Constructing Health
Tye Farrow (University of Toronto Press, 2024)
Farrow Partners and Rubinstein Ofer Architects? Helmsley Cancer Centre in Jerusalem, Israel, boasts a butterfly-like timber structure. Photo by Harel Gilboa
REVIEW Laure Nolte
For a moment, recall a memory of when you felt instantly at ease when you entered a building. You may have felt your heart rate slow down as you took a deep breath. Perhaps your nervous system regulated as the stress and noise of the outside world faded, and your senses gradually attuned to the space. A glimmer of light and shadow may have brought a moment of delight, a turn of a corner revealing a compelling materiality you began to trace with your fingers. 
Whether we are aware of it or not, the environments we inhabit have an impact on the mind and body; on our cognition and physiology. For over two decades, architect and urban designer Tye Farrow, founder of Farrow Partners, has asked how meaningful, health-generating person-to-place relationships can be nurtured through the medium of architecture. His new book, Constructing Health, offers a touchstone for designers, clients, and others embarking on a similar journey.  Farrow invites readers to reframe their understanding of what buildings can do by posing a series of questions, such as: ?How do buildings make us feel, and how can they make us feel better"? A guiding concept is salutogenesis, a term proposed by sociologist Aaron Antonovsky to describe the factors and conditi...