007. My session was on "Engaging and Integrating Industry and Social Entrepreneurial Partnerships Into Empirical Research."

The Laws of Simplicity

John Maeda's site is "devoted to my ongoing thought processes regarding the topic of simplicity. I wrote and designed a book entitled The Laws of Simplicity to let the ideas take root." The book.

Here are John's 10 Laws:

1. Reduce: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction
2. Organize: Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
3. Time: Savings in time feels like simplicity.
4. Learn: Knowledge makes everything simpler.
5. Differences: Simplicity and complexity need each other.
6. Context: What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
7. Emotion: More emotions are better than less.
8. Trust: In simplicity we trust.
9. Failure: Some things can never be made simple.
10. The One: Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.