Design Blueprint for Healthy Living in Asia

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AJ: Welcome to Once Upon a project where we uncover the untold stories behind extraordinary design projects. I'm your host, AJ Paron, design futurist from Sandow Design Group who brings you your favorite brands, such as Interior Design magazine, metropolis, design, milk, think lab, and more. Today we're talking about wellness at scale.

What it takes to design spaces that don't just look beautiful, but actually help humans thrive. My guest is Stefano Tranche, Asia Pacific, sustainability leader at SOM based in Hong Kong, where he's leading the charge on creative, high performance commercial environments that prioritize occupant wellbeing from biophilic design.

To air quality, daylighting and holistic spatial strategies. Stefano and his team are pushing the boundaries [00:01:00] of what healthy architecture can achieve, especially in some of the most complex, large scale projects in the world. Good morning actually. Good evening, Stefano. He's in Hong Kong and I am in Minnesota,

Stefano: Hello, aj. Thank you for having me here. It's a pleasure to join your podcast.

AJ: Okay. Stefano, you've worked on some of the most ambitious commercial projects in Asia, so tell us what initially inspired you to make wellness such as a core driver in your work?

Stefano: That's a very good question.

I've always been interested in, uh, linking design to sustainability and thinking about how the design that we do in our work affects, uh, nature and our, our footprint on resources around the world. And then, uh, at a certain point of my career, I started to [00:02:00] reflect about the possibility.

Of, uh, design actually impacting the life, the quality of life and, and the outcome in, in the life of our users and, and the people that inhabit the spaces that we design. And along the way, I started researching about this topics, I started learning about standards that internationally are particularly relevant in the funding.

The, the, the framework, the rules of the game in order to design spaces that are meant to improve the health and wellbeing of their occupants.

things like, for example, the world internet, uh, the world building standard.

I started studying these things and researching how they work and applying to, to the design that I deliver.

fast forward to today. I work in a, in a very dynamic studio here in Hong Kong, and, uh, we work across all Pacific in,

delivering projects that from the very beginning, [00:03:00] have strategies that work for both nature and people, in order to, to improve the, the life quality of everybody that, will inhabit the spaces.

AJ: So tell us a little bit about how you collaborate with the developers, engineers, the city officials, to prioritize this human wellbeing without compromising everything else people are worried about on these projects, like timelines and budgets and permits and all of that.

Stefano: One of the great things is, about working with the studio is that, We are not just an architecture studio, we are an interdisciplinary studio that blends architecture and engineering and within engineering, structural and environmental engineering. So all of our proposals start at the same time integrating all of these opinions.

We have charettes and workshops in the studio that try to, And not just provide, uh, a [00:04:00] beautiful design, but integrating it with data and with, quantifiable information that can be discussed and provided to our clients, in order to make sure that they understand, relevance of our design and all of the metrics that allow it to become building towers and master plants across all around the world.

From the client side, what we try to make sure that they understand is the absolute importance to cater our design festival for the people that, that we design for. Ultimately, architecture is a work of designing spaces for people, so understanding how our design impact them. Understanding how a building can be thought in a way that can, for example, make the life of a person better, make them.

recover faster in a, in a, in a, in a hospital or learn better in school or even potentially improve the length and quality of a person's life in a [00:05:00]certain neighborhood. All of these things are things that we communicate through our concept designs and through our values behind our design. We quantify through data and through analysis and diagrams that are.

pinpointing exactly what kind of impacts our design will have eventually when it's built. and, uh, through these stories, we, we deliver our projects.

AJ: So through data, through storytelling, through examples. You're able to convince all these stakeholders that this should be a priority for this project. Do you ever still get it a naysayer? You do all that work, you show 'em all the data, you tell 'em how this is going to make the world a better place, and they're like, no, I don't wanna do that.

Stefano: Well, for sure that's a possibility and What you often get, questioned on, whether or not certain kind of strategies may have, you know, a high price tag, for example, or whether or not that budget is [00:06:00] justifiable or.

You know, what's in it for me if I actually do a design this way rather than in a more traditional way. The reality is that, we don't just wanna. Propose things because they're pretty, and, and, and the local. We, we want to propose strategies that have an impact, not just in the design, but in the outcomes that these projects are going to have.

So when we tell a story about. For example, I don't know, say a, an office space, that will increase the productivity of the people that we work in that building that has a direct outcome in the quality of the space for the, for the building owner. For example, if, if that's our client, if we are telling a story about very sustainable, uh, workplace towers, then that has a direct.

