Architectural and urban design have been shown to impact levels of physical activity. We have a long history of investigating the role that the physical environment plays and we have developed guidelines to promote increased adoption of best practices. We focus on the role of buildings and sites in promoting physical activity; examine the push and pull effects of environment design on physical activity.

1. New York City Active Design Guidelines
2. Atlantic Station Employee Health Study
3. Walking on Campus: Correlates and Web Tools
4. Environmental Predictors of Voluntary Stair Use
5. Increasing physical activity through innovative stair design: Evaluating skip-stop elevators combined with spacious stairs
6. Active Living by Design: Creating Activity-Enhancing Residential Settings for Seniors
7. Studying the Influence of Building and Site Layout on Walking Behavior among Older Adults in Continuing Care Retirement Communities
8. Promoting Physical Activity Through the Design and Planning of Public Buildings

Sponsor: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Co-PI: Craig Zimring
Introduction: Today, physical inactivity and unhealthy diet are second only to tobacco use as the main causes of premature death in the United States. A growing body of research suggests that evidence-based architectural and urban design strategies can increase regular physical activity and healthy eating. Drs. Craig Zimring and Gayle Nicoll, the director of the architecture program at the University of Texas, San Antonio, worked with several New York City agencies for several years to help create Active Design Guidelines for the city. These guidelines address design at the interior, architectural and urban scale to encourage physical activity and health. These were rolled out to a large crowd at the NYC AIA and have been well-received. The guidelines were recognized with awards from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council. These are the only evidence-based active design guidelines of their type and will guide all new city buildings in NYC, with influence beyond. The Active Design Guidelines provides architects and urban designers with a manual of strategies for creating healthier buildings, streets and urban spaces, based on the latest academic research and best practices in the field. The guide can be downloaded from www.nyc.gov/adg.

• ALR Award
• SBIC Award
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Sponsor: Emory University
PI: Brian Stone. Co-PI: Craig Zimring
Introduction: This project explores the walking behavior of workers who took jobs in Atlantic Station, an intown community justified in part by its support of active living. Research on urban walkability does not always make a clear distinction between design features supporting walkability and those leading to a sense of urban liveliness. Walkability, for this project’s purposes, was defined as the opportunity for continuous movement across some distance that engages both the local and global street networks. Urban liveliness, by contrast, may exist in isolated pockets that provide limited support for physical activity. This case study of a large, urban smart growth development in Atlanta, Georgia, provides an example of a new development with characteristics that suggest a high degree of walkability. However, observational data show pedestrians are clumped on relatively few street segments rather than distributed throughout the site, indicating it is unlikely that the site is hosting much walking between the development and its surrounds. This descriptive case study was intended to contribute to more explicit theory of how environmental design contributes to walking.

• Publication
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Sponsor: NIEHS (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and US Centers for Disease)/DHHS/PHS
PI: Craig Zimring
Introduction: This project explored environmental predictors of walking on campuses, producing self-report tools and environmental audit instruments and developed case studies of campuses. Through this research project, we have attempted to answer the question, “is there a correlation between the physical attributes of walking paths and their use?” If there is such a relationship, and it is sufficiently causal in nature, policy makers may wish to expend funds or implement programs to increase incidental physical activity through the design or redesign of walking paths. To conduct this study, we examined paths on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, and Sprint-Nextel’s corporate campus in Overland Park, Kansas. At each site we collected data about each path’s physical characteristics using an environmental audit tool and had participants report their walking behavior through a graphical, web-based, self-report tool called WebWalk. We then examined the data to see whether walking behavior was correlated with environmental characteristics. This study was funded by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and US Centers for Disease Control.

• Presentation
• Report
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Sponsor: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
PI: Craig Zimring
Introduction: This RWJF Active Living Research dissertation grant for Gayle Nicoll explored design predictors of voluntary stair use. This study examined the relationship between stair use and a broad range of features of the physical environment within 10 buildings. Based on a review of the literature, a thematic framework (Appeal, Convenience, Comfort, Legibility and Safety) was developed for identifying the features of buildings that may influence stair use. Three methods of investigation were used to examine the relationship between stair use and variables of the five themes and their constructs. Buildings users were surveyed for their reasons for both single and multi-level route choice. The results indicate that reasons associated with convenience and legibility of route have greater influence on route choice than appeal, comfort or safety. Stair and elevator use were measured in the ten buildings along with variables that operationalized the thematic framework. Regression analysis was utilized to examine the relationship between stair use and the operationalized variables of the thematic framework. The results of regression analysis indicate that stair use is associated with 8 key spatial variables of convenience and legibility (travel distances from stair to nearest entrance and to the elevator; percentage of total building area or total occupant load attributed to each stair; physical accessibility of each stair; area of stair isovist; number of turns from the stair to closest entrance and to the most integrated path). Most local environmental features of stairs such as lighting levels and views are not statistically influential. Multivariate regression analysis indicates that three variables (effective area of each stair, area of stair isovist, and number of turns requires between the stair and the most integrated path) explains 53% of stair use. A graphic analysis of the arrangement of the 8 key spatial variables within the ten buildings indicates that buildings with high overall levels of stair use optimized the key spatial variables in respect to the location of stair(s) within the building floor plan.

