Utilising unused space to benefit our wellbeing
It’s said that we spend an average of a quarter of our life at school and work. The last couple of years has allowed us to have time away from the office and the classrooms and shone a light on the importance of maintaining physical and mental wellbeing. Now more than ever, there is a huge surge in promoting positive wellness in our day to day lives.
In this blog, we discuss incorporating wellness areas into our every day environments to provide places to reconnect.
City centre locations often have limited space to expand at ground level, posing the problem of overcrowding and facilities unable to grow. Roof tops are commonly an unused and underutilised space, but what if one solution to the problem could be the roof top itself?
A rooftop garden could be the ideal place for people to escape to for a moment of quiet, surrounded by greenery rather than buildings. Modular seating and planters, which can be moved around with ease, would enable the space to be flexible and adaptable to the users needs. In a education setting, this could provide an additional learning space and a chance for the students to learn outdoors. Could a focus or wellbeing group, or students from a local school, maintain the area as part of a course to address the potential issue of maintenance? The local community could be brought on board to create herb gardens for local cafés in the area, or theatre groups given the opportunity to use the space for performances.
Open green space is another area that is underutilised and poses the risk of becoming a maintenance burden. Whilst there is visual benefit to open space around sites and buildings, could this be transformed into multi-use wellness areas to blend the two together?
Different uses could include a public courtyard surrounded by vegetation, creating the opportunity for a subtle transition between the bustling environment to a tranquil garden. In woodlands areas, contemplation zones could be added where people can take a break from the outside world, with fitness trails, assault courses and paths scattered around, encouraging people to visit the area. Other fitness and exercise related uses could be larger open spaces for outdoor yoga, pilates or similar classes. Multi-use courtyards for fitness classes, playing and meeting, all interspersed with hard and soft landscaping features to make for an easily maintainable area available to the whole community.
The ideas we’ve outlined would encourage biodiversity to unused areas along with enticing new visitors to a destination, members to a gym or community group, or pupils to an education establishment. They are an opportunity to enhance user experience and somewhere for people to relax and recharge, contributing to their mental welfare by creating a range of possible activities, whilst also being as flexible as possible.