Translation in terms of, rentability and being able to, to cater to different kind of tenants [00:07:00] of the highest quality. if you're telling a story about a hospital that reduces by, say, even just half a day, the average stain of a patient. because it allows them to recover just a little bit faster.

That has an impact on how big that hospital will be, because probably you will need fewer, fewer beds and fewer spaces, so the reconstruction becomes cheaper and that, that hospital, the healthcare, provides its function in a much more effective

AJ: you bring up a good point people do think about the cost, right? That, that first time cost, but many times what you are really showing them is that long-term impact and that lifecycle cost might actually be lower than the initial cost. And so it's, it's comparing those two things.

I know of a company and it was a small. Company, maybe 30 people that had a space that was designed, and got a very high ranking in the well [00:08:00]certification, had amazing indoor air quality, amazing light, circadian rhythm, all of the things, right? And because of the pandemic. Things shifted. The company changed its organization.

They became more of a remote organization and they were expressing to me their concern of being able to sublease their space when real estate was at a plethora on the market. There was so much real estate right coming outta COVID and, and they had no problem, Subletting that space because they had all these health and wellness amenities that most spaces around them did not have, and that became so much more valuable to them hence why they were. Subletting it because of course the office building knew that it was increasing the value and brought their rent up. But you know, the markets could take it because it's, those are the types of amenities, especially coming outta the [00:09:00] pandemic that people were looking for. So, Stefano, can you share us an example of a project where design decisions significantly improve the occupant health?

Or happiness or the wellness initiatives that you were trying to achieve on that project.

Stefano: Absolutely. we are probably more familiar with what does it mean? To design and to deliver a project in terms of interior design that is catered to the wellness and, and health of its occupants.

What it may not be. That obvious is how you design an entire district. Catering for the health and wellbeing of its occupants, of its residents. and it's a very complex system of so many different things from different people and different, uh, that belong to different strata or society through infrastructure and transportation and climate that affect a much larger area in a very different way. So. there are a [00:10:00] few places in the world where people live extraordinarily longer. in comparison to the rest of the world.

basically in, uh, it, it all comes down to a, a, an active lifestyle with a lot of movement, good mental health, so a life that is away from stress, good nutrition and, a great sense of connection. With the people that surround you, Now what we started doing in a few projects that we, that we, that we have been working on during the last couple of years is trying to codify those things into architectural and urban design components. a live flow associated with the design of a building or a set of buildings. That, tries to, improve the activity.

The, the pedestrian links, the connection between buildings so that people can actually walk rather than take transportation. allowing spaces to help the behavioral shift, to support [00:11:00] people, to do more exercise, to be more integrated and, and immersed in nature surrounding them, which Improves also the mental health because when you're surrounded by nature, you're also more relaxed naturally. as well as how do you bring in. Quality nutrition. That's something that, uh, an architect is not really equipped with because it's not a choice that we're gonna make whatever you're gonna buy at the grocery store. Right.

AJ: You're not necessarily a chef either, right? So

Stefano: exactly. But for example, there are cities here like Singapore, where they are creating an act along the city of.

Different, urban farming, regenerative urban farming on the rooftops of parking spaces on the rooftop of, of big, high rises. So you start having all of these little kind of dots that create a map. Of very high quality and valuable nutrition that eventually reaches its own residents. a few of these urban farms [00:12:00] are reintroducing native crops into the city.

There is a whole couple of generations of, uh, young generations that. Have grown in, in, in a very dense metropolis and have no understanding of, the seasonal cycle of certain kind of products or, the reasons why certain, certain vegetables or fruits need to be grown at different times or in association with other plants.

So they're reimporting all of this very. Traditional and regenerative way of growing food right in the middle of the city. Bringing schools to, learn from from these things so new generations can learn. What does it mean to tweak in a very nutritious way and imperfect balance with natural systems?

AJ: I am so shocked how many people don't have exposure. I mean, I remember, being in the Midwest when my partner who was from England was here. I took him to a pumpkin patch and he was like, [00:13:00] I thought that these were fake. I thought it was something outta Charlie Brown.

I'm like, no. grow on vines and he was so excited. But it's true, like especially in America, we live in a world that our food is so processed and that the diets even in schools are not the whole food diets that we've, we should be eating and that are seasonal and that work with a circadian rhythm.

And so that's fascinating. seven oh. Talk a little bit about how some of those things might be connected to community, because some of the new research that's coming out, when you look at longevity of people living longer, it has so much to do [00:14:00] with their connection to other people.