• Dissertation
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Sponsor: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
PI: Craig Zimring
Introduction: This study documents a study of behaviors, attitudes and issues associated with the provision of skip-stop elevators and stairs in the New Caltrans District 7 Headquarters Building designed by Thom Mayne and Morphosis in Los Angeles, California. The Caltrans building was designed with two different types of vertical circulation cores. This study assessed stair use in the new Caltrans building, comparing trip frequency and patterns between the north (skip-stop elevator) vertical circulation core stairs and the stairs that are proximal to the south (traditional elevator) vertical circulation core. Secondly, the study includes a cross-sectional assessment of attitudes of Caltrans employees in the new building regarding the building design. Stair use was monitored for twenty-four weeks for both sets of enclosed fire stairs and the skip-stop stairs.

• Report
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Sponsor: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
PI: Craig Zimring
Introduction: This research was supported by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation dissertation grant for Anjali Joseph.  This project explores what characteristics of paths and sites predict which routes older people choose for walking in continuing care retirement communities. The aim of this thesis was to identify the characteristics of path segments and routes that are associated with where older residents choose to walk for recreation or for getting to destinations in retirement communities. The goal was to use the findings from this study to help formulate criteria and strategic choices that can be used to design retirement communities that support walking among elderly residents. Case studies were conducted at three Continuing Care Retirement Communities. The study shows that route choice for walking to destinations is shaped by practical considerations of distance and convenience and largely determined by the relative location of destination and origin. On the other hand, route choice for recreational walking is more complex and is determined by local, relational and structural environmental characteristics of the path segments that comprise the routes as well as characteristics of the residents themselves. Residents chose routes of different difficulty levels for walking based on their physical abilities and health. This study also found that many residents chose to walk indoors for recreation, especially along corridors between resident apartments. Understanding how the different factors together shape route choice leads to the clarification of design alternatives. This study suggests that designing campuses to support walking involves not only a careful consideration of individual local path segment characteristics but also an understanding of how path segments and routes fit within the larger network of path segments on campus. Further, it is important to design routes with a range of characteristics and a range of challenge so that residents have many options to choose from and they have the option to move from a lower level of challenge to a higher one when they feel ready.

• Dissertation
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Sponsor: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
PI: Craig Zimring
CO-PI: Ruth Dalton
Introduction:This project, conducted jointly with AAHSA, the major professional organization for non-profit continuing-care communities, conducted a survey of 400 retirement communities to record the presence and use of activity friendly design features and layouts. This study documents support for everyday physical activity in the design and programming of continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs).  Most previous research has focused on younger adults. The research team conducted an online and paper survey with 398 communities to assess current physical provisions for everyday physical activity, physical activity-related programs and the funding and administration of physical activity-related programs; the overall response rate is 52 percent (398/759).  The surveys were addressed to facility administrators, who were asked to direct specific questions to others in their facility as needed.

The data from the study show that most campuses are located either in suburban areas or in small cities, are less than 50 acres in size and are either entirely flat or are mostly flat with some gradual slopes. Half of all campuses surveyed are less than 30 years old. The campuses surveyed have many different types of outdoor features that support participation in physical activity such as walking paths, gardens, garden plots, swimming pools, etc. In addition, most campuses have supportive indoor environments with features such as corridors with seating every 30’-50’ and corridors with views to the outdoors. Few campuses (14%) have buildings specifically dedicated to physical activity, but many campuses have indoor physical activity facilities such as fitness rooms with equipment, multipurpose activity rooms and dedicated physical therapy rooms on campus. Based on the literature, it was hypothesized that the environment influenced participation in physical activity at three different spatial scales – at the level of the outside community, at the campus level and at the building level. We used the data from current study to explore relationships between environmental factors at different scales and participation in physical activity found to be plausible based on previous research.

• Article
• Report
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Sponsor: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
PI: Craig Zimring
Introduction: This project examines how site selection, site design and building design of public buildings can be used to promote physical activity among office workers and visitors.

• Presentation
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