Stefano: Absolutely.

AJ: and having, not just at work, but in home, in life, in the community you know, it helps, keep people from developing dementia.

It helps with, um, their overall stress levels. Like there's just so many factors that come around community. So is that something that you specifically have to think about or is that an integrated approach?

Stefano: It's all integrated and I believe that thinking about the, the health implication behind a project, it's a, you, you, you need to see it in a holistic way, seeing all of these different components as part of the same. Kind of strategy and approach. So you're talking about sense of community, it relates to, purpose and share values.

It relates to the ability to create spaces for people to be able to gather and, and find Common values, common hobbies, common things that will bring them together. But it's also, it also relates to, designing [00:15:00] spaces, that have a high level of social cohesion. Through activities, through, um, the ability to, to layer how, how people, how residents will be able to get together in different parts of the community.

So for example, there is this project that we designed, it's a master plan close to guango, close by to Hong Kong in an area called Panu. So this master plan it is very large.

It's about 35 actors, and it's a development that aims to the, to be designed as a, an example to follow for all cities around in terms of what's the healthiest master plan in urban design for a whole precinct in, uh, south China. So. As a premise, this whole area, in this part of the world, you have a climate that it's not particularly comfortable.

You have very hot and very humid days, almost the whole year [00:16:00] long. And, uh, that doesn't necessarily favor people getting together all the time or living

AJ: Oh gosh, no.

Stefano: Right, exactly. So how can, can we integrate all of these things? Also cities, very big cities like we have in this, in, in, in East Asia, several millions people come with pollution, come with noise, and traffic come with a lot of stressors, usually a very, fast-paced kind of lifestyle. so how do we reimagine a society that can be designed in a way that, improves the wellness, improves the health being the, the, the, the health and wellbeing potentially improves their, uh, chances to a longer and healthier life as well.

AJ: Just you describing that city. That sounds impossible because what I have in my head is like hot and humid, lots of pollution and noise and chaos and all these people like, no, just sounds [00:17:00] impossible. So I, I can't wait to hear. What, what your proposed solution is.

Stefano: So first of all, this whole master plan connects basically a, a whole natural reservoir, whole park to a major transportation system. There is a big station, um.

The whole, the majority of Southeast Asia is very well connected by trains, by big train, by high speed trains. And, they become naturally center of developments for, for these cities all over the place. So We started studying, the climate of this particular development. Where do major winds come from in different seasons and orienting the streets and the building to favor this air flow and natural breezes crossing the whole development so that.

they bring pollution away. First of all, they naturally lower the temperature down. So what we call he island effect of a particular [00:18:00] environment goes naturally down because of, of the factor. prevailing winds also. allow places to be slightly more comfortable because you have a natural breeze that allows you to perceive temperature a little lower than otherwise.

Then you can imagine, one thing that creates a stronger sense of, identity. It's the ability to feel a certain level of safety and security

AJ: If you don't have that safety and security, nothing else matters. Right?

Stefano: That's right, that's right. And, and in Asia, usually c cities are very safe in terms of crime, in these are cities that you can be, Going on with your life without any, any issue with, with other people or any issue with crime, but the a risk that may be on the back of the man of people, especially in terms of new developments, it's related to climate.

All of these areas are very prone to flooding, are prone to heat. Waves are prone to, um, potentially the highest [00:19:00] impact of climate change in the next few years, in the next few decades.

AJ: Wow.

Stefano: so that, you know, that can create anxiety. That in addition to the fact that it can create a lot of damage, it can create anxiety in the man of people and it can destabilize the kind of wellness, strategy that we are talking about.

So having an idea of the impact of climate change and climate risk associated with it, and how we can design these places in order to minimize the impact of flooding, for example, with, large green connectors that cross the whole development that are naturally absorbing water. So whenever, whenever there is a lot of, a lot of water falling from the sky, strong storms, they become rain sinks and they absorb the whole water, all of the water that falls into a certain place.

Avoiding for that to flood into the communities that are inhabited by residents. Additionally, this creates very beautiful, like kind of tidal pools and, [00:20:00]and regenerate the biodiversity of the whole environment. Uh, allow for a whole new system of natural life to integrate within the urban environment itself.

AJ: I mean, you bring up a really important aspect when I think about safety and security, you're right. I'm not like for my house, my, where I live, I am not worried about, 'cause we have cameras everywhere. I'm not worried about crime. I'm not worried about whether my doors are locked. I'm worried about what if there's a fire, even though we're close to water.

That doesn't make a difference. You saw that in LA if there's a fire, my house is gone. Right? Because I'm surrounded by trees. I don't have. You know, landscaping that will help protect us from fire. Same thing about flooding and water, like we could erode down the hill. So like these are new threats that I think as people we haven't really been thinking about.

And [00:21:00] now we're seeing these effects and you know, we see that happening in China too.

Stefano: Mm-hmm.

AJ: with sinkhole and, and other things that are, you know, tearing apart their infrastructure. 'cause when the infrastructure was built, that was not our priority. And now the, the shifting of climate change, all of that is, is becoming top of mind.

So. that's fascinating to me that you are looking to have architecture and the city planning, trying to mitigate some of those risks that are really be, a lot of them are beyond our control now,

Stefano: But we can still design spaces that, at the very least mitigate the impact of climate change on, on the residents. Uh, support a strategy that improves the, the quality of life for the people living in, in this place so that they can not only survive a change climate, but thrive within it. And in order to do that, uh, the most important principle to me is to understand how [00:22:00]natural systems work on their own without our.

Uh, input with our, our work in, in changing them. And if we understand that, then we can, we can allow nature to be, to be its own thing and design spaces and buildings and communities that live in, in, in, in, in a symbiotic relationship with it. We live in harmony with what surrounds them. all of these things can be applied to. Urban design, architecture design down to the chair of a small bench, and we can understand every single system, how it works and how it impacts our work.

AJ: That's the place I wanna be. Stef Atol, it is this philosophy change, like for so long, architecture has been, we build the building and the building is what the nature has to adapt around to. And this is flipping it and saying, we're going to build a city, And [00:23:00] so nature can happen and you can still be in that space. And it's not a conflict

Stefano: Absolutely. spaces that can be curated and taken care of by people. So linking to that idea of having a social purpose and a social identity naturally.

Finding por purpose within an urban environment improves your sense of place, your ability to call a place home. A lot of people don't necessarily. See themselves represented by what surrounds them. But it's so important to create that, that level of place making, um, not by just putting a beautiful landmark somewhere, but rather, through life intersected through all of the different architecture, buildings, communities, and activities that happen in that.

In, in, in, in any environment. So once that happens, when we are, once we are able to design that eventually something quite quite interesting happen, people will start identifying themselves with that particular environment. And, uh, that [00:24:00] creates a sense of community, create a sense of belonging.

And through that, social cohesion improves. You start having a community that has a different kind of sense of purpose and values.

AJ: What other things have you worked on in this project that you're really focused on achieving that human happiness, wellbeing goal?

Stefano: if we zoom in from a very large environment, from the whole district kind of approach to spaces that are inhabit by people. And, and we start mapping how people move and how people go by their day and in, and, and any time. Um, so one of the things that we need to do is to imagine how life happens [00:25:00] in a future neighborhood that we are designing and similarly to, an office space. We'll plan also a community with different areas that, provide with a different Feeling a different kind of activity, a different kind of outcome. So you're going to have areas that are more active and areas and areas that are quieter, spaces that are closer to the transportation and therefore have more activity there.

Those are gonna be where you're gonna have, uh, I don't know, like the schools or fitness oriented, uh, amenities or clinics and hospitals are gonna be, uh, grouped around. An easy, accessible area, and that will create a kind of sense of community around these spaces. Then you're going to have areas that maybe are more natural, surrounded by, surrounded by parks and enabling them to cross pathways at different points. What this generates is random connections, random points of people being able [00:26:00] to, to meet one another this random encounters improve their ability to create, real neighborhoods and, and connect and connections between people living in the same place. Everything becomes a map or relationship between people and we design the fabric around them really. Um, nothing else but that.

AJ: When you're trying to plan for these cities, you are thinking 30, 40, 50 years out. Right? And myself being a design futurist, I know it's really hard to figure out. What is the world going to be like then? Right? And what, how might technology or human behaviors evolve or things shift?

we were having this conversation at a conference. I was just at, think about the airports, like the airports today. You can tell which ones you walk into that you're like, oh, they haven't shifted the design of the space. That's why TSA doesn't work because the security wasn't there when [00:27:00] they designed that airport.

And now it's like an add-on and it doesn't flow, and you have long lines and it's chaotic and you don't know where you're going and there's bad wayfinding because no one predicted that we would have these massive security concerns at airports. Do you find it really difficult to think about the things that might be really relevant to the design or change the design in 30, 40 years?

Stefano: Most often than not, what we see coming up in our cities are buildings that are, have been designed years beforehand, and they're answering questions that were posed at that time. So being able to anticipate the questions of tomorrow. or if that is not possible, allowing for your design to be able to, uh, accommodate different kinds of question, different kinds of issues that we don't know about today. that's a very, very difficult thing to do, but we do [00:28:00]think about it, just a practical example in, uh, steel in Guang Jo, we have another building that, just opened. It's called San's uh, headquarters for, corporation for a Chinese corporation that does heavy machinery. it's basically composed by two twin towers, with a beautiful ra, external structure and, and a and systems that are basically every five floors there is a main floor and all of the floors below are hunk from it, creating very minimal structure inside.

Very beautiful open floor plates. Very beautiful views of the city. And everything designed around a central core. Now, that was supposed to be, when it was designed originally, an entirely, office space, both towers, and then throughout its construction. Then we received the info, the, request of turning part of these buildings, or both the towers from office to residential.

And potentially, potentially. we have been asked also [00:29:00] if it would be possible to turn some of that residential into a hotel. So change of functions that is quite dramatic, that wasn't thought about at the very beginning, but because of this floor plates being, very flexible, having enough floor height to allow for different functions to come in, having.

Course that are designed to allow for a shift of different building systems. So for example, all the meps of the building will change depending on the function. So you have to think about whether or not you're going to be able to change them in the future. All of these things, this design, this mentality of design for flexibility allowed us to change part of the function of the buildings halfway through its construction

AJ: That's amazing.

Stefano: it's pretty amazing. Yeah.

AJ: Because we see that all the time. I, especially right now, like being in London, there's so much commercial real estate on the market and they have tried to flip that over and the first thing I think about is. [00:30:00] Oh my goodness. How are they gonna get all the bathrooms in there? if you don't have the structure that can accommodate.

Having four times the amount that was originally planned for, it's not gonna work, right. Or it's gonna be very expensive to get it to that, level. So I love that idea that the future is about, okay. The structure we might build could be anything.

Stefano: Mm-hmm.

AJ: Could be a hospital, could be a hotel, could be a commercial environment, could be housing, So, Stefano, you've told us some amazing things and I, I love the way that you think about wellness and sustainability and bring it all together. For that human flourishing. tell me personally, what's the most rewarding part of the work that you're doing?

Stefano: I can, I can answer that in two ways. There is a. A very selfish, part that it's after all these years that you worked on a [00:31:00] project, you finally see a build right there. And, and that's something, something incredible.

It's, uh, it takes so much time and so much effort. it's a whole experience as well as seeing it through all of the different phases of construction going on site, understanding how everything comes together, understanding how to improve it, even during the construction of the, of the building itself.

So that's very rewarding on its own. Another thing that is very rewarding, it's often seeing it, used by people sometimes in, in, uh, su in surprising ways and, and finding how, people naturally create their own, their own community around this buildings. They start using them, as it best fits their own lifestyle you know, it's, it means that we have done something, something right with our design and we have delivered spaces that will be, conducive to, uh, a good life for a lot of residents at that particular place.

AJ: I I'm glad to hear that that [00:32:00] is really rewarding to you. And you know, there's, there's a lot of people in the design and architecture business that it is about their brand and about their mark, and you come from a very, um, selfless point of view where you're trying to make the world better.

And I that's, I really appreciate that.

Stefano: you know, when you see it happening, it definitely is very rewarding.

AJ: you know, it's, it's very easy to become a pessimist. If you look at. All the data of climate change and the negative impacts that are happening. But we do know from science that optimists live longer, so we should all be optimists because that's really important for us to live longer and be able to come up with the solutions that are going to help us all thrive and it can happen.

' Stefano, thank you so much for joining me today and really sharing your insights on designing cities, architecture, and spaces where [00:33:00] humans can truly flourish. Your work reminds us that architecture and city planning is not just about buildings.

It's about creating environments that nurture health, wellbeing, and connections for humans. So to our listeners, if today's conversation inspired you, share this episode and subscribe to Once Upon A Project, a huge thanks to our incredible production team. Rob Schulte, Rachel Santor and Verity Lister for making this podcast possible.

I couldn't do it without them. And if you'd like to hear more design stories like this one, head over to surround podcasts.com, your hub for conversations that matter. We'll be back soon with another inspiring project. Until then, keep dreaming big. Keep pushing creative boundaries and keep creating spaces where people can thrive, just like Stefano. [00:34:00